Alberta’s a high-wage province! Who knew? Maybe the question ought to be … Who didn’t? At any rate, the Kenney Government’s “blue-ribbon” panel on Alberta’s finances, chaired by former Saskatchewan finance minister Janice MacKinnon and instructed not even to look at the revenue side of the province’s so-called public spending
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Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Simon Enoch examines Scott Moe’s bait-and-switch when it comes to carbon taxes, including his utter refusal to offer any other plan for province-wide emission reductions as a substitute for consumer-based carbon pricing. And Aaron Wherry points out how any carbon tax falls
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Hugh MacKenzie comments on the continued need for an adult conversation about public revenue, including the importance of bringing in enough in taxes to fund the services which serve everybody’s best interests: The disconnect between public services and the taxes we pay to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Hugh Mackenzie writes that the biggest problem with the Libs’ closing tax loopholes for private corporations was the failure to push for far more tax fairness: Any tax reform that isn’t just a give away creates winners and losers. If the goal is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Alison Crawford reports on the Libs’ failure to pass any new legislation to allow collective bargaining for RCMP members – leaving them with even less than the system which was already found to be unconstitution…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on what the Trudeau Libs’ first budget tells us about the difficulty turning around a government – and how Saskatchewan voters should take the lesson to heart in deciding whether to settle for four more years of an anti-government governing party…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading.- Jan-Emmanuel De Neve and Nick Powdthavee discuss how the rise of an exclusive class of the rich increases stress and decreases well-being for everybody else. Using data from the World Top Incomes Database and t…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
This and that to end your week.- Serina Sandhu writes that everybody is worse off when inequality is allowed to run rampant. And Danny Dorling highlights the principles we’ll need to follow in order to reverse the trend in that direction:There was a ti…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Joseph Stiglitz comments on how the Trans-Pacific Partnership looks to make democracy subordinate to corporate interests:The US concluded secret negotiations on what may turn out to be the worst trade agree…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- Hugh MacKenzie reminds us how quickly Canada’s richest CEOs will exceed the income of the average Canadian worker on the year’s first work day. And James Surowiecki takes a look at how the U.S.’ corporate sec…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Hiltzik discusses how corporate apologists are trying (but failing) to minimize the existence and importance of income inequality. Lawrence Martin notes that the rest of Canada’s economic indicators are similarly signalling that Conservative dogma is of absolutely no use in the real
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Mitchell Anderson compares the results of corporate-friendly Thatcherism to the alternative of public resource ownership and development in the interest of citizens – and finds far better results arising from the latter: Thirty-five years after she swept to power as British prime
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Nora Loreto offers an important reminder as to why we contribute taxes to social well-being: (T)axes still pay for things we need. Everyone benefits from a universal system of healthcare. Everyone is touched by the birth of someone and nearly everyone will
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
This and that for your weekend reading. – The Star offers an editorial on the continued increase in wage inequality in Canada, highlighting the complete lack of any connection between accomplishment and executive compensation: (T)he country’s economic performance has changed dramatically. In 2007, when Mackenzie began, the Canadian economy was
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Costas Lapavitsas discusses the disproportionate hold finance has over the global economy: Financialisation represents a historic and deep-seated transformation of mature capitalism. Big businesses have become “financialised” as they have ample profits to finance investment, rely less on banks for loans and
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on Regina’s wastewater referendum as just the first step in encouraging regular citizen engagement in the decisions that affect us all. For further reading…– Again, Hugh Mackenzie’s analysis of the cost of private financing is here (PDF). And Barrie McKenna’s take on the hidden price of P3s is here.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Friday reading. – In addition to providing my latest tagline, Alex Himelfarb takes aim at the austerians who seem happy to attack social well-being and economic development alike in the name of government-slashing: (A)usterity had never been driven by fiscal policy or economics or evidence. It
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Pam Palmater explains the historical background to Idle No More: (M)ost Canadians are not used to the kind of sustained, co-ordinated, national effort that we have seen in the last few weeks — at least not since 1969. 1969 was the last time
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: 10 Insights from the Action Assembly Weekend
“Either I pay taxes or have my mother live with me,” said Neil Brooks with a sly smile. Brooks, co-author of The Trouble With Billionaires (with Linda McQuaig) underlined the value of taxes during the keynote address at this year’s … Contin…
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Unfair exemptions to employer health tax cost province $2.4 billion annually
Focused on austerity, the government appears to be ignoring tax policies that have the potential to bring in billions to the provincial treasury. The ruthless slashing of public sector funding – including the current freeze on base funding to Ontario’s … Continue reading →
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