Thursday, October 18, 2007

Tax Cuts For All

Instead of capital gains tax cuts (which only impact the rich) or further tax cuts for corporations how about eliminating income taxes (payroll taxes) for working Canadians and families who earn less than $100,000 a year.


Tax break not dead: Flaherty
The Harper government is examining how to make good on its pledge to grant Canadians a capital gains tax break in the 2008 budget, says Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, who avoided the measure in the last two fiscal plans because of cost and design difficulties.

Mr. Dion's tax strategy, so far, is promising enough. He aims to cut the corporate rate to 18.5%, a rate that, however, coincides with the rate some corporate insiders have heard Conservative officials talk about. Is Mr. Dion scalping Tory policy?


While the average Canadian family earns far less than $100,000, those in professions and in trades earn above the average. Revenue Canada and Stats Canada define high income earners as having an income of over $113,000 annually.

An argument could be made for elimination of taxes at the $80,000 a year level, however due to geography this would have a negative impact on higher paid workers in the Arctic, Northwest Territories, Yukon, etc. where prices are also higher.

Also family incomes can be blended to reach $100,000. Whether we speak of eliminating income taxes for individuals at the $50,000 per annum income level or families at $100,000, I am open to debate on this issue. So far I have seen few who were willing to take me up on it right or left. Despite the tax tinkering being promoted by the Liberals and Conservatives.

Eliminating Income taxes on workers and working families would go a long way to eliminating the prosperity gap the NDP talks about. You will see from the statistical studies below that the income gap between rich and the working class grew, and that they benefited from reductions through tax cuts and tax credits, including the myth of how they pay more GST. In fact they don't since their monies are tied up in cars and homes and other consumer goods, but in stocks and investments, and in fact they pay less luxury tax than the average worker does when GST and PST are added up.

And while the stats show that income support payments from EI, welfare, AISH, etc. have a positive economic impact on the working poor, this would be better offset by a program that created a Guaranteed National Living Wage. Something the Green Party has joined the NDP in calling for though neither of them go far enough.

The Libertarian Party of Canada does advocate for the reduction of and maybe the elimination of income taxes. To be replaced by user fees to pay for the privatization of public services! While the CPCML adovcates Make The Rich Pay! which I agree with and in fact take a more libertarian position than the LPC or the so called fiscal libertarians in the Conservative Party!

During the last federal election, the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada (MLPC) addressed the question of government revenue and taxation as follows:

"The Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada does not agree with the manner in which the issue of taxes is posed by the big parties and most media. Income taxes were introduced during World War I as a temporary measure and reflect an archaic viewpoint that owners of equity and debt are the centre of the economy, and Canadians and the state should serve the most powerful corporations."

Governments should keep their hands off personal incomes. Governments should fund program expenditures from their claim on the aggregate social product, not from that portion of social product the working people have managed to claim in the form of wages and salaries.

Who produces that wealth? The working people do. After the claims of the workers who produce the wealth have been distributed at their workplaces, the government should make its claim on the workplaces itself. It should appropriate directly from companies over a certain size enough social product to fund the costs of the social programs and infrastructure required for modern production in a modern society and a human and natural environment fit for human beings. A modern transportation and energy infrastructure for example are needed for modern production to take place in a society. Why then shouldn't those requirements be paid for from the aggregate social product of the society and appropriated directly at the point of production? Government revenue is a claim on the provincial social product. In its self-proclaimed drive to modernize, the Ontario government should stop the unacceptable practice of stealing the claims of working people on the social product and abolish the archaic income tax system, sales taxes and the myriad other taxes and service charges that takes money from the people. The claim (revenue) of the Ontario government should come directly from enterprises above a certain size that are engaged in producing social product or distributing, servicing and financing it.


The point is that no existing parliamentary party is talking about eliminating income taxes for the majority Canadians who now carry the burden of funding the government, which should be paid for by the Corporations and the rich since it's their state after all.


Income Inequality and Redistribution in Canada: 1976 to 2004

After remaining stable across the late 1970s and 1980s, family after-tax-income inequality rose during the 1990s. This increase occurred at the same time as a reduction in the generosity of several income transfer programs, including the Employment Insurance and Social Assistance Programs (in some provinces), and decreases in income tax rates. This potentially reflects a weakening of the redistributive role of the Canadian state.

However, while rising after-tax-income inequality can result from a weakening redistribution system, it can also result from rising inequality in family market (pre-tax, pre-transfer) income. In this report we address the following question: Is income redistribution playing a smaller equalizing role in recent years than it did in the past, or is increasing inequality being driven by rising familiy market-income inequality?

A close examination of after-tax income reveals that from 1989 to 2004, income fell for lower-income families but grew for middle- and higher-income families. Average income in the bottom 10% fell by 8% over this period, but rose by 8% at the median and by 24% in the top 10%. As a result, the absolute range between those with income in the bottom 10% and those in the top 10% also rose. In real dollars, after-tax income for a four-person family was stable at about $110,000 higher in the top decile compared to the bottom decile all through the 1976-to-1995 period, but grew thereafter, reaching $147,600 by 2004. This indicates that the increase in after-tax-income inequality is of significant absolute magnitude as well as relative magnitude.

Income polarization also rose over the 1990s. The share of Canadians with family after-tax income from 75% to 150% of the median after-tax income fell from 52.1% in 1989 to 47.3% in 2004, a drop of 4.8 percentage points. Closer inspection of the data reveals that the trend away from the middle class (defined by income) was both towards lower-income and higher-income persons. The share of persons with after-tax income below 75% of the median rose by 2.6 percentage points, while that share with income above 150% of the median rose by 2.0 percentage points.

The share of persons with adjusted income below one half of the 1979 level of adjusted family median income fell across the 1980s but rose in the 1990s, ending at 10.2% in 2004, which is slightly higher than it was in 1989.

There are several reasons to suspect that the role of the tax-transfer system in equalizing incomes may be different in the 2000s than in earlier decades. While the paper does not go in to these in great detail, we note that changes in social assistance and employment insurance eligibility and entitlement levels (these generally became more generous across the 1980s and then less across the 1990s), the introduction of new programs such as the Canada Child Tax Benefit and the Goods and Services Tax credit, as well as the maturation of the Canada Pension Plan and the Québec Pension Plan were important developments which may have affected the amount of income redistribution that is done through the transfer system. Moreover, increases in real tax rates across the 1980s, followed by their reduction in the 1990s, may have had implications for redistribution through the tax system.

This study shows that, after remaining stable for several decades, family after-tax-income inequality rose in the 1990s, settling at a higher level in the 2000s. At the same time, the share of middle-income families was reduced and the share of low- and high-income families grew larger. The absolute gap between bottom- and top-income families also increased in a substantive way, indicating that these increases in inequality have an important magnitude. These trends appear to have been driven by rising inequalities in income received from market sources (wages, salaries, self-employment income, private pensions and investment income) among families.

Perspectives on Labour and Income - September 2007

High-income Canadians

Brian Murphy, Paul Roberts and Michael Wolfson

Thresholds defined in nominal dollar terms are the
simplest. Absolute thresholds refer to a particular dollar
amount—for example, $100,000. Those with
incomes higher than a given figure are considered to
have high income.

Examples of commonly applied absolute nominal
thresholds include $250,000, the highest income
grouping used for many years by the Canada Revenue
Agency (CRA);2 $150,000, used in Statistics Canada’s
census tables; $100,000, used by the province of
Ontario in their ‘sunshine list’ made available under the
Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act (Campbell 1996); and
the threshold at which the top federal tax rate begins—
$113,804 in 2004.3

  • In 2004, 5% of Canadian taxfilers had an income of $89,000 or more; only 1% reached $181,000 or more.
  • In 2004, the top 5% of taxfilers received 25% of total income and paid 36% of income and payroll taxes.
  • The prevalence of high income peaks in the 45-to-64 age group. In 2004, individuals of that age represented less than a third of all income recipients, but made up more than half of the top 5%.
  • Calgary had the highest proportion of families with income over $250,000 in 2004, but Toronto had by far the most families with such incomes, almost one-third of the national total.
  • Of the 1.2 million taxfilers who made up the top 5% of income recipients in 2004, three-quarters were men, even though men accounted for less than half of all taxfilers. However, since 1982 there has been an 11% increase in the portion of women in the top 5% of tax filers.

Average income and net worth

In 1999, the average income for the bottom 80% of families was $38,000 while their average net worth was about five times higher at $192,000. The top 1% had average income of $366,000 and average net worth of $1.9 million, also roughly five times income. It follows that both the average income and average wealth of the top 1% are about 10 times that of the bottom 80%. The implication is that some lower-income families have relatively high net worth (for example the elderly) while some high-income families have relatively low net worth (the young).

Not surprisingly, the importance of housing and vehicular assets declines as income increases. While houses and cars accounted for 31% of average net worth for the 80% of families with the lowest incomes, they accounted for only 16% for the top 1%. These top income families had 61% of their net worth in financial assets compared with 37% for the bottom 80%. Pension assets are far more evenly distributed—21% of net worth for the top 1% of families, 32% for the bottom 80%.

The ratio of taxes to total income rises with income. In 2004, the bottom 95% of the taxfiler population received 75% of income and paid 64% of taxes, while the top 5% received 25% of income and paid 36% of taxes.11

A number of different tax rates can be examined. Nominal (statutory) tax rates are provided in legislation and are higher for higher incomes. The marginal tax rate applies to the last dollar of income. These rates are sensitive to the kind of income and the unit of analysis—individual or family. The effective tax rate (ETR) is simply the ratio of taxes paid to total income.

For the bottom 95%, ETRs generally increased through the 1980s, remained roughly constant at just over 15% throughout the 1990s, and declined at the turn of the millennium, remaining steady through 2004. More fluctuation was evident in the high-income population because of high-income surtaxes and numerous changes to top federal tax brackets. They had a more pronounced rise in the mid-to-late 1980s, declining more sharply in 1988 with the introduction of tax reform, which reduced 10 brackets to 3 and converted many deductions to tax credits.

Over 85% of the 5% of Canadians with the lowest incomes in 2004 paid no income or payroll taxes (Chart F). While some individuals may have no income taxes payable, Employment Insurance and Canada or Quebec Pension Plan contributions may still be payable.

The proportion paying no taxes drops sharply after the first vingtile but remains over 40% until the 35th percentile. It then drops quickly to below 1% approximately two-thirds of the way up the income distribution.

Chart F - The proportion of taxfilers paying zero taxes declined at almost all income levels

Some 5% of individual taxfilers had incomes of $89,000 or more in 2004. Regardless of the threshold used, incomes in the upper tail of the distribution as well as the share of total income increased substantially from 1992 to 2004. In contrast, individuals in the bottom 50% to 80% generally saw little improvement in constant dollar income.

Compared with the U.S., Canada had significantly fewer high-income recipients in 2004, and their incomes were considerably less. High-income Canadians increasingly receive more of their income from employment than from other sources.

Investment income has been a decreasing proportion, even among those with the highest incomes.


Income Instability of Lone Parents, Singles and Two-Parent Families in Canada, 1984 to 2004

This paper examines income instability of lone parents, singles and two-parent families in Canada in the past two decades using tax data. We attempt to answer the following questions: Has there been a widespread increase in earnings instability among lone parents (especially lone mothers) and unattached individuals over the past 20 years? How do the trends in earnings instability among lone parents and unattached individuals compare to the trends among the two-parent families? What is the role of government transfers and the progressive tax system in mitigating differences in earnings instability across different segments of the earnings distribution among the above-mentioned groups? We find little evidence of a widespread increase in earnings instability in the past two decades and show that government transfers play a particularly important role in reducing employment income instability of lone mothers and unattached individuals.

Similar to Morissette and Ostrovsky (2005), we find that earnings instability varies considerably with employment income and is much higher among families in the bottom tertile (one third of all families) than among families in the top tertile. The magnitude of these differences varies for different age groups and family categories; however, it is fair to say that for two-parent families the bottom–top earnings instability ratio is generally smaller mostly due to lower instability in the bottom tertile.

In all age groups, social assistance appears to be the single most important factor reducing income instability of lone mothers. For lone mothers, SA plays a much greater role in reducing income instability than for the two-parent families. In the youngest age group, for instance, it reduces instability in the bottom tertile by 32%. As social assistance has little effect on the lone mothers in the top tertile, this also results in the largest drop in the differences between bottom and top tertiles (23%). The impact of social assistance on instability is somewhat smaller for the 45-to-49 age group although it is still larger than the impact of any other factors.

Employment insurance also lowers income instability of lone mothers. In all age groups, it is the second most important factor mitigating instability among lone mothers in the bottom tertile. Overall, the reduction in instability (relative to market income) due to EI and SA in the bottom tertile varies between 32% and 48%.

The role of the progressive tax system has two different aspects. On the one hand, in all age groups, the instability of the after-tax income in the bottom tertile is lower than the instability of the total income although the reduction is 6% at most, and in some age groups it is close to zero. On the other hand, in some age groups the tax system has a larger effect in the top tertile, so the after-tax difference between bottom and top tertiles is actually larger for the after-tax income than for the before-tax income.

Personal debt — PDF

Personal consumption expenditure constitutes a larger share of GDP in the U.S.

Consumer spending is a key contributor to a country's economic health. Consumer spending as a percentage of GDP is much lower in Canada, ranging from 52.8% to 58.9% over the last 25 years, compared with 61.4% to 70.0% in the U.S. In other words, consumer spending has boosted the economy more in the U.S. than in Canada.

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/comm/11-1.gif

Canadians pay more income taxes and transfers to government

Even though both countries have a progressive income tax system, their marginal tax rates, methods of taxation, and allowable deductions vary considerably. In Canada, a relatively larger share of personal income goes for federal and provincial income taxes, Canada or Quebec Pension Plan contributions, and Employment Insurance premiums (17.3% in 1980 and 23.4% in 2005). Americans, on the other hand, paid 18.3% and 18.7% of their income for federal and state income taxes, social security contributions, and unemployment insurance.1 The gap between total and disposable income has widened over time in Canada while remaining almost unchanged in the U.S. However, the mix of deductions in the U.S. has changed considerably: Income taxes accounted for 79.4% of deductions in 1980 compared with 57.7% in 2005..


http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/comm/11-3.gif

Both Canadians and Americans have increased their debt-to-income ratios

Credit can be used to meet regular or unexpected consumption needs, or even to acquire assets. Debt load, measured by the ratio of total debt to disposable income was almost the same for Canadians and Americans at the beginning of the 1980s. After that, they parted ways: Americans had the greater debt load between 1983 and 1991 and Canadians between 1992 and 2000. From 2001, debt grew steadily in both countries and by 2002 had surpassed disposable income. By 2005, for each dollar of disposable income, Canadians owed $1.16 and Americans $1.24.

Some of the increased indebtedness between 2001 and 2005 may be attributed to relatively low rates of interest, easy credit through home equity loans, and increased limits and incentives on credit cards issued by competing financial institutions.


http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/comm/11-4.gif



Canadians use more consumer credit for their personal spending

Between 1980 and 2005, consumer credit represented between 21 and 38 cents of each dollar of personal spending in Canada. In the U.S., the amount was between 19 and 27 cents. Since 1986, when the Reagan administration cancelled tax deductibility for interest paid on consumer loans, Americans have been using less of this kind of credit. Consequently, since 1988, the gap between the U.S. and Canada in the use of consumer credit has widened.

Non-homeowners in both countries, who have neither mortgage debt nor access to home-equity line of credit, can increase limits on their credit cards or use personal loans to finance unexpected needs or other budgetary shortfalls. http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/comm/11-5.gif


On a per-capita basis, consumption expenditure outpaced disposable income in both Canada and the U.S.

Over the 1980-to-2005 period, per capita consumption expenditure in Canada more than tripled from $6,870 to $23,560, while disposable income rose proportionally less—$8,390 to $24,400 (2.9 times). In the U.S., expenditures and disposable income rose more steeply—from CAN$8,770 to $37,980 (4.3 times) and from CAN$9,710 to $39,260 (4.0 times). The disparity between Canada and the U.S. in both per-capita spending and disposable income has increased and, as consumer spending has outgrown disposable income, both Canadians and Americans have had to finance their spending through credit.


http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/comm/11-9.gif

In both countries, total household debt outgrew consumer spending as well as disposable income

In terms of aggregates in their respective currencies, household debt rose in Canada from $134 billion in 1980 to $916 billion by 2005 (6.8 times), and in the U.S. from $1.3 trillion to 11.2 trillion (8.6 times). Even though inflation was almost the same in both countries, consumer spending and disposable income increased less in Canada. Consumer spending, for instance, rose from $168 billion to $760 billion in Canada and from $1.8 trillion to $8.7 trillion in the U.S.

http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/75-001-XIE/comm/11-11.gif

Young pensioners
Ted Wannell

  • Although public retirement pensions cannot be collected until one's seventh decade (age 60 for the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans, and 65 for Old Age Security), many private pension plans allow long-serving employees in their 50s to draw benefits. Tax data indicate that about one-fifth of workers begin collecting benefits from such plans before their 60th birthday.
  • The pension take-up rate is very low (less than 1%) from ages 50 to 54. It spikes at age 55 (5% for men and 4% for women) as many plans commence unreduced benefits at this milestone, given sufficient tenure. This peak is not surpassed until workers exit their 50s.
  • About half of young pensioners worked for pay the year after they began receiving their pension. However, much of that work was either part-time or intermittent since only 30% earned at least $5,000. Men were more likely than women to surpass the $5,000 benchmark (34% versus 26%).
  • The probability of non-trivial re-employment falls as the age at retirement increases. Those who retired at 50 were almost twice as likely as those retiring at 59 to earn at least $5,000 in the following year.
  • Very few young pensioners turn to self-employment as a significant source of income. Less than 1 in 10 earned some self-employment income, and 1 in 20 or less earned at least $5,000.
  • Early pensioners generally retired from high-paying jobs. Their average earnings in the year before retirement were about 50% greater than those who did not retire. Among women, the post-retirement income of young pensioners exceeded the income of those who remained in the workforce.
  • Young pensioners typically bring in about two-thirds of their pre-retirement income the year after they begin collecting their pension—very close to the 70% replacement rate recommended by many financial analysts. Pension income accounts for a greater proportion of the total income of women in this group (66% in 2004 compared with 61% for men).

The 2001 Census figures on income, released on Tuesday May 13, are telling us two very important stories. The first is that Canadian society is becoming increasingly polarized. The richest 10% of our population has seen its income grow by a whopping 14% while the bottom 10% has seen only a slight increase of less than 1%. Moreover the income of many working families has actually declined!

Overall, government transfers have decreased. Although Statistics Canada declined to reveal the dollar value of the decrease, they did provide analysis of the changing significance of government transfers to different income groups.

Among working age families, the proportion of total income represented by government transfers dropped over the decade, from 6.4% to 5.6%. This drop did not actually begin until after 1995, and it reversed a trend of growth in government transfers to working age Canadians which had been evident since 1980.

However, the proportion of income attributable to government transfers has increased throughout the 1990s for the 30% of families at the bottom end of the income distribution. The proportion of their income derived from government transfers increased from 58.4% to 62.2%. Transfers to the other 70% decreased over the decade.

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Median total income, by family type, by province and territory
(All census families)

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

All census families1

$
Median total income
Canada 53,500 55,000 56,000 58,100 60,600
Newfoundland and Labrador 41,400 43,200 44,800 46,100 47,600
Prince Edward Island 46,900 48,600 49,600 51,300 53,400
Nova Scotia 46,900 48,600 50,000 51,500 54,000
New Brunswick 45,200 46,800 48,000 49,700 51,500
Quebec 49,700 51,600 52,600 54,400 57,000
Ontario 58,400 59,600 60,500 62,500 64,500
Manitoba 49,800 51,200 52,100 54,100 56,100
Saskatchewan 48,900 50,500 51,500 53,500 56,300
Alberta 59,900 61,700 63,000 66,400 71,000
British Columbia 51,700 52,800 53,600 55,900 58,500
Yukon Territory 61,000 63,900 64,300 67,800 71,700
Northwest Territories 70,300 76,000 76,400 79,800 83,900
Nunavut 44,800 48,100 47,900 49,900 52,300

Table 7
Incidence of Low Income: Various Groups, Canada

Market Basket Measure 2000, 2001, 2002
and LICOs-IAT 2002

MBM-2000 MBM-2001 MBM-2002 LICOs-IAT 2002
All persons 14.8 13.6 13.7 11.6
Under 18 years of age 18.4 16.8 16.9 12.2
18-64 15.2 14.0 14.1 12.1
65 and over 5.8 5.5 5.6 7.6
Males 14.0 13.0 13.2 10.7
Under 18 years of age 18.2 16.9 17.7 12.7
18 to 64 13.9 12.9 13.0 11.0
65 and over 5.0 5.1 5.3 4.9
Females 15.6 14.2 14.1 12.4
Under 18 years of age 18.7 16.6 15.9 11.8
18 to 64 16.5 15.1 15.2 13.1
65 and over 6.5 5.8 5.9 9.7
All families 17.7 16.7 16.3 15.5
Economic families 2+ 12.0 10.8 11.2 8.6
Elderly families 4.7 3.9 4.5 2.9
Elderly married couples 2.5 2.8 3.1 1.9
Other elderly families 12.9 8.2 10.0 6.9
Non-elderly families 13.2 11.9 12.3 9.5
Married couples 9.7 8.7 9.0 7.1
Two-parent families with children 11.9 10.6 9.8 6.5
Married couples with other relatives 5.8 6.3 7.1 5.0
Lone-parent families 38.4 37.3 41.1 34.2
Male lone-parent families 18.6 17.8 21.8 12.2
Female lone-parent families 42.5 41.4 45.6 39.4
Other non-elderly families 13.2 9.8 12.0 10.8
Unattached individuals 29.5 28.7 26.5 29.5
Male 28.6 28.4 26.2 27.1
Female 30.4 29.1 26.7 32.0
All Elderly 12.0 11.6 10.0 19.4
Elderly Male 14.2 13.9 11.8 15.9
Elderly Female 11.2 10.7 9.4 20.7
All Non-Elderly 35.8 34.8 32.5 33.2
Non-Elderly Male 31.0 30.8 28.7 29.0
Non-Elderly Female 42.3 40.3 37.6 39.0

  • Two groups among the working age population - those commonly referred to as the "working poor" and five socio-demographic groups at disproportionate risk of persistent low income are featured in this report.
  • The risk of experiencing annual and persistent low income for "working" families (those where the Major Income Recipient (MIR) works 910 hours or more for pay annually) is much lower than for families with weaker attachment to paid work. However, "working poor" families still accounted for almost 30% of all working-age low income families in 2002 and for just over 40% of low income children living in such families in that year.
  • Regardless of the low income measure used, five socio-demographic groups have a disproportionate risk of persistent low income. Two out of the five high-risk groups - unattached individuals aged 45-64 and persons with work-limiting disabilities - significantly improved their incidence of low income between 2000 and 2002. Changes in the incidence of low income for the other three groups - lone parents with at least one child under 18, recent immigrants and Aboriginal Canadians living off-reserve during this period were not statistically significant.
  • Between 2000 and 2002, the Market Basket Measure identified a somewhat larger low income population than is calculated using Statistics Canada's post-income tax Low Income Cut-offs (LICOs-IAT).
  • This difference is more than accounted for by the more stringent definition of economic family disposable income which is compared to the MBM low
  • income thresholds. Several more items are deducted from gross income using the MBM than the LICOs-IAT.
  • These additional deductions from gross income are particularly important in increasing the incidence of low income for children (as deductions include out-of-pocket child care costs) and for working-age families with a strong attachment to paid work (as deductions include payroll taxes and other mandatory payroll deductions).
Taxation in Canada



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A Reply To Northern Liberal

The Northern Liberal asks;
Isnt it a bit rich for Conservatives and Dippers (the latter in particular) to be heaping scorn on Dion for proping up Harper when both parties at one time or another propped up Paul Martin's government when their own poll numbers weren't hot?


The difference is that the NDP got $4 Billion dollars in social spending appended to the Martin Budget and ended tax cuts for corporations. Big difference. And they were able to get the Martin government to accept changes in his Minority Government bills including forcing his government to live up to its commitment to his good friend Bono.

The NDP have been consistent in opposing Harpers Throne Speech's and Budgets. Which is more than can be said for the Liberals who supported the extension of the War in Afghanistan, supported Harper budgets, and who vote by sitting on their hands or taking a sick day off during crucial votes.

It's a little thing called principle.

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SEE:

Tories Kill Kyoto

Jack Layton PM?

House Divided


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Don Newmans No Spin Zone

CBC Politics with Don Newman has a new ad on TV. Suddenly the show has become CBC's version of Bill O'Riley and Fox News with this ad quip; "I'm Don Newman, the spin stops here".

Politics with Don Newman taps into the decision makers.
Don brings you the inside look into what is happening in politics: Federally, provincially and the world.
The spin stops here.

The image “http://www.proudtobecanadian.ca/images/s_z/Van_Sun_Spin_Stops_here_2007_03_26.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.


Whoa big fellow that ain't quite truth in advertising. After all even though his business crashed and he is no longer publishing Western Standard, Don still had this guy on last week to talk about Alberta. And he is nothing if not right wing spin.

Of course as I have pointed out before this shows the CBC has given up its apparent "left wing bias" and is now cuddling up to the Conservative right in Canada. Despite right wing assertions to the contrary.

(Fox News Channel is a rare exception, and by no shear coincidence, is where the phrase “the spin stops here” came from before being stolen from Bill O’Reilly’s “O’Reilly Factor” by the state-run CBC).


SEE:

Ezra Levant Does Not Speak For Me

Conservative Broadcasting Corporation?

Contracting -out Broadcasting Corporation



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Contact High

This is on the Stephen Harper Party page;

The image “http://conservative.ca/media/resampled/articleMenuElement/3090/resampled_20071016-topstory-GreenVision.jpg” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

The Dion-endorsed Green Party will blow your mind

And apparently it did to this guy who is also on the same page.
Looks like he got a contact high from the Pot graphic.



Conservative Youth


This is the face of Conservative Youth,

As the Sex Pistols said; Pretty Vacant.



There's no point in asking
you'll get no reply.
Oh just remember a don't decide
I got no reason it's all too much
You'll always find us
out to lunch

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
a-vacant

Don't ask us to attend
'cos we're not all there.
Oh don't pretend 'cos I don't care
I don't believe illusions 'cos too much is real
So stop your cheap comment
'cos we know what we feel


Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant
Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
a-vacant

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
Ah but now
and we don't care


There's no point... (etc.)

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
we're vacant

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
a-vacant

Oh we're so pretty
Oh so pretty
Ah but now
and we don't care

We're pretty a-pretty vacant
we don't care



H/T to Apply Liberally



SEE:

The Stephen Harper Party

Canada Goes To Pot


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Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Attention Progressive Bloggers Admin

Your page is still not working. I get this at the top of the page:

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Tories Kill Kyoto

No, not Dion's Dog.
http://media.canada.com/idl/mtgz/20061126/227258-85062.jpg

Canada's commitment to the Kyoto accord.



Had they killed his dog well then maybe he would have had enough principles to get mad and get even.

Dion's choice: Save the planet, or save his political ass


But somehow I doubt it, after all he has made his choice.

Dion pledges to ‘make parliament work'


Instead this staunch defender of Kyoto, the accord and his dog,
wimped out and the result was gales of laughter in the house today.

Tory laughter rains down on Dion

Dion drew the loudest laughs as he read press releases from environmental groups who accuse the Tories of cancelling Liberal programs and replacing them with inferior ones.

"And I quote the Sierra Club," Dion began.

"Federal programs were slashed and the importance of climate change was downplayed. An entire year was lost. End of quote.

"But I continue to quote the Sierra Club. . ."

Of course when you abandon your principles you deserve the cat calls.

Canada Liberals send PM lifeline
Dion has accepted a Throne Speech that Kills Kyoto, and his Party will sit on their hands to allow it to pass.

No retreat with honour for Dion

Harper's government a majority in all but name


Not because Canadians don't want an election, which is his excuse. But because the Liberals don't want an election. Showing that they are not only fiscally bankrupt but politically bankrupt as well.

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Rent A Crowd

The right wing press pundits and those opposed to Albertans getting their fair share will make a big deal out of the Oil Bosses Venezuelan Style Protest at the Leg today. Until you realize that the workers there were bussed in by the bosses and paid to be there, complete with signs provided by their bosses.

Also most of them have not read the Royalty Report nor know what its recommendations are. And thanks to your's truly helping get the message out about this right wing demo a counter protest occurred.


The workers, many carrying signs printed by Ensign Energy, the drilling giant based out out of Calgary, and wearing hard hats brought by the company for the occasion, said they fear losing their livelihoods if the report's recommendations are accepted.

Whether the crowd had considered the accuracy of the report was another matter; while several said they felt it was flawed, they either admitted they hadn't read it, or, in several cases, that they didn't really understand the complexities of the royalty structure. Many also confirmed their employers had given them a paid day off to attend the rally.

And about two dozen pro-report demonstrators also showed up. Alan Boyle said he worked in the oilpatch for nearly 40 years. "I don't blame these people for being apprehensive because the message they're getting is fear and they're following that. They're scared for their jobs. I notice some older fellas who in the 80s were perhaps hurt when the NEP came in."

But Boyle also said based on the price of oil, the only reason for companies to fear monger about slowing down is because they want to make more money, instead of paying the public its fair share -- something that repeated reports from multiple economists suggests hasn't happened in years.

"It's generally fear and these people are bought and paid for. I don't think the royalty review is way out of line. I think it's quite fair. I don't really see where, based on the price of oil per barrel right now, that any company is really hurting. There are traditionally seasonal sectors feeling the pinch right now but that's got nothing to do with oil royalties."

The AFL issued in a statement criticizing the Wednesday event planned for the Alberta legislature in Edmonton. Gil McGowan, president of the AFL, said:

"These are people who have bought into the scare tactics currently being used by Big Oil. Obviously, they have a right to speak for themselves. But let's be clear: they don't speak for anything close to a majority of Albertans working in the oil patch or related industries." "It's always scary when the people who sign your paycheques start talking about job loss," says McGowan. "But it's clear that a strong majority of workers in this province - regardless of what industries they happen to be in - want a much better deal on the resources that we all own collectively as citizens. And they're not about to back down just because a few cranky CEOs have been rattling their sabres." "Right now, Big Oil is behaving like a kid throwing a tantrum," concludes McGowan. "They're stamping their feet and making threats. But they're not about to leave the sandbox - because there's too much money to be made and, frankly, because there's nowhere else for them to go."

He described the legislature rally, organized by owners of small energy and oilfield service companies, as “essentially a bosses’ rally.”


While it’s being billed as a “grassroots oil workers rally,” McGowan wondered how it could be when most of the companies don’t work in the northern Alberta oil patch, including Fort McMurray. He added those involved are mostly natural gas employers. At a time when many industry players have already admitted the gas industry is slowing as basins mature and prices increase, McGowan said these companies are using those pre-existing market conditions as scare tactics.
“These employers have been trying to say their recent layoffs are a sign of things to come when in fact they have almost nothing to do with the current royalty regime or the one being proposed by the royalty panel,” he said. “Their problem has nothing to do with current royalty regime or the proposed one. They’re caused by the recent slump in the price for natural gas.”


As for the claims about the slow down in the conventional gas and oil patch, that is the nature of the business. Last spring was too warm for some patch operations. Guys I know working in the patch who start in December or January weren't getting started till late February early March. This fall appears to be another Indian Summer so again the patch will start up later than usual.

Dave Hamsing, who runs a drilling company south of Calgary, said companies are already scaling back operations, waiting to see how the government responds to the royalty review.

Hamsing has only two rigs booked this winter, after six were cancelled. He fears another bust in Alberta is a possibility.

"The ones who suffer from the fallout will be us, the service companies, entrepreneurs, employees, families. The rest of Alberta is going to suffer if they implement the royalty report in its state," said Derrick Jacobson, owner of a small oil service company in Red Deer.

"It's not threats anymore, I mean some companies have shifted operations to Saskatchewan already."

Jacobson called Wednesday's protest in Edmonton a "grassroots oil workers rally," but the involvement of a high-priced public relations firm is raising questions.

Don't believe me,well then lets ask Mr.Right Wing his-self, Neil Waugh;


Threat of job losses in the oilpatch due to royalty boost may just be a Big Oil invention

But it was a great day for the flat-earth believers in the Calgary oil towers and their compliant, soon-to-be communications directors.

Fortress Stelmach had been finally breached and the Stalmachistas are fleeing for the hills after the Cowtown oil aristocrats launched their third and final desperate assault - code-named the "Perfect Storm."

That is where tens of thousands of oilpatch workers would lose their jobs if the modest royalty tweaks go through - not to mention their double wides and dually diesels.

THE PROBLEM IS REAL

Of course, there is a problem. The winter drilling season is going to be a bust. And the summer one was nothing to brag about either.

Big Oil has already pulled back their big budgets. Rigs are racked and trucks haven't turned a wheel all summer, especially in Stelmach's rural heartland.

Big Oil invented the storm. Now they want to pin the blame on Stelmach, as rig moving king pin Murray Mullen tried to do last week when he announced the "temporary layoff" of 100 truck drivers and swampers.


Yep today's protest was the Oil Rig Bosses blaming the Royalty report for the fact that they had a poor spring and summer and are preparing for a slow start this winter. It has nothing to do with our getting our fair share and everything to do with the weather.

But heck you know they would look silly if they protested the weather.

Come to think of it I wonder if they have considered the impact of Global Warming on their jobs.

Nah, that's just another socialist plot like the Royalty Report.

Representatives from the fledgling Wild Rose Party and the Alberta Alliance, Alberta's two ultra-right wing parties, also addressed the crowd. Alliance leader Paul Hinman, the MLA for Cardston-Taber, called the recommendations a colossal mistake. "It's pure politics to talk about 'fair share' because that's how you make everybody upset, by saying 'you didn't get your fair share'," he said.


Don't Let Big Oil Set Our Royalty Rates make sure Ed hears from you

SEE:

Our Resources, Our Future, Our Decisions

Real Oil Workers Rally

I Am Malcontent

Who Will Decide About Royalties


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The Stephen Harper Party

This is the new logo for the former Conservative Party of Canada. Which has now become the Stephen Harper Conservative Party. The leader is the Party, the Party is the Leader. Hmm, where have I heard that before?

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And continuing in the vein of the Great Leader cult of personality the Conservatives are no longer the "New Government of Canada". That has changed too.


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H/T to Red Tory.



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Tokenism

The Harper Government does this;

Ottawa hopes to make Aung San Suu Kyi an honorary Canadian citizen


Instead of doing this;

NDP calls for review of Canadian Pension Plan investments in Burma

And increasing the number of Burmese refugees we accept into Canada.

There are currently 140,000 Karen refugees from Myanmar living in nine border camps in Thailand, and many of them have been there for up to 20 years.

The Canadian government has pledged to resettle roughly 2,000 of the Karen refugees in this country, and the Grimsby church’s sponsorship is part of that initiative.

In fact making Aung San Suu Kyi an honorary Canadian citizen will not change what is happening in Burma. Nor give Canada any sway over the Burmese military junta.

There was never any chance that the monk-led "Saffron Revolution" in Burma in the last six weeks would be successful.

The notion of the junta collapsing and fleeing in the face of the moral armour of the monks and the National League for Democracy led by Aung San Suu Kyi is fanciful nonsense.

The generals have ruled Burma since 1962 -- two generations -- and, as they have shown in 1988 and in the last few weeks, they will not give up their golden goose without inflicting extreme violence on their enemies.



And considering how badly Foreign Affairs has bungled the cases of actual Canadians held as political prisoners well I hope she isn't expecting much.

Meanwhile these Canadian Citizens want to know why their government aided and abetted their imprisonment and torture. But they don't get to find out cause Harper has approved a secret Star Chamber review of their cases.

And this Canadian citizen remains incarcerated illegally at Gitmo facing a Star Chamber trial and the Harper government has done nothing about it.



SEE:

Canada's Not So White Knight In Burma

Burma Watch

Blogs Left and Right Unite

Blogging Burma

Myanmar Ghost Dance

No Reincarnation Without Permission

The Road Out of Mandalay


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