Since there is a significant meeting among Canadian finance ministers today, where reform to the Canada Pension Plan is on the agenda, it’s worth pointing out some really unhelpful ongoing language the federal Finance Minister is using to describe CPP. This is what he said today to describe CPP: “CPP
Continue readingTag: Jim Flaherty
Impolitical: CPP reform rhetoric
Since there is a significant meeting among Canadian finance ministers today, where reform to the Canada Pension Plan is on the agenda, it’s worth pointing out some really unhelpful ongoing language the federal Finance Minister is using to describe CPP. This is what he said today to describe CPP: “CPP
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pension Reform
More of the white stuff has fallen, and I can ignore the importunate call of the snow shovel no longer, so I will make this brief with two reading recommendations for your Sunday morning discernment. In today’s Star, Martin Regg Cohn writes convincingly on the need for real pension reform,
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Rob Ford and the Day The Cons Fought Each Other
He's a bigot, a bully, a boozer, a beast. He's shaming us in the eyes of the world. Each time Ford appears in the media, it's another eerie reminder of what we've become: crude, swaggering, bungling, irrational and mendacious. We've reached that staggering moment in a brilliant horror film when
Continue readingThe Liberal Scarf: Focused on the economy? Finance Minister Flaherty and "Minister of Jobs" Kenney nearly "come to blows" over Toronto politics
CBC reporting, and Conservative MP’s and Kenney himself confirming. “In a voice loud enough for several of their cabinet colleagues to hear, Flaherty told Kenney to “shut the f–k up” about Ford. Kenney responded angrily in kind, and although the two men were separated by four other ministers, alarmed caucus colleagues,
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Jim – it’s you who loves P3s, not us
The Honourable Jim Flaherty Minister of Finance House of Commons Centre Block Building – Room 435-S Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6 Dear Jim – We get it. You love public-private partnerships, or as most like to call ‘em, P3s. The sound of … Continue reading →
Continue readingCalgary Grit: The 2015 Tory Playbook
Step 1: Inherit igloo in working orderStep 2: Break roofStep 3: Write compelling narrative about how you fixed igloo We got a good reminder today of why it would be foolish to write off the Conservatives in 2015: Conservatives’ new surplus forecast: $3.7-billion for election year Ottawa’s fall economic update
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Jimbo Flaherty and the Amazing Magic Surplus
Well in case you thought that the Con regime was nickel and diming veterans, and killing good jobs all over the country, because they absolutely HAVE to slay the deficit.Or as Jimbo Flaherty warned us we could find ourselves in a big black hole, the economy is fragile, the global risk
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Nick Pearce offers an interesting discussion of conception of equality that should be placed at the core of social-democratic thinking – with one goal in particular standing out as demanding further attention: (S)social democrats would be more self-consciously political in pursuit of their
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Shed a tear for Rob Ford … or risk making a ‘red meat conservative’ blubber
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone – as long as the person getting stoned is a conservative. Below: a typical strained pea conservative blubbers, although not in this case about the cruel treatment meted out to Toronto Mayor Rob Ford by liberal bullies and the media.
Continue readingAutonomy For All: Toronto Could Use The Federal Subway Contribution For Other Things
One of the big myths still be pushed by Scarborough Subway proponents is that the Federal government’s much touted announcement of $660M (in 2017 dollars, really about ~$450M in today’s) is only for subways and in fact only for the Council voted McCowan alignment. The Globe and Mail’s Marcus Gee
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Fool me twice
Andrew Coyne has a suggestion as to how the Cons might extort some increased adherence to free-market fundamentalism from the provinces: It’s the balance between spending and revenues, not just the totals, that matters. The federal government, as the PBO numbers show, will have substantial fiscal “room,” revenues in excess
Continue readingA Different Point of View....: Austerity chokes Canada’s down-and-out as Harper, Flaherty look the other way
The exceedingly aggressive austerity cuts carried out by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty over the past seven years have come home to roost as millions of Canadians, depressed and without hope, are succumbing to its worst consequences. Program cuts and tax reductions for corporations and the
Continue readingImpolitical: Tory expense fun, it’s not just for the Senate
Ahoy Tory riding associations! Canadian Press follows the dollar trail to show us how political donation limits are playing out in Canada: “Eye-popping Tory riding war chests raise eyebrows.” This is something we have known for a bit but it’s nice to s…
Continue readingImpolitical: Tory expense fun, it’s not just for the Senate
Ahoy Tory riding associations! Canadian Press follows the dollar trail to show us how political donation limits are playing out in Canada: “Eye-popping Tory riding war chests raise eyebrows.” This is something we have known for a bit but it’s nice to see reporting on it today in the wake
Continue readingImpolitical: Tory expense fun, it’s not just for the Senate
Ahoy Tory riding associations! Canadian Press follows the dollar trail to show us how political donation limits are playing out in Canada: “Eye-popping Tory riding war chests raise eyebrows.” This is something we have known for a bit but it’s nice to see reporting on it today in the wake
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that to end your weekend. – Dave Coles introduces readers to the Cons’ latest attack on labour – with a backbencher’s private member’s bill again serving as an excuse to introduce unprecedent restrictions on union organization. – Michael Harris suspects that the Cons’ attempt to delay any public
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: For Your Sunday Reading Pleasure …
Whether or not you live in Ontario, you may find Martin Regg Cohn’s column of some interest in illustrating the fractured and uneven relationship that Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has with the provinces. Writing in the voice of Ontario residents responding to Flaherty’s finger-wagging over the MetroLinx proposal to
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Here are some unintentionally hilarious excerpts from an old interview with Jim Flaherty,…
Here are some unintentionally hilarious excerpts from an old interview with Jim Flaherty, Canada’s worst finance minister. The article was published by the pro-Conservative (and plagiarism-tolerant) Globe and Mail. It was the height of Trudeaumania, and the Flaherty clan was right in the middle of it. But over the following
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Jim Flaherty, the most incompetent finance minister in Canadian…
Jim Flaherty, the most incompetent finance minister in Canadian history, released his pathetic 2013 budget on March 21 and almost immediately snuck off to Hong Kong, en route to Thailand. He only stopped in Vancouver along the way – to give a scripted speech to an exclusive audience of Conservative-friendly
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