Why Conservatives are terrified to give teens the vote
By Max Fawcett | Opinion, Politics | December 3rd 2021

In several countries, including Scotland, which hosted this year's UN climate talks, the voting age is 16. It's time for Canada to follow suit, writes Max Fawcett. Photo by Nora Legrande

Between COVID and climate change, Canada’s teenagers have a lot on their minds these days. That might help explain why there’s a renewed push to give more of them the ability to participate in our democratic process.

On Tuesday, a group of young Canadians launched a court challenge to overturn the section of the Canada Elections Act barring Canadians under 18 from voting in federal elections, while last week, Manitoba Independent senator Marilou McPhedran reintroduced a bill that would lower the voting age to 16.

It’s not just in Canada that this issue is having its moment in the political sun. Germany’s recent election produced a so-called “traffic light” coalition between the Social Democrats, Greens and pro-business Free Democrats, and one of their first points of agreement is a proposal to lower the voting age to 16. They would have to amend the constitution to actually make it happen, but Germany seems closer than ever to joining Austria, Argentina, Brazil and Scotland on the list of places where 16- and 17-year-olds can vote in national elections.

Canada hasn’t expanded the franchise since 1970, when the voting age and age of candidacy were lowered from 21 to 18. The idea of lowering it to 16 has the support of New Democrats like Don Davies, who tabled a private member’s bill on the idea in March 2020, and high-profile Liberals like Gerald Butts and Catherine McKenna.

Not surprisingly, the opposition is mostly coming from conservatives like former Andrew Scheer staffer (and Donald Trump supporter) Georgeanne Burke, who described it on Twitter as “truly scary.” Conservative pundit Ken Boessenkool was a bit more verbose, tweeting: “We have collectively decided they are not old enough for alcohol or cannabis. We should make the same determination for voting.”

It’s no wonder people like Burke and Boessenkool find the idea of lowering the voting age terrifying. While alcohol and cannabis consumption pose obvious dangers to the development of young brains, participating in democracy is only dangerous to conservative political fortunes. The most recent data from Abacus Research has the Conservative Party of Canada polling at just 20 per cent among Canadians 18 to 29, while Leger has them at 21 per cent among voters under 35. In both cases, they’re trailing the Liberals by 15 points.

There’s no shortage of irony here, given conservatives are almost always willing to stump for more democracy, whether it’s electing senators or holding referenda and plebiscites on important matters of public policy. And for a movement that talks incessantly about the dangers fiscal deficits pose to future generations, they seem curiously uninterested in letting those future generations have their say.

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These sorts of purely partisan considerations obviously aren’t a good enough reason to dismiss the idea of expanding the franchise, but the other objections most commonly raised might be just as bad. Teenagers, we’re told, aren’t cognitively prepared for the responsibility of voting, and are therefore more easily manipulated. Never mind, for the moment, that neurological adulthood doesn’t really begin until your mid-20s, which means there’s nothing magical about turning 18.

Instead, let’s remember the range of responsibilities we already assign to 16-year-olds, from driving 3,000-pound machines to working, paying taxes and consenting to sexual activity. Given that existing menu of maturity, allowing them to participate in democratic decisions that will impact their future doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.

If cognitive capacity determines who gets to vote, what about the growing number of people who are falling prey to misinformation about vaccines, climate change and the American election being stolen by Antifa? Facebook is a breeding ground for this sort of stuff, and yet we don’t deprive anyone who shares false information or believes in conspiracy theories of their right to vote.

Opinion: For a movement that talks incessantly about the dangers fiscal deficits pose to future generations, they seem curiously uninterested in letting those future generations have their say, writes columnist @maxfawcett. #CDNpoli #YouthVote #CPC

The argument that teenagers shouldn’t be allowed to vote because their parents might influence their choices is equally weak. Has anyone making this argument ever actually met a teenager, much less one who takes enough of an interest in politics to bother casting a vote? If anything, they’re just as likely to cancel out the vote of an overbearing parent than duplicate it.

These mostly partisan-tinged objections need to be weighed against the benefits that expanding the franchise would offer our democracy. This is no small concern when you watch what’s unfolding south of the border, where one of the two major parties seems determined to disenfranchise as many people as it takes to win an election.

By pairing an expanded franchise with a renewed commitment to civics education, we could increase participation by young people — which studies consistently show increases their likelihood of remaining engaged in the democratic process. “If we get kids into the habit of voting at schools, they will vote as adults,” says Haruun Ali, an 18-year-old Edmontonian who ran for city council earlier this year.

Maybe that’s what scares the conservatives who are opposed to the idea so much. By expanding the franchise to more voters who will prioritize climate change and its impact on the rest of their lives, they risk further entrenching the advantage their opponents already enjoy among younger voters.

Conservatives have an alternative, of course: start taking the issues younger people care about more seriously. But unless or until they do, the other parties should force their hand here. Given how much their future has already been shaped by decisions they didn’t make, young Canadians deserve a bigger voice in our democratic conversation.

If Justin Trudeau wants to make amends for his decision to punt on electoral reform, he should give it to them.

16 IS THE VOTING AGE IN WALES

A voice, a vote: Iqaluit youth helps push forward court challenge to lower Canada's voting age

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Katie Yu, 15, is one of the litigants in a lawsuit that aims to

 let young people vote in federal elections

CBC News · Posted: Dec 03, 2021 5:01 AM CT | Last Updated: December 3

Katie Yu, 15, from Iqaluit, is one of the 13 litigants who have filed a court challenge of the minimum voting age in Canada. (Matisse Harvey/CBC News)

How old should you be before you can vote in a federal election in Canada? The question has been posed by politicians and youth advocacy groups across the country.

Now, 13 young Canadians are taking that question to the courts. 

Among them is Iqaluit's Katie Yu, 15, who says the major issues facing the country — from climate change to mental health — affect all Canadians, not just those over the legal voting age of 18, and younger citizens deserve to have their say. 

"Some of these issues have been passed down to us a little bit. So I think it's important for youth to vote so we can be proactive and stop these issues from going down to the next generations," Yu told CBC.

"I think in Nunavut especially, since we have a large youth population, it's important to have a say in these issues."

Voting age 'discriminatory'

The court challenge is being supported by Ontario-based lawyers from Justice for Children and Youth as well as the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights. The case is destined first for the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, where it could be heard sometime in the next 12 months, said Emily Chan, a lawyer with Justice for Children and Youth. The hope is that it will eventually make its way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Chan said the legal team is focusing on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which sets out the right of all Canadian citizens to vote. She also pointed to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which speaks to empowering young people to make decisions.

"One of the basic rights is that every Canadian citizen gets to vote, so we're saying that it's discriminatory to have set an age at 18," Chan said.

"There have been lots of changes, historically, on who gets the right to vote ... and this is one change we'd like to see as well."

'A more inclusive place'

For Yu, the lawsuit goes beyond simply the right to vote. It's also about valuing the opinions of younger Canadians.

"People tell us that we're not mature enough to vote, but that kind of discourages us from speaking up in the first place," she said. "I think it's about making society a more inclusive place by uplifting and including youth voices."

After all, many youth have a lot to say. Yu pointed to a recent student-led protest about suicide prevention in Iqaluit as one example of the ways youth are trying to make society a better place. In recent years, youth in Canada have also helped organize climate protests and initiated Ontario-wide school walkouts to protest education changes.

Youth in Iqaluit marched from Inuksuk High School to the Legislative Assembly downtown on Nov. 16, 2021, to deliver a message to government officials: suicide prevention needs to be addressed now. (David Gunn/CBC)

But youth are also enacting change in their communities in smaller ways, Yu said — as active members of clubs and community organizations, or in volunteer positions. As an air cadet, Yu says she has made an effort to take on leadership roles: she interned with WWF-Canada's Iqaluit office this summer, and has also been involved with UNICEF Canada's youth advocacy program. 

Many youth also already vote in mock elections at their schools, or belong to Canadian political parties.

"If youth are heard today, they will want to continue to use their voice because they will feel empowered as they have that space and the right to vote," Yu said.

The group of litigants isn't targeting a specific voting age, though a press release from Justice for Children and Youth provided examples of the voting age being lowered to 16 in countries such as Germany, Brazil and Scotland.

With files from Toby Otak

CHINA ABANDONS CLASS WAR FOR PATRIOTIC WAR

Team China Olympic heroes inspire national pride in HK as Lam welcomes ‘favorable environment’ for unleashing patriotism

POSTMODERN STALINISM

STALIN CALLED WW2 THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

By Chen Qingqing,
Zhang Hui and Bai Yunyi

Published: Dec 03, 2021 


The all-star Olympic delegation of 29 Team China athletes arrives in Hong Kong and takes a group photo at the welcome ceremony on December 3, 2021. Photo: VCG
When an all-star Olympic delegation of 29 Team China athletes arrived in Hong Kong on Friday for a three-day visit to the Chinese city, the victory lap of Tokyo 2020 medalists, which is also part of the tradition for Chinese Olympians to visit the city since its return to the motherland in 1997, is expected to arouse strong repercussions, echoing rising patriotism in recent months following a number of activities in Hong Kong such as local youth talking with taikonauts, an exhibition of lunar soil and the screening of The Battle at Lake Changjin. Carrie Lam, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, told the Global Times in an exclusive interview on Friday that the majority of Hong Kong people are patriotic, and now it is a favorable environment in Hong Kong for unleashing such a sentiment.

As many in Hong Kong warmly welcomed the visit of Chinese athletes - the tickets to see their activities were sold out within hours last week - public enthusiasm has become more palpable, as the COVID-19 epidemic had cut off frequent exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong for too long, and more importantly, the overall political and social environment in the city has gradually but steadily changed in which the central government's message can be clearly conveyed to the Hong Kong public without being interfered by hostile external and radical opposition forces.

The social turmoil in Hong Kong in 2019 exposed severe loopholes in local governance and the lack of education among Hong Kong youth on national identity awareness. The latest activities, which also attracted many young people in the city, were seen as a major way of arousing public awareness for recognition of the country, while officials and policy advisors highlighted the importance of further advancing national education and civic values.


Photo:Pengpai

Highly expected tour

A welcome ceremony was held on Friday at the Shenzhen Bay Port where Secretary for Home Affairs Caspar Tsui and Timothy Fok Tsun-ting, president of the Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, met the athletes including 28 Olympic gold medalists and sprinter Su Bingtian, in addition to three coaches for swimming, weightlifting and rowing.

The delegation is scheduled to present a series of performances on Saturday including badminton, fencing, gymnastics and table tennis, and some athletes such as table tennis player Ma Long and fencer Sun Yiwen will visit the Hong Kong Polytechnic University on Sunday morning.

China ranked second in the medal count behind the US with 38 gold, 32 silver and 18 bronze medals at Tokyo 2020. And the team of Hong Kong SAR collected six medals, making it "the greatest game ever," as some media reports said, and local athletes like "fencing god" Edgar Cheung Ka-long also made history by winning the city's first gold medal in 25 years.

Public enthusiasm for the Chinese Olympians was also unprecedented, as the 5,300 tickets to view the Olympic stars were sold out within three hours on November 26, and many residents expressed regret for failing to get a ticket, although they understood the concern of epidemic prevention and control.

"It's a tradition for the national Olympic delegation to visit Hong Kong after the Games, which has always been welcomed by the Hong Kong public… The majority of Hong Kong people are patriotic, but such patriotism was affected as we did not properly implement patriotic education since the city's return to the motherland," Lam told the Global Times on Friday.

With the implementation of the national security law for Hong Kong and the electoral reform, the practice of "one country, two systems" is now back to the correct path in Hong Kong. Patriotic behavior won't be affected by the instigation of the opposition groups or illegal activities, which will help people express their respect more for the country, Lam said.

In recent months, taikonauts on board China's Tianhe space station core module delivered a special virtual tour to nearly 300 youths from Hong Kong via an Earth-space video conference in early September, after a star team led by top space experts visited local universities and lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e-5 lunar probe was exhibited in the city in summer. All those activities have been highlighted by local media and welcomed by students. For some of them, it was also the first time to learn about the progress the country has made in scientific exploration.

The Chinese mainland's Korean War-themed blockbuster The Battle at Lake Changjin also drew tremendous popularity among the local communities, especially the youth in Hong Kong. For example, tickets were immediately sold out in the first weekend since it was screened in the city on November 11.

Hung Kam-in, a former member of the Kwun Tong District Council and convener of a think tank in Hong Kong, told the Global Times on Friday that some residents in his community who did not win tickets said they wish these athletes could show up in more public places so that they could get close to them and learn more about China's sports spirit.

He said more of such activities should be organized and conducted in Hong Kong, especially in elementary and middle schools, as face-to-face communication is a better way for Hong Kong's younger generation to deepen their understanding about the country and enhance their awareness of national identity.

Hong Kong people's sense of alienation to the county rose during the 2014 Occupy Central Movement which sparked a strong wave of anti-China sentiment among some youths, but the national security law for Hong Kong successfully "filled the gap" of "feeling far away" from the country, Hung said.

Some athletes also shared their feelings about the visit on Friday. Among them, Su, the 100 meter sprint Asian record holder, told a press conference after arriving in Hong Kong that he grew up watching Hong Kong's TV programs and wished that athletes' spirit of hard work and perseverance would inspire Hong Kong youth to be responsible and motivated.

Chinese Olympians visiting the city after the Olympic Games in the past reflects the central government cares for Hong Kong, Lam told a press conference on Friday. Due to the epidemic, the athletes could not visit more places this time, she said, noting that they could visit Hong Kong more frequently in the future after the resumption of cross-border exchanges between the mainland and Hong Kong.



Photo taken on July 1, 2020, shows Golden Bauhinia Square in Hong Kong, China. Photo: Xinhua

Changed soil

Since the return of Hong Kong to the motherland, Olympic athletes' visits to Hong Kong have been a task of great significance and solidarity, and have been deeply welcomed by Hong Kong people. The visits reflected the central government's unswerving support for Hong Kong's economic and social development, said So Ching-tung, chairman of the Federation of Jinjiang Hong Kong Associations Limited, where the Olympians are scheduled to visit on Sunday.

Compared with the months-long anti-government movement that turned into black-clad riots in 2019, today's Hong Kong society is stable and peaceful. Although it's not the first time for Olympians to visit the city, it is unprecedented that the city has embraced a new environment favorable for advancing national identity and patriotic education.

"Those taikonauts and athletes are national heroes, and their visits have nothing to do with politics, which could more easily arouse cordial feelings between local residents in Hong Kong and those in the mainland," Lau Siu-kai, vice president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, told the Global Times on Friday.

When national team athletes visited the city before, some anti-government media outlets tried to play down their visits, a way of interfering or misinterpreting the message conveyed by the central government to the locals, Lau noted. While major radical opposition forces remained low profile in this new environment, it's important to grab the opportunity to highlight those activities to enhance national awareness among the Hong Kong public, he said.

Besides various activities in Hong Kong like space exploration and sports communication, Hong Kong schools are also required to infuse civic values to bolster students' national identity, an extremely important work in the eyes of Lam. But she said local authorities failed to do it well in the past.

"Without proper patriotic education, some Hong Kong young people were opposed to the central government and had an anti-mainland sentiment," Lam told the Global Times. Lam also stressed that she is willing to take more time to communicate with the education sector in the future as it's extremely important for the youth to learn "one country, two systems," the Constitution, and the national security law.

Further efforts are needed to address media reform, although Hong Kong's media have shown positive changes after the shutdown of Apple Daily, Hung said, noting that journalists' professional ethics and credibility as well as rules to regulate journalists have to be further strengthened. The first thing is to reform the Hong Kong Journalists Association which is not a professional organization on journalism.

Audi CEO Says Extracting Fossil Fuels From Earth 'Has To Stop'

The company wants 20 EVs in its lineup by 2025.


Dec 03, 2021 
By: Anthony Alaniz

Automakers across the industry are moving toward battery electric vehicles in an effort to eliminate harmful emissions and help slow climate change. The transition won't happen overnight, though Audi CEO Markus Duesmann was explicit about climate change's cause – fossil fuels. He made that remark and others at the recent Climate Conference panel discussion co-hosted by Speigel and BCG.

"Climate change is caused by the fossil fuels we're extracting from the ground," Duesmann said. "That has to stop. We need a fossil-free society."

Audi is trying to achieve just that with its electrification push, though a complete, fully electric lineup for the brand is over a decade away. The company announced earlier this year that it wants 20 full-electric vehicles in its global lineup by 2025, with plans to end gasoline engine production by 2033. We have already started to see the company's transition, but it won't truly kick off until 2026, when the company plans to launch only electric vehicles going forward.

2022 Audi RS E-Tron GT: First Drive


That means Audi will be powering its cars with fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, including plug-in hybrid tech, which Duesmann says "bridges the gap" between gas and full EVs by "smoothing the transition to all-electric driving." Hybrids "still has a place for the next few years," he added. One thing that will help EVs go mainstream is robust charging infrastructure, which Audi is also investing in. "Wherever there are cars, there has to be the charging infrastructure," Duesmann said. "We really can't overdo it…."

Audi’s Future EVs:
 

Audi Q6 E-Tron Spied With Full-Body Camo, Fake Lights
⠀ 

Audi Skysphere Concept First Look: An EV Roadster For Pebble Beach

Audi's electric revolution is well underway, with the RS E-Tron, E-Tron SUV, Q5 E-Tron, and Q6 E-Tron. There are rumors that we could see a svelte A6 E-Tron sedan, and we could get a new R8 in 2023 that's either a full EV or a hybrid. We can't wait to see what Audi debuts in the coming years.

Source: Audi

CHINA
Why Pinduoduo is putting all its profit into agriculture
Rita Liao@ritacyliao •December 3, 2021

Image Credits: Pinduoduo (opens in a new window)/ A strawberry grower on Pinduoduo


For the past few years, Pinduoduo has been widely regarded as Alibaba’s strongest challenger. While Alibaba reported 863 million annual active consumers across its retail platforms in the 12 months ended September, Pinduoduo’s monthly active users exceeded 740 million in the quarter ended September.

In its pursuit of new growth engines, Pinduoduo is taking a different route from its older rival. Both e-commerce titans are starting to see their growth plateau, but instead of doubling down on cloud computing like Alibaba, Pinduoduo is pouring money into agriculture.

In August, Pinduoduo unveiled its 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) agriculture program to “face and address critical needs in the agricultural sector and rural areas.” The initiative is all-encompassing, including possible equity funding for agritech startups and grants for fundamental research and talent training.

The program won’t be profit-driven, the company promised, and all profit from the second quarter and “any potential profits in future quarters would be allocated to the initiative.”

Some see Pinduoduo’s investment in agriculture as an effort to alleviate rural poverty and is thus an answer to Beijing’s recent call for “common prosperity,” which denotes “affluence shared by everyone, both in material and cultural terms.” But the company has reiterated that agriculture was at its core business from the outset.

Founded in 2015, Pinduoduo took off by selling fruit online before gradually broadening its product categories. For many growers, e-commerce was a boon. Agriculture in China was dominated by millions of small family-owned farms, which relied on layers of distributors to sell their produce nationwide. The setup meant farmers often ended up with razor-thin profits.

To attract vendors of agricultural products, Pinduoduo has been waiving commissions and said on last week’s earnings call that it planned to maintain the policy for the “future quarters.” Once farmers sign up, the platform then trains them to be savvy digital store operators and marketers. When orders are placed, third-party logistics services transport the produce to consumers, thanks to a mature delivery network that took shape during China’s e-commerce boom.

Pinduoduo isn’t the only Chinese internet platform trying to bring rural produce to urban households. Alibaba’s Taobao has long made “agricultural e-commerce” a key initiative and video apps like Kuaishou are helping farmers sell through livestreaming.

But Pinduoduo wants to go beyond selling and also help tackle farmers’ production problems.

“Trained as engineers, my team and I have devoted ourselves to finding technology solutions to implement across the agriculture supply chain,” Chen Lei, who took over from Colin Huang as the firm’s CEO earlier this year, said on the earnings call.

“Our efforts in applying agriculture technology go beyond matching supply and demand, and extend into identifying upstream technology solutions to improve productivity, nutritional profiles and environmental sustainability. By strengthening agritech applications, we also hope to make agriculture attractive to a tech-savvy younger generation,” Chen added.

Besides selling and growing, Pinduoduo is working with research institutes to implement industry standards for products like meat and crops, the firm’s vice president of finance, Jing Ma, said on the earnings call.

As a Nasdaq-listed company, Pinduoduo is, of course, beholden to its investors. In Q3, the company posted a positive operating profit for the second consecutive quarter, due in part to reduced marketing expenses. In the meantime, the firm is shifting its focus to R&D spending, which accounted for nearly 19% of its operating expenses in Q3.

It will be a while before Pinduoduo’s agricultural investment starts to produce visible results, like, how will its technology help improve yield output for the 16 million farmers selling on Pinduoduo?

The company has shared some early accomplishments. Last year, for instance, it called on startups worldwide to grow the sweetest and most environmentally sustainable strawberries and claimed that the winning team’s precision-farming solution has already been deployed at some farms.

Phillips and Kenney have heated back-and-forth on cost of living in Alberta

Premier Jason Kenney (left) and Shannon Phillips (right). (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Dec 2, 2021 | 11:31 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A heated exchange in the Alberta legislature between the Premier and the NDP’s Finance Critic.

Also the MLA for Lethbridge-West, Shannon Phillips stated that Albertans are struggling to keep up with the ever-rising cost of living in the province.

She asked Finance Minister Travis Toews if he would commit, in his next budget, to stop raising personal income taxes.

Instead, Premier Jason Kenney stood up, joking that, “all of a sudden, Colonel Sanders over there is concerned about the welfare of chickens.”

He said the NDP’s carbon tax was the single-largest tax increase in the province’s history and he found it funny that Phillips was concerned about affordability now.

The Alberta NDP was in power in 2015, they implemented a series of measures aimed at protecting the environment, which included for the first time in Alberta, a carbon tax that would rise to $30 per tonne by 2018.

Kenney then touted the UCP government’s initiatives to improve the economy.

This week, the province provided its second-quarter fiscal update, which shows the budget deficit being $5.8-billion, about a third of what it was previously projected to be by this time.

In Phillips’ response to the fiscal update, she called it nothing more than luck as at least part of the provincial gains were due to global oil prices rebounding, which is out of the control of any one provincial government.

READ MORE: High-flying oil and gas prices paint a rosier shade of red ink on Alberta budget

READ MORE: NDP finance critic calls province’s jump in oil revenue nothing more than “luck”

One of the initiatives undertaken by the UCP that Kenney spoke about in the legislature was the repeal of the Alberta carbon tax. Phillips, however, pointed out that this did not ultimately accomplish much.

After the provincial carbon tax was done away with, the federal government said it would impose its own carbon tax on Alberta if it did not have one of its own.

Ottawa ruled that carbon taxes are constitutional and Albertans now pay a carbon tax to the federal government, currently priced at $40 per tonne.

READ MORE: Kenney “obviously disappointed” in Supreme Court’s carbon tax decision

Phillips then retorted that “the minister can’t control the cost of beef or tomatoes, but he can the cost of tuition, school fees, car insurance, and the price people pay for electricity as the temperature drops. Everything this government touches results in higher fees, higher taxes, reduced benefits for people with kids, folks on AISH, or those receiving the seniors’ benefit.”

The Finance Critic demanded that the UCP show that they understand what average Albertans are facing.

Kenney replied that it was the original NDP carbon tax that raised the cost of groceries, driving to work, heating homes, and the basic cost of living. He added that the Alberta NDP lined up with the federal government when it imposed its own carbon tax on the province.

You can watch the full exchange between Jason Kenney and Shannon Phillips in the embedded tweet below.

Bell: Kenney's Alberta sales tax look-see inches ever closer

Rick Bell: Travis Toews, the budget boss in the provincial government navigating his balance sheet like a ship captain in a hurricane, keeps advancing a script we've heard before but bears repeating

Author of the article:Rick Bell
Publishing date:Dec 03, 2021 • 

Premier Jason Kenney in Edmonton on Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. 

PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM /Postmedia

We do indeed live in an ever-changing world spinning on a very unfamiliar axis.

These days it sure looks like this provincial government is no good at killing cash cows but possibly getting rid of sacred ones seems to be less of a problem.

It just keeps coming up. The more it’s talked about, the more it is …

What do the fancy-pants linguists call it? The more it is normalized.

Travis Toews, the budget boss in the provincial government navigating his balance sheet like a ship captain in a hurricane, keeps advancing a script we’ve heard before but bears repeating.

After all, this week he repeated it.

The man working the numbers said “at this point in time” there will be no sales tax.

But before the next election, in other words sometime in the new year, a collection of experts will be assembled.

Finance Minister Travis Toews delivers the 2021 Alberta budget on Feb. 25, 2021. 

PHOTO BY DAVID BLOOM/POSTMEDIA

In the words of budget boss Toews they will be given “a blank sheet of paper.”

They will be told: “Look, given the economic makeup and structure in the Alberta economy what would be the most appropriate and efficient tax structure.”

The next line of Toews is crucial.

“I won’t take anything off the table.”

Chow down.

These deep thinkers will think great thoughts, mine the mathematical realities as they see them, and dollars to doughnuts they will recommend a sales tax for Alberta.

I’m saying that last bit, not Toews.

But put your finger to the wind and that sure feels like the direction these days.

There would have to be a referendum vote of Albertans to thumbs-up a sales tax but we would be told it would be good for the economy and, for a change, the provincial coffers could actually save some of the billions in oilpatch loot the government scoops every year.

Some Albertans could get angry. Some Albertans will get angry.

Isn’t being the only province without a sales tax a part of Alberta being Alberta? Isn’t having no provincial sales tax included in the definition of The Alberta Advantage?

Of course, then the other shoe could drop. The cat would be let out of the bag.

Perhaps, by then, Toews would try to calm the waters.

“Hey, before you folks scream, we could give you an income tax cut!”

Knowing the mild-mannered Toews, he’d probably leave out the exclamation mark.

A sales tax and an income tax cut. Economic Einsteins have thought about such a possibility.

Maybe some back-of-the-envelope arithmetic could be done. This is all spitballin’.

Maybe Alberta could have a 5% sales tax AND, AND, AND … lower today’s 10% personal income tax rate to, like, 5%.

You’d have more take-home dough in your paycheque but you’d be paying a sales tax.

The wise souls would suggest we’d be better off. The province would be better off. The provincial government’s books would be better off.

Trevor Tombe is a well-known economist from the University of Calgary.

He realizes some people will feel an Alberta sales tax is something to be feared and he thinks he knows why

.

Calgary-based economist Trevor Tombe 

PHOTO BY LEAH HENNEL/POSTMEDIA

“I don’t think it should be a scary thing,” says the professor.

“But perhaps the most important reason is because you see the amount you pay in sales taxes almost every single day.”

Yes, we do have the GST.

“It’s very visible. That makes it more psychologically painful to pay than income taxes, which are all done in the background and you don’t really think about it except for once a year.

“Things that are in your face bug you. They take up a lot more space in your head, more mental energy. That means the pain of paying is higher for sales taxes.”

Then there is the question of whether people would believe we weren’t being screwed if a sales tax came in along with an income tax cut.

Tombe admits some individuals wouldn’t trust the government to have the calculations done correctly. You think.

The economist also points out when oil prices are higher, opposition to a sales tax would likely be greater.

When times are tougher, a sales tax stands better odds.

“When the budget deficit is really large, people might be willing to bite the bullet and have a sales tax.”

Right now, oil isn’t in the stratosphere but it’s not shabby.

What do Albertans think?

This time last year, there was a provincial government survey on all things financial ahead of the Alberta government budget.

Questions were asked, some about taxes and your tolerance for taxes.

What did Albertans say?

According to Toews’ office, the results were never made public.

rbell@postmedia.com

Opinion: Alberta benefits from higher crude prices but anxiety also runs high

December 4, 2021 by anxietycareguide.com

Rising consumer prices are a complex issue for Alberta. The county benefits greatly from rising prices for basic commodities, but just like everyone else in the world, people here are hurting by increased costs in a still shaky economy.

The country’s inflation rate is accelerating upward along with that of other countries, including the United States, which are grappling with supply chain issues as consumer spending picks up. Families pay more for groceries, new vehicles, and fuels such as natural gas and gasoline.

The good news for oil-rich Alberta is that higher prices for refined crude oil to gasoline here and in the United States are helping the province’s finances significantly. A financial update this week showed this year’s deficit is likely to be less than a third of the size projected in the February budget.

Each $1 increase in the average price of a standard West Texas Intermediate test during a full fiscal year results in an additional $230 million in revenue for the Alberta government. Even as the cost of crude oil drops in conjunction with growing concerns about the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, prices per barrel are still $25 higher than what the Alberta government expected nine months ago. The higher prices for natural gas also help.

RBC Economics said in a report this week that Saskatchewan, Alberta and Ontario will lead the way in Canadian economic growth in 2022. Alberta’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent in November, down from 15 percent in June, 2020. Jason Kinney said The recovery of the economy will have a positive effect on wages. “As the economy picks up momentum, I expect to see wage inflation to help at least some families deal with the rising cost of living,” the prime minister told reporters this week.

Although signs are pointing to recovery, the economy is still emerging from rock bottom. The county has a higher unemployment rate than others. Albertans’ famously high incomes have declined in recent years, while average incomes have grown in other provinces.

“The pandemic has created a deep hole — the deepest among counties,” RBC Economics said this week, with gross domestic product falling nearly 8 per cent last year. Alberta did not fully recover from the 2015-2016 recession when the pandemic hit.

It seems people aren’t feeling the good news relatively yet. According to a survey conducted by the Angus Reid Institute at the end of November, 52 percent of people in Alberta — a higher percentage than any other province — say this year they are feeling more stressed than most when it comes to their budget. The same survey found that Albertans are more likely than residents of any other province to say that this year they feel more emotional stress than a typical year. (Not surprisingly for a province to the west ravaged by heat, fires, floods, and landslides, British Columbia comes in second.)

Among the provinces, Alberta has the highest percentage of people, two in five, who report experiencing financial and emotional stress. (Across the country, women in the 18-34 age group are also more likely to be in this group, or all 35-54 year olds.)

The province’s NDP says Albertans have suffered more costs and pressure from the United Conservative Party’s handling of issues that include imposing the nation’s highest increases in post-secondary tuition fees over the past two years, and de-indexing personal income taxes to allow brackets to creep in. .

“It’s not Jason Kinney’s fault that the price of tomatoes or bacon went up by about 12 percent, but his mistake that tuition fees increased by 12 percent,” said financial critic Shannon Phillips.

(Mr. Kenny dismissed such criticism this week by returning to the NDP’s adoption of a carbon price, “the largest tax increase in Alberta history” when the party was in government.) THE CARBON TAX WAS RETURNED TO TAXPAYERS ANNUALLY REDUCING OUR TAXES THANKS

But there are also persistent, nagging questions about the economic hit (and reputation) that the county’s Open for Summer program has wreaked on the removal of COVID-19 health restrictions, and the delayed response associated with the fourth wave of the pandemic. The NDP continues to criticize the government over who was responsible for making the decision on the pandemic in August while the prime minister and health minister were on vacation and county hospitals became overwhelmed with the sick and dying.

The variable Omicron and questions about how bad this new boom will be has created a whole host of new economic uncertainties. Inflation will likely continue to be a global headache for months to come, and in some ways it could even get worse.

Kenny said this week that the steep rise in costs is making life more difficult for everyone. In an uncharacteristically disciplined fashion, he has not delved much into the House of Commons squabble over inflation, and the Fed’s conservative argument that excessive spending by the Trudeau government and the Bank of Canada’s quantitative easing programs is to blame. Alberta’s prime minister said simply that he was calling on Ottawa to adopt responsible monetary and fiscal policies that “don’t add fuel to the fire”.

His government is still thinking about what it can do to help Albertans. The Prime Minister said: “We are studying the measures that we may be able to take before the February budget or within its limits.” Finance Secretary Travis Toyos said in an interview in October that he would be watching through the winter to see if anyone needed help with their home heating bills as a sign of what might be considered.

“The good news is that we have an abundance of natural gas here and there and our industry’s ability to extract, process and distribute it very efficiently,” he said. “We’ll take care.”

Canada’s crop production plummeted in 2021, says StatCan

By Adrian McMorris Global News
Posted December 4, 2021 


It wasn’t a good year to be a crop farmer and Statistics Canada has the numbers to prove it.


Production of several major field crops, except for corn, fell across the country.

Manitoba saw wheat production decrease by 28.9 per cent to 3.8 million tonnes while yields fell by 21.9 per cent to 47.9 bushels per acre, according to StatCan.


READ MORE: Federal government to invest $4.3M for Canadian pulse, special crop farmers

Wheat yields across Canada fell by 38.5 per cent to 21.7 million tonnes with Saskatchewan taking the brunt of crop losses, seeing their yields plummet by 43.4 per cent to 26 bushels an acre.

It was hardly a banner year for canola, which fell to the lowest levels since 2007 with a 35.4 per cent drop in production.

Canola yields across Western Canada decreased by 40.2 per cent to only 25 bushels an acre. Despite Manitoba’s harvested area increasing by 0.3 per cent to 3.4 million acres, yields fell by 28.3 per cent resulting in 29.7 bushels an acre.

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It wasn’t all doom and gloom, however, as StatCan says corn production increased by 3.1 per cent to 14 million tonnes despite a 1.3 per cent drop in harvested area across the country.

Ontario say corn yields jump by nearly 7 per cent to a record-high 175.2 bushels an acre, offsetting a 0.5 per cent decrease in harvested area.

Manitoba’s soybean production fell by just over 17 per cent even though farmers harvested more land; yields are down 27.3 per cent to 27.1 bushels an acre.

1:52 Crop yields expected to be very low compared to 2020 harvest – Sep 23, 2021

Computer predicts the end of civilisation 

(1973) RetroFocus

ABC News In-depth
In 1973, Australia's largest computer predicted trends such as pollution levels, population growth, availability of natural resources and quality of life on earth.

 

Demolition Man The movie that WARNED US OF 2020-2032 – Fun Facts.

The spread of a deadly virus, zero physical contact, censorship on social networks, a ban on sugary products, a ban on abortion, the chip in the human body (Neuralink) and penalties for inappropriate behavior are just some of the things that the movie The Demolition Man predicted in 1993 and that today are a reality.