Many Canadians simply will not consider voting for the NDP and one of the most common reasons for this provided, either explicitly or implicitly, is that the NDP are socialists, or at least far left nutters. While there is undoubtedly any number of more legitimate reasons to not support the
Continue readingTag: taxes
Alex's Blog: Austeria
Informal talk to OMSSA’s 2013 Learning Symposium, held in Ottawa, Ontario from June 16 to 19, 2013.
Continue readingAlex's Blog: Austeria
Mad scientist selling his utopian project to the master of Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) “Austeria”. An informal talk to OMSSA’s 2013 Learning Symposium, held in Ottawa, Ontario from June 16 to 19, 2013.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Frances Woolley rightly challenges the conventional wisdom that there’s no such thing as a popular and efficient tax: Few taxes generate enthusiastic popular support, but some are more popular than others. Those are the ones that fill the red circle. The area labelled
Continue readingSaving for a rainy day
The tragedy of recent historic flooding in Southern Alberta has had a profound impact on us. As an Edmontonian who spends a good deal of time in Calgary, my heart goes out to those who have been affected. Encouragingly, the Alberta spirit lives on and Calgarians will demonstrate resiliency as
Continue readingSaving for a rainy day
The tragedy of recent historic flooding in Southern Alberta has had a profound impact on us. As an Edmontonian who spends a good deal of time in Calgary, my heart goes out to those who have been affected. Encouragingly, the Alberta spirit lives on and Calgarians will demonstrate resiliency as
Continue readingSaving for a rainy day
The tragedy of recent historic flooding in Southern Alberta has had a profound impact on us. As an Edmontonian who spends a good deal of time in Calgary, my heart goes out to those who have been affected. Encouragingly, the Alberta spirit lives on and Calgarians will demonstrate resiliency as the rest of us demonstrate … Continue reading Saving for a rainy day →
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: This is the answer to Toronto’s $2.5 billion transit question
By: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Press Release: TORONTO – A new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA-Ontario) lays out a compromise solution to political gridlock over how to pay for the region’s $2.5 billion in planned public transit expansion. Toronto’s $2.5 Billion Question: GTA and Hamilton Public Transit Expansion Revenue
Continue readingBill Given: City Moves Forward With Annexation
Last night council formally approved moving the annexation process forward by approving a final set of information sessions for the public. As the City’s media release below details it’s been a long process to get to this point, and there is still more to go before annexation is actually complete.
Although the City “officially” initiated annexation back in early 2011 (by sending the County and the Municipal Government Board formal letters) I really view the process as having started back in 2005 or 2006. Back then Mayor Ayling’s council started a discussion about how the city would grow in the future and that initiated what would result in the 2008 Growth Study (PDF Download). Then, after the election in 2007, Mayor Logan’s Council started renegotiating the Intermunicipal Development Plan (PDF Download) with the County. When it was completed, after nearly 3 years of negotiations, the IDP laid out the future annexation areas for the city in two chunks that were intended to provide for a “30 Year” and “50 Year” growth horizon. Then, shortly after the 2010 election – in the spring of 2011 – this current council sent the letter that started the direct negotiations and landowner consultations that we are just wrapping up now.
Future growth areas for the City. |
Annexation is important for the City because we need to be able to offer a variety of development options to expand our tax base, particularly for commercial and industrial properties. Without the raw land laid out in the annexation area the city has extremely limited space to be able to attract new industrial and commercial development. These two classes of properties pay property taxes at a higher rate than residential properties – essentially they carry more of the burden of the city budget, so obviously if we have more of them it reduces the load on all the existing properties. One important thing to note is that while this is unquestionably about new taxes – it is NOT a “tax grab” as annexations are sometimes made out to be. If this was a “tax grab” the city would be annexing the already developed areas of the County, particularly the Clairmont area. As you can see in the map, that is not the case; the city is getting largely undeveloped land and the County gets to retain and grow it’s Clairmont area. (The light yellow areas are the “30 Year” growth areas that we are talking about in this annexation, the darker brown areas are the “50 Year” growth areas.)
Once the annexation is complete the city still has a lot of work to do to encourage growth and development of new tax paying properties in the new areas of the city. City Council recognizes this and we’ve started that work by recently adopting our Industrial Attraction Strategy (LINK), and beginning investments in the infrastructure that will help fuel development.
So, we are nearing the end of one phase of what has been, and will be, a very long process in improving the City’s financial viability.
City media release below….
Open Houses Set For Annexation
- Taxation Phase-in Formulas – City’s Final Positions on Landowner Taxation Transition from County to City rates
- Zoning /Development Opportunities
- Service Levels
- Lifestyle Issues, including solid waste and business licenses
Bill Given: City Moves Forward With Annexation
Last night council formally approved moving the annexation process forward by approving a final set of information sessions for the public. As the City’s media release below details it’s been a long process to get to this point, and there is still more to go before annexation is actually complete.
Continue readingBill Given: City Moves Forward With Annexation
Last night council formally approved moving the annexation process forward by approving a final set of information sessions for the public. As the City’s media release below details it’s been a long process to get to this point, and there is still more to go before annexation is actually complete.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – David Olive writes that the dangerous effects of long-term unemployment (caused in no small part by gratuitous austerity) are just as much a problem in Canada as in the U.S.: With our persistent high levels of long-term unemployment, Canada is at risk of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On regressive choices
Yesterday, I offered a quick, off-the-cuff response to the Sask Party’s decision to restrict municipalities in applying property taxes to commercial and industrial land. But let’s look in a bit more detail at the warped economic theory Jim Reiter is spouting in defence of the move: “A very, very small
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Are average Canadians paying too much in taxes?
On April 23, the Fraser Institute released the annual update of their misleading Consumer Tax Index report. The piece is meant to feed the anti-tax sentiment with numbers sprinkled liberally for their shock value instead of providing any meaningful analysis. Here are some of the main flaws with the report’s
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Cleaning Up Gordon Campbell’s Mess
According to every poll and every projection by every firm and every commentator, Christy Clark and her Liberal Party are about to be handed an unbalanced ass-whooping of the sort we British Columbians seem to enjoy dishing out to governing parties once every decade or so. Naturally, when this happens,
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada’s tax system is in dire need of “fairness” reform: Report
By Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive | Jan. 26, 2013: A new study by two economists from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), an independent left-leaning policy research institute, says Canada’s tax system is in dire need of “fairness” reform. Marc Lee and Iglika Ivanova argue that “ad-hoc tax changes over the last two decades have
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada Loses Billions in Revenue to Tax Havens
By Canadians for Tax Fairness | Feb. 18, 2013: The growing use of tax havens is costing Canadians an estimated $7.8 billion annually, the executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness has told a Parliamentary committee studying the issue. “Tax haven use is at an all-time high in Canada,” C4TF’s Dennis
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Some Thoughts on the BC Budget
Five months ago, I predicted that the Liberal government of British Columbia would fail in its effort to balance the 2013 budget. Notwithstanding this week’s boastful headlines to the contrary, the jury is still out. I will not assert, as many others have done, that the surplus is purely fictional,
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Carrots and Sticks: How to Fund Public Transit
If we as a planet are going to avoid passing over the two-degree threshold of runaway climate change, we are going to have to start rationing greenhouse gas emissions. Efficiency gains in transportation will inevitably need to be part of that project. Put another way, emissions per person per kilometre
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Health care is good medicine for Canada’s economy
by Conference Board of Canada | Jan. 31, 2013: OTTAWA – Health care is a large and essentially recession-proof part of Canada’s economy, creating more than 10 per cent of the country’s total gross domestic product (GDP) annually and supporting more than two million jobs, according to a Conference Board of Canada
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