That is the question I am left with after reading this article in today's Star on the over $500 billion (the article erroneously describes it as $526 million) corporate Canada is sitting on, in part thanks to generous tax cuts, rather than investing some of it and creating jobs.
H/t Roger Ebert
An Avaaz petition, just started by a Canadian, is asking the foundation to reconsider granting this award and is available online; it lists several of the reasons this is such an egregious insult to all people who believe in the tenets of real democracy and human rights.
I sincerely hope you will consider signing it. It can be accessed here.
h/t Sandra Harris
Given that recent reports have helped to puncture the myth of job-creation benefits arising from corporate tax cuts and corporate welfare, I was pleased to read Martin Regg Cohn's article in this morning's Star.
Entitled NDP leverages vote results to pressure big business to create jobs, the article discusses the current popularity of the provincial NDP in Ontario. Leader Andrea Horvath used her leverage in the last budget to both secure a tax hike on the income enjoyed by the wealthiest Ontarians and prevent another scheduled corporate tax reduction; the party also blocked Premier Dalton McGuinty's ruthless bid for a majority government in this month's by-election in Kitchener-Waterloo through the victory of NDP candidate Catherine Fife.
As Cohn reminds us, she also won McGuinty's pledge to look seriously at a job-creation tax credit that would reward companies for increasing their payrolls. Horwath argued her $250 million program, modelled on a similar U.S. plan, would deliver better value for taxpayers' money that is now doled out to corporations with no strings attached.
That pledge is about to come to fruition through McGuinty's new Jobs and Prosperity Council, chaired by Royal Bank CEO Gordon Nixon, hardly likely to be favorably disposed to such a notion. As Cohn makes clear, Nixon embodies the corporate welfare and tax leakage that the NDP condemns: Canada's banks benefited handsomely from a series of Liberal corporate tax cuts, reaping record profits without creating the kind of high-value jobs that merit taxpayer subsidies. He has, however, promised to hear Horwath out on her proposal
Let us hope that a clash of ideologies does not prevent some productive recommendations from emerging. I suspect that ignoring increasing public awareness of the injustice of unproductive tax cuts could prove politically costly to the beleaguered McGuinty.
Yesterday I wrote a brief post about the federal government's decision to stop defending the export of asbestos from Quebec, not on the basis of morality, but political expediency, as the newly-elected Parti Quebecois stands opposed to it.
A story in this morning's Star reveals that, as ever, the Harper regime is both as graceless and incapable of admitting error as ever. In reference to newly-elected Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, Federal Industry Minister Christian Paradis had this to say:
“Mrs. Marois’ decision to prohibit chrysotile mining in Quebec will have a negative impact on the future prosperity of the area."
Paradis said he did not want to spend any time debating the issue when his constituents are out of a job, but he made sure to remind everyone that it was Marois who had moved to finally end the dying industry.
“Our region will have to live with the consequences of Mrs. Marois’ decision, but we will continue to work together on the economic development of the community,” Paradis said.
So there we have it. No acknowledgement that maybe there is a greater good to be served than parochial politics in the decision to stop exporting death.
Just a continuation of the politics of division and derision, something the Harperites have repeatedly proven their adeptness at.
So we are left to ponder a crucial question: Is this really the kind of government that best serves the aspirations and ideals and interests of Canadians?
The Harper government is throwing in the towel on Quebec’s internationally-maligned asbestos industry now that the Parti Québécois is poised to take power and prohibit extraction of the cancer-causing mineral.
Industry Minister Christian Paradis said Canada will stop defending asbestos mining in international circles and no longer oppose adding chrysotile asbestos to the Rotterdam Convention, a global list of hazardous substances.
This report, carried in the Globe, is yet another searing commentary on the banality of evil infusing our federal 'masters.' Despite numerous past appeals to stop this indefensible export of death, the Harper government was unmoved by moral considerations and now is simply yielding to political expediency.
Definitely not something to be proud of.
