About Those Taxes...

Responding to the latest propaganda piece about taxation levels from The Fraser Institute, Star readers weigh in with their own perspectives, one of which includes taking the paper to task for publishing news of the report with no critical comment:

Re: Families pay more for taxes than basics, Aug. 13

This report of a study from a conservative think tank could be a verbatim quote from the authors’ press release, with no editorial comment or critical opinions included. The Star does us a disservice (and, rather atypically, gives the conservative cause a boost) by publishing it in this fashion.
Other news sources (the CBC, for example) discussed the study in the context of criticisms, such as the fact that the base year 1961 was at the very beginning of Medicare and before state pension plans were instituted, not to mention many other lifestyle shifts that have taken place over the 52-year gap of the selected comparison.

The report as cited by the Star sounds more inflammatory than instructive.

Eleanor Batchelder, West Toronto


The Fraser Institute just confirms what most Canadians already know — their disposable incomes are either stagnant or decreasing while their taxes are constantly going up.

What most Canadians don’t realize is that while their taxes have been steadily increasing over the years, the corporate tax rates have been coming down. Corporate lobbies pushed our government to implement policies that catered to businesses and corporations at the expense of consumers. And the tool that successive Canadian governments used to implement the corporate agenda was taxation.

In the 1960s the federal corporate tax rate was 40 per cent. This rate has been whittled down by successive Liberal and Conservative governments. Today it is 15 per cent — the lowest in all of the G8 countries. But for consumers, taxes went up.

To make up for revenue lost from the discontinued 10 per cent manufacturing tax, paid by manufacturers only, the federal government’s GST is effectively paid by consumers. And with the added HST, Ontarians have to pay 13 per cent tax on almost every product and service they buy. This is on top of increases to income taxes, property taxes, health, vehicle, alcohol and tobacco taxes.

This massive shift in tax burden from corporations to individuals is the reason that Canadians are spending more on taxes than food, shelter and clothing and why most of us feel that we are going backwards rather than forward in terms of our disposable incomes.

Michael Poliacik, Toronto

Climate Change Adaptation

As the effects of climate change become more pronounced, adaptive measures will need to be taken alongside of measures ameliorating the rate of change (if that is in fact still even possible).

One such step has been undertaken in California, a state that has been especially hard hit by drought. Orange County has undertaken an ambitious waste water recycling regimen that will likely become the norm in other parts of the country and world facing similar conditions.

Mission Accomplished.

Heh, heh, heh, heh, heh.....



H/t Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper

Where Do People Stand In The Harper Hierarchy?

The answer would seem to be, "Nowhere near the top." As discussed in yesterday's post on CETA, leaked documents confirm that Canadian sovereignty, something all citizens should have a right to expect, will continue the erosion that began under NAFTA. Specifically, the dispute-settlement mechanism that enables investors to sue governments when they pass legislation that impairs their ability to make profits (as in environmental regulations, drug regulation, etc.) will be a centre-piece. As well, Canadian governments on every level will see their efforts to locally source good and services severely curtailed.

The corporate state has clearly arrived.

But its arrival affects other areas of our lives, not the least of which is public safety. Industry self-regulation has accelerated under the Harper regime, in part a response to trade liberalization but also a reflection of an ideology which believes government involvement in the affairs of state and commerce should be minimal. Hence the disasters of Walkerton, Maple Leaf Foods, etc. Air disasters, god forbid, seem likely in the future as well due to changes at Transport Canada.

Then of course, there was the entirely preventable tragedy of Lac-Mégantic, which recently observed the one-year anniversary of the deaths of 47 people and the destruction of a significant portion of the town.

Despite those grievous losses, third-party proprietary rights are being invoked as the reason we Canadians cannot know the specifics of that massive failure of safety. As reported in today's Toronto Star, the paper's access-to-information requests resulted in only some information being released:

Safety inspections of the rail company implicated in the Lac-Mégantic train disaster found defective equipment, problems with locomotives, and sections of rail lines so rundown trains could not exceed speeds of 10 miles per hour.

But Transport Canada is blocking the release of information detailing the majority of the problems and their severity, saying the inspection reports cannot be provided in full because the information is “third-party” — confidential, and belonging to the rail company — or was prepared or obtained in the course of an investigation.

[T]he majority of the more than 1,000-page compilation of inspection documents was withheld or heavily censored.

These inspections, by the way, were not performed by Transport Canada, but by the railway company's own crews.

The unredacted portion received by The Star is damning enough:

- employees told investigators the company was using poorly maintained locomotives, and that instead of repairing worn train tracks, ... the company just lowered the speed limit.

- the company performed minimal maintenance on locomotives, and said locomotive 5017 (the one that caused the disaster) was in particularly poor condition.

- Transport Canada repeatedly flagged safety concerns and non-compliance with rail standards by the now-defunct company

Equally disturbing is the fact that the rail companies establish their own safety management protocols:

The arrangement allows rail companies to draft and enforce their own safety regimes, which are then audited by Transport Canada. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is considered third-party proprietary information, and hence the embargo on truth about the disaster.

All Canadians should be outraged by yet another failure on the part of the Harper regime to protect its citizens while simultaneously extolling and elevating the world's corporate denizens.

A Public Service Announcement From The Conservative Party Of Canada

Given the Harper regime's new-found zeal for warning all of us about the dangers of marijuana, and, coincidentally, the equally dangerous potential of a Justin Trudeau-led government, perhaps the following will help them to bring home the dangers of both:



H/t Patrick Clarke

Praising Stephen Harper

Now that I have your attention, let me assure that I am not the source of that praise. No, a site called Breaking Israel News is. Drawing heavily upon a piece written by the Ottawa Citizen's Mark Kennedy, it offers the following effusive approval of Stephen Harper:

The support he has shown for Israel has been absolute and unwavering for the entirety of Harper’s career, so much so that it has spread to many others within the political and social hierarchy of Canada.

For his support, Harper became the only foreign dignitary to have received the Key to the Knesset and who was termed as a true friend of Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kennedy accurately explained that Harper stressed that conservatives understood “the notion that moral rules form a chain of right and duty, and that politics is a moral affair,” unlike the “modern left” — which had adopted a position of “moral neutrality”.

Harper fully believes that it is in Canada’s and the rest of the western world’s best interest to support Israel and to do what is morally right. After all, the only state in the Middle East that shares the same fundamental values which Canada’s conservative party stands for is Israel. And as Harper said in 2003, “Conservatives must take the moral stand, with our allies, in favour of the fundamental values of our society, including democracy, free enterprise and individual freedom.”

There is a comments section at the end of this propaganda exercise. The majority are along the following lines:

Praise God for Prime Minister Harper that has the integrity, character and guts to stick by Israel and the Jewish People. Prime Minister Harper is a man of strong faith and is acting on the Bible/Torah where is says I will bless those who bless thee, which speaks about Israel and the Jewish!!!

Thank you Prime Minister Harper for taking a stand and remaining steadfast no matter what is flung at you. And I say Amen to that!

Proud of my Prime Minister.

However, some Canadians have tried to set the record straight about our domestic martinet:

I am sure to be dismissed but as a Canadian, who converted to Judaism long ago, I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with Harper's opinion and staunch support of those who run Israel currently. Zealotry is not appealing in anyway, racism and fascism should not be supported nor condoned.

The current climate and tolerance demonstrated by Israel in no way represents democracy nor freedom. If one were to remove the country of origin from the stories and have them read, there would be few who would support or even justify the actions of the Israeli leaders currently.

Since fair and balanced commentary is always desirable, perhaps some of you might also like to weigh in with your assessment of Mr. Harper. I already have.

And This Is A Good Deal Because?

Despite the best efforts of the ever-secretive Harper cabal, details about the CETA deal are finally emerging thanks to leaked portions of the text. And as has been long-predicted, those details are not encouraging when it comes to Canadian sovereignty in general, and local sourcing of construction contracts, goods and services in particular.

While government websites, replete with encomiums from business entities, crow about what this deal will accomplish, more critical sources offer much to suggest the need for grave misgivings.

Take, for example, the matter of investor rights. Chapter 11, the investor-dispute mechanism under NAFTA, has resulted in numerous suits against the government from companies claiming loss of earnings due to legislation or judicial rulings. One such case involved Eli Lily suing Canada for $500 million over patent rights to two of its drugs. Another involved Lone Pine Resources, which is suing the federal government for $250 million due to Quebec’s moratorium on oil and gas fracking beneath the St. Lawrence River.

Yet the Harper government, in its apparent zeal to cede even more authority to multinational corporations, seems undaunted by these and many other ongoing suits.

With apparently almost identical provisions under CETA, perhaps the direness of the situation is best summed up by Scott Sinclair of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives:

"The outcome of the deal is that corporations win and citizens on both sides of the Atlantic lose."

Equally disturbing is the provision about procurement rights:

The main benefit for Europe is easy to name: Canada opens its public procurements to European corporations. European companies are much stronger when it comes to public tenders because there aren't as many Canadian companies willing to bid in European public procurements.

Today's Star offers more details of the public procurement provisions, and gives this bleak assessment:

The ability of provincial governments and cities like Toronto to boost their economies by favouring local companies on major goods and services contracts will be sharply curtailed under the terms of Canada’s free-trade pact with Europe, leaked details of the agreement confirm.

Specifically, provincial agencies and ministries will have to open up bidding to businesses from EU countries on goods and services contracts worth approximately $300,000 or more.

The threshold is higher for construction contracts: about $7.9 million.

Essentially, the same rules will apply to school boards, [p]ublic agencies or utilities that operate airports, rail or bus transport, marine ports, electricity distribution, drinking water provision or the production of gas and heat.

Once more, Canadian citizens must sit on the sidelines in government-imposed ignorance, thanks in large part to the most secretive government that has ever existed in Canada, Tony Clement's recent hilarious declarations about government transparency notwithstanding.

While it is highly unlikely the CETA deal will be finalized before the next election, given the millimeters of difference that exist between the major parties on most issues, holding an unsanctioned 'faint-hope' clause in our collective psyche may be all we can realistically aspire to.