The Ontario election isn’t about deficits—and that’s a good thing
How big is your deficit? This Ontario election, no one seems to care—and that’s a decisive positive to emerge from a campaign that’s too often been submerged in the politics…
Redistribution
Election 2015: The Shift to the Liberal Party starts
The Second King of Austerity? With the dog days of summer ending, and only 6 or so weeks left in the interminable campaign, one of the most interesting sites to…
Is Canada the Sweden of anything?
There was an odd article last week on the explainer site Vox that argued Sweden doesn’t achieve its relative equality with very progressive, “soak the rich” taxation. While Matt Bruenig…
Without a Debate on Taxes, We Risk Sleepwalking into the Future (by Alex and Jordan Himelfarb)
Some months ago, we published a collection of essays designed to promote a discussion of taxes in Canada. The book’s premise is that the current tax conversation is distorted. While…
Without a Debate on Taxes, We Risk Sleepwalking into the Future (by Alex and Jordan Himelfarb)
“La Sonnambula”, illustration of a Bellini opera Some months ago, we published a collection of essays designed to promote a discussion of taxes in Canada. The book’s premise is that…
Economic history in the present: Potlatch and tax
This post inaugurates an occasional series I’m calling, “Economic history in the present”. This series will look at vignettes from global economic history with an eye to current phenomena or…
The Battle for the Soul of Canada’s NDP
Tony Blair wrested control of the British Labour Party away from the hardliners who had successfully run that party into the ditch in election after election, by concentrating on a…
Harper’s Permanent Majority through Redistribution & FPTP
A Confederation denied legitimacy Here is a startling analysis of the impact of the recent redistribution, the probability of a permanent Conservative majority in the House because of our archaic…
Why Liberals Should Fear Gerrymandering
Recently Saskatchewan MP Ralph Goodale wrote a post echoing a sentiment surprisingly popular among what’s left of the Liberal Party membership, and that is, this Conservative government is going to…
The Point of Taxes
What follows is my submission to BC’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Any other British Columbians interested in influencing next year’s budget have until October 18 to…
New Sask Ridings Give NDP a Leg Up
The folks doing the federal redistribution for the province of Saskatchewan has come out with their proposed boundaries today, finally putting to rest those horrible eight ridings that broke up…
Riding Talk
The electoral commission could have saved us a lot of time by painting this map blue The new riding maps are out! The new riding maps are out! It’s Christmas…
Partisan dreck: Seat Redistribution Edition
The new seat redistribution bill recently passed the House of Commons, awarding new seats to Ontario, Quebec, BC and Alberta. Rarely have I seen commentary about legislation so thoroughly skewed…
Liberal seat proposal, by the numbers
A follow up on an earlier post by Volkov. There is a new CBC News story outlining the number of seats in the Liberal proposal for seat redistribution. In short,…
Opposition for the Sake of Opposition
The Liberals have come out against an expanded House of Commons, arguing we have enough MPs as it is. I personally feel the problem is one of quality rather than…
Redistribution Update
Just what we need - 30 more MPs!Ontario will get 15 new seats, British Columbia and Alberta six each and Quebec three in the latest and probably final attempt by…
Redistribution Winners and Losers
Even though it was the right decision, the Harper government likely didn't do itself any electoral favours by shutting Quebec out of the new ship building contract and the 15,000…
New seat distribution formula to look a lot like the old one.
I've taken a close look at the proposed numbers in Harper's new plan for seat redistribution.This is a difficult to understand issue, so I will begin by explaining the history…