BC proposes LNG tax
I posted this on CCPA’s BC Policy Note blog but others across Canada should pay attention to BC’s quest for LNG gold. I’d also recommend this comparison of the Quebec…
taxation
Affordable Housing and Homelesness
This morning I gave a presentation to an church group in Ottawa on affordable housing and homelessness. My slides can be downloaded here. Points I raised in the presentation include…
Income Splitting Déjà Vu
This blog’s unofficial slogan has been “Tomorrow’s conventional wisdom, today.” After this week’s Conservative backpedaling on income splitting, we may need to change it to “Today’s conventional wisdom, seven years…
Missing In Action: Federal Budget 2014
Here’s the first section of the budget summary and analysis I’ve prepared for CUPE. The full version is on-line on CUPE’s website at http://cupe.ca/economics/missing-action-federal-budget-2014 together with CUPE’s press release at:…
Do High Tuition Fees Make for Good Public Policy?
This afternoon I gave a presentation to Professor Ted Jackson’s graduate seminar course on higher education, taught in Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. The link to my…
The relentlessly hypocritical Gwyn Morgan
Another column by Gwyn Morgan in the Globe and Mail and another case of a 0.1 percenter telling the rest of us to “Do as I say, not as I…
Capital Gains and the Incomes of the Wealthy
Yesterday’s release from Statistics Canada on the income share of the wealthy generated some interesting coverage and commentary. It reported that the top 1%’s share of total income in Canada…
Canada’s (not so incredible) shrinking federal government
Buried in the federal government’s recent Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections are figures showing the Harper government is set to squeeze federal government’s role to the smallest it has…
Baksheesh, bustarella, schmiergeld, kuroi kiri
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. – William Shakespeare Organizations that aim to safeguard assets create effective operational…
Subsidies for some, higher fees for others
Despite claims that natural gas will last almost forever and drop massive wealth into BC’s treasury, I’ve demonstrated here, with numbers taken from finance ministry documents, that natural gas production…
Resources giveaway
After Telus, Teck Resources Limited ranks as the largest BC company, by sales. In three years 2010 to 2012, Teck booked revenues of $31 billion, almost half from the sale…
Talking with Ian Jessop, CFAX 1070 Friday 1pm
I’ll be with Ian Jessop on CFAX 1070 today, discussing natural resource revenues accruing to the British Columbia government. In the last seven years, provincial revenues from ferry fares and…
Of business, by business, for business
British Columbia’s revenue from natural resources totalled $4 billion in fiscal year 2001. The Bank of Canada inflation calculator shows the equivalent in current dollars is $5 billion. Natural resource…
"Revenue neutral" carbon taxes – hollow claim
In its June budget update, the BC Government said, “When the carbon tax was introduced, one of the key principles was that the tax would be revenue neutral – that…
They assume we’re feckless idiots and they might be right.
Before the May 2013 election, BC Liberals promised the entire provincial debt, budgeted this year at $62.5 billion, could be eliminated within 15 years with government proceeds of natural gas…
That was then; this is now
Much of my youth was spent in the coastal mill town of Powell River. Paying excellent wages, the pulp, paper and lumber company directly employed almost 2,500 workers. It hired…
University of Calgary Liberals mentioned in Wikileaks
Turns out the Young Liberals at the University of Calgary is seen as an organization of real influence by the US State Department. Below is a quote from Wikileaks that…
Why Is Tom Mulcair Opposed to Tax Increases?
A recent online article suggests that Federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair is opposed to increasing federal tax rates. I find this quite surprising. According to the August 8 article: Mulcair…
Funding Cuts to Alberta’s PSE Sector: There Are Alternatives
It has recently been reported that the University of Alberta wants to “reopen two-year collective agreements” with faculty and staff “to help the university balance its budget…” This appears to…
How Offshore Tax Havens Destroy Governments
Last fall, Greek magazine editor Kostas Vaxevanis published in his magazine Hot Doc a list of 2,000 wealthy Greeks who were hiding taxable savings in the Geneva branch of HSBC.…