h/t Bob H
In Support of Smaller Government!
“”Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” – John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
U.S. radio show host Michael Graham made a powerful argument to Irish listeners recently in this 10 minute podcast.
Fact is, most everything he said could have been presented to a Canadian audience. Why do so few Canadian politicians ever take the time to make the [small-c] conservative argument about how our country would work better with LESS government?!
Breaking News: BC Teachers tentatively heading back to work
An agreement appears to have been reached.
Because surplus is over-taxation.
The Small Business Job Credit will effectively lower small businesses’ Employment Insurance (EI) premiums from the current legislated rate of $1.88 to $1.60 per $100 of insurable earnings in 2015 and 2016. Any firm that pays employer EI premiums equal to or less than $15,000 in those years will be eligible for the credit. Almost 90% of all EI premium-paying businesses in Canada will receive the credit, reducing their EI payroll taxes by nearly 15%.
Nice Work If You Can Get It
The chief of a British Columbia First Nation with 81 residents earned nearly $1 million last year:
The BC NDP’s Ferry Scandal Redux?
In the late 1990’s, BC NDP Premier Glen Clark spearheaded a disastrous “fast ferry” shipbuilding initiative that ended up wasting the taxpayers of the province almost half a billion dollars.
Fast forward to 2014 and we find BC NDP MLA Claire Trevena insisting that new ferries be built by the province’s dysfunctional shipbuilding industry:
In May, I introduced the provincial shipbuilding act in the legislature. This legislation allows for the development of a provincial shipbuilding strategy. It would ensure vessels built with public money are built in Canada, and it would assist in building a highly skilled strong workforce through apprenticeships. Unfortunately, the B.C. Liberals have blocked this legislation.
What Ms. Trevena fails to mention is that BC’s shipbuilding industry is plagued with oppressive unions which ensure that few projects can be completed on time and on budget. It would be interesting to see a non-union shipbuilding company emerge but the NDP and their comrades will forever do their best to prevent that from happening.
Alison Redford Was Flying High … on the Taxpayers’ Dime
Interesting revelations from Alberta’s Auditor General:
Former premier Alison Redford’s staff listed “false passengers” on government flights in order to block others from flying with her, shows a report from Alberta’s Auditor General.
In an internal government report obtained by CBC News, Auditor General Merwan Saher found that Redford’s staff entered fake passengers into the government’s online booking system and then erased the passengers before printing a final flight manifest.
“We were told by [the premier’s] office staff and multiple staff from the Department of Treasury Board and Finance that for certain flights the remaining seats available on the plane were blocked to restrict access to Premier Redford on the aircraft,” part of the review states.
“The implications of this practice were that other government employees or elected officials would not have been able to travel on those aircraft.”
Update: Charles Adler discusses the scandal with Lorne Gunter.
Wynning!
In her endless thirst to confiscate more money from taxpayers, Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne is planning on a tax increase for air travelers in her province:
The fuel tax, currently at 2.7 cents per litre, will jump to 6.7 cents by 2017, under Ontario’s budget proposal — an “unbelievably punitive” hike according to Ben Smith, Air Canada’s chief commercial officer. Smith isn’t wrong. Airlines, which continue as barely profitable in 2014, operate on the tightest of margins. The hike is expected to cost Air Canada alone more than $50-million next year. To put this figure into context, the airline generated just $50-million in net profit in 2012.
Sadly, Leftists like Wynne, have never understood the Law of Unintended Consequences:
So news of Ontario’s fuel tax hike is sure to set hearts aflutter at U.S. border airports. The tax increase is expected to direct an additional 300,000 to 400,000 Canadian passengers to U.S. airports, according to Canada’s National Airlines Council. This will do serious damage to Canada’s airports, critical generators of job growth, and thus the Canadian economy overall.
h/t Peter J.
You Might Be a Leftist
Vancouver’s Mayor Moonbeam (and his hair) wants the city to purchase the extremely successful Granville Island from the federal government. Why? No one is entirely sure. The only thing that is certain is that the actual price doesn’t appear to matter. Why should it? It’s not their money they’d be spending.
Your Tax Dollars At Work
Related! Waterfront Toronto spent more than $500,000 on two painted rocks and $11,565 on 36 pink umbrellas at Sugar Beach, a councillor has learned.
Latest in the Tale of Canada’s Snail Mail
Changes are coming from Canada Post:
The cost of mailing a first-class letter within Canada went up to 85 cents today — a 35 per cent jump from the 63 cents it previously cost.
At the same time, it also revealed plans to phase out door-to-door mail delivery over a five-year period to the millions of urban Canadian homes that still get it.
Vancouver’s Unfolding “Povertygate”
The recent revelations of the luxurious spending of the Portland Hotel Society appear to be just the opening chapter in a long tale of corruption and greed. The National Post’s Brian Hutchinson had much to say this morning:
Among the astonishments in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, its heavily subsidized misery and decay, are the politicians. They rule in perpetuity while producing, well, what?
Mr. Small was a handsomely compensated and increasingly well-travelled executive with the PHS Community Services Society (PHS), the biggest, most aggressive social services provider in the neighbourhood, a $28-million-a-year giant funded almost entirely by tax dollars, most from provincial coffers, with millions more in federal funding topping things off.
A smile, she has said, “is worth a thousand bucks.” But a toot across Europe costs a lot more, as she has just discovered. In her case, $34,992.27, at least.
16th Annual “Teddy” Awards
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has released the winners and nominees.
“The Teddy, the pig-shaped award given annually by the CTF to government’s worst waste offenders, is named for Ted Weatherill, a former federal appointee who was turfed in 1999 for submitting an imaginative collection of sketchy expense claims, including a $700 lunch for two.”
View the whole list. (PDF, 12pp)
America’s Debt Crisis Explained
Cracked Up in Vancouver
Now he’s against it.
“I don’t like it, I think it’s awful,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “I understand it’s a work of engineering to balance it on it’s edge, [but] I think it’s terrible.”
An Easy to Understand Guide to the U.S. Debt Limit
This was published a few years ago but is still just as applicable today. Sadly.
Great Moments in Socialism
Any Canadian who follows politics is well aware that a few times each year the Canadian Centre for Policy Failure Alternatives comes out with some new “paper” insisting that minimum wages across the country need to be dramatically raised to a “livable wage”. This then causes politicians and business leaders to duck for cover for a few weeks until the PR campaign gets pushed out of the news cycle.
Such has been the case in America this past week. In a well coordinated campaign, organized by the militant SEIU, their more than willing comrades in the media, have done their best to paint a bleak picture for restaurant workers everywhere.
Bill O’Reilly shares some personal thoughts on the matter.
Update: Here’s a brief mathematical analysis of the situation. h/t Maureen
Is it Time to Privatize Canada Post?
Andrew Coyne thinks so. Here’s part of his argument:
An elderly Winnipeg couple had their mail service abruptly cut off because their front steps were judged a safety hazard, being two inches taller than the 12-inch maximum;
Homeowners who post a “no flyer” notice on their mailbox have received letters from Canada Post warning them that by refusing to accept delivery of junk mail they are missing out on a chance to be “connected with your local community”;
The corporation has fallen back into its old habit of losing money, after more than a decade in the black. A study by the Conference Board of Canada projects annual losses of $1 billion by the end of the decade. Indeed, as the National Post’s John Ivison has reported, Canada Post itself predicts it will run out of cash as early as next spring, helped along by a $5.9-billion unfunded liability in its pension plan;
It has, however, settled a three-decade old suit with the Public Service Alliance of Canada over pay-equity claims, at an estimated total cost of $250 million;
Meanwhile, the corporation cannot explain what it got in return for hiring Dave Dingwall, the former Liberal cabinet minister, as a consultant, at a cost of a million dollars over six years.
No Sympathy for Canada’s Big Three Wireless Firms
The federal government appears fed up with the multimillion-dollar advertising campaign by Telus, Bell, & Rogers, attacking Ottawa’s strategy to attract foreign telecommunications companies.
In an interview with The Globe and Mail, [James] Moore compared Canada’s wireless players to North American auto makers of decades past that faced a wave of foreign competitors. “I am quite certain that in the 1980s, Chrysler and GM and Ford were making arguments that we don’t need Hondas and we don’t need Toyotas and we don’t need BMWs, we don’t need Audis in Canada,” he said in an interview. “I think more competition has served us very well in the auto sector.”
As expected, the usual suspects disagree with the Tories and tacitly or explicitly support the Big Three.
Update: Here’s a well written piece by Ben Klass, providing an historical perspective on the matter.