Canadians Working Longer for Less PayHow many times in the last year have you wondered... "What if it happens to me? What if I lose my job?" Who could blame you? More and more Canadians are barely hanging on.
Posted by CBC News: The National on Wednesday, April 29, 2015
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John Bennett, the foundation's national program director ... has been asked to produce a list of all the politicians he met in 2012 and 2013, among other documentation.
"Clearly, the governing party is targeting groups it sees as its political enemies and is using the taxpayer's money and a government enforcement agency to do it," Bennett said in a recent fundraising letter.National Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay continues to insult the intelligence of Canadians; she consistently holds to the fiction that there is no political bias in the groups chosen for audits,
"It is an intimidation campaign designed to harass and distract organizations from doing the charitable work their donors want them to do … it is an abuse of power."
The foundation reported revenues of about $700,000 in its 2013 filing with Canada Revenue Agency. Bennett is the only full-time employee in the Ottawa office, with two part-time staff and a summer student.
saying CRA officials make their own independent decisions without political input.One of course is entitled to question this assertion, given that an audit was conducted on the Sierra Club in 2011, which it passed.
As of March 31, the Canada Revenue Agency had completed 21 political-activity audits, with 28 still under way and 11 still to begin. So far, five charities have received notices of the agency's intention to revoke their charitable status.None of those audits, by the way, were of groups supportive of the Harper regime's neoliberal agenda. Infer what you will from that.
I look out my window and see sunshine and vibrant signs of approaching spring. There’s even a Toronto sports franchise winning games.
But when I turn to the news media I read or hear about a glass half empty, half full, a glass smashed, a glass we can no longer afford because we are in so much provincial/federal debt and not to forget the growing number of Canadians who can no longer afford to buy a glass, full, half empty – or even chipped.
The Star last week carried these stories: A doctor who can’t get details about a drug for his pregnant patient; Ontario hospitals woefully unprepared to deal with a growing aging population; a federal government buying votes with our money and then telling us how lucky we are; and a fire sale of Ontario Hydro created by a consultant with no public service record and, gasp, a one cent increase on a bottle of beer.
This litany merely piles on the abuse mountain of veterans’ rights, a federal government that cannot deliver fresh water to our native Canadian population, a festering core of Ontario workers ready to strike and a quickly growing underbelly of people who simply cannot balance their books and play Russian roulette with rent, food, debt, education loan arrears.
And a pox on all the parties: opposition parties who offer nothing better than scare tactics instead of reasoned alternatives. Governing parties whose only true focus is maintaining a majority with a four-year formula of cut+cut+cut+buy votes. Repeat as long as you can con the voter.
Seems like I’m convincing myself that we have no glass but a mirage of political cracked mirrors. All of which has created one senior voter who wonders why it’s worth bothering to read about it or vote. The Star and other media don’t make the news. You do a good job of exposing the reality that our Emperors really don’t have any clothes.
Which leads to a simple question: somewhere, anywhere, at any level is there a politician in Canada who will simply speak the truth?
Don Graves, Burlington
Much has been made of the fact that the new federal budget is craftily geared by the Harper government to appeal to specific segments of the voting population. Seniors are getting all kinds of goodies, some designed specifically for their age group and others that are available to all, but which will (nudge nudge wink wink) benefit them the most. Two-income couples with children under 18 are big winners, too, as are small-business owners.Such is not good for the health of a democracy.
Left off the gravy train are young people. Why? Because they are way less likely to cast a vote than older people are, and they don’t make up as large a share of the population as they used to. By being disengaged, they have now become conveniently ignorable, not just by the government but by the opposition parties, too.
A 2013 Parliament of Canada study concluded that more young voters than ever are dropping out of electoral participation at all levels of government. Worse still, their apathy is permanent. They don’t start voting as they get older, which is one of the key reasons the average participation rate in Canada is dropping. A country where, a generation ago, more than 75 per cent of the population routinely voted in major elections is now lucky to have a 61 per cent turnout.In this situation, those who do vote are courted by the parties, with resulting lopsided budgets like this last one that pander to select groups rather than promote a vision for the country. Of course, it is subsequent generations who will bear the brunt of ever-diminishing national programs, health care money, government pensions, etc.
In the 2011 federal election, all three major parties focused on the middle class and on families. They made few direct references to youth. When they did, it was more often about “youth crime” or “at-risk youth” than it was about youth unemployment or university tuition. The parties are doing the same in this election, all led by the Harper government’s pro-senior, pro-family budget.All are complicit in the erosion of our once healthy and dynamic democracy.
Is there a way to get young Canadians back in the game? Not in this election, unfortunately. The apathy of young voters has caused politicians to tune out. Politicians tuning them out has made young voters more apathetic. The vicious circle goes round and round. And we’re losing a generation of voters.Our current crop of 'leaders' have much to answer for.
