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By susanonthesoapbox, on May 19, 2013, at 8:00 pm Sigh…where to start? The barrage of bad news spewing out of the Premier’s office has been so intense that the government’s Machiavellian takeover of post secondary institutions and research and development slipped by with relatively little public outcry.
Sure, some students and academics staged protests on the steps of the Legislature but the general public doesn’t know what the fuss is about. Is it higher tuition fees? No. Do the professors want higher salaries? No. Well what then?
Government-driven R&D
The PC government has recognized (yet again) that Alberta’s economic survival depends (Read more…)
By trashee, on May 6, 2013, at 7:58 pm … We’ve been told that conservatives are better money managers… So. Um. Why is $3 billion or so, um, missing? Money managers? Methinks Harper is over his head. (5) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
By Greg Fingas, on April 11, 2013, at 10:44 pm Assorted content to end your day.
- Carol Goar discusses how the Cons’ latest attacks on Employment Insurance add just one burden to the backs of workers who have already borne the brunt of decades of corporatist policy:
(L)ast Sunday, employment insurance benefits in two-thirds of the country were quietly reduced. Existing recipients were spared but new EI claimants — starting with the 54,500 workers who lost their jobs in March — will be subject to tougher rules. Most will get less support.
Generalizations are impossible. The impact on any person depends on his or her employment record, skills and
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
By susanonthesoapbox, on March 31, 2013, at 4:43 pm Ogden Nash
To paraphrase Ogden Nash (actually Mr Nash did not utter this famous phrase, but for some reason we all think he did), “Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where my bonus is?”
It is indeed bonus time. Executives in the private sector watched their bonuses shrivel as the oil and gas industry slid into the abyss but the 100 or so senior executives at Alberta Health Services (AHS) can rest easy. They’re being shielded from the “fiscal reality” plaguing the rest of us. Their bonuses are intact.
It’s called “pay-at-risk”
. . . → Read More: Susan on the Soapbox: Alberta Health Services Executive Bonuses: The joy of friends in high places
By Greg Fingas, on March 29, 2013, at 11:58 am Assorted content to end your week.
- While there’s room to question whether we should accept spending as self-definition in the first place, Zoe Williams is right to make the point that arbitrary restrictions on benefits serve to put yet more barriers to full social participation in front of the people who can least afford them: Replacing cash with vouchers has a number of damaging effects. First, it’s infantilising. Crisis loans delivered this way take on the shape of pocket money or charity. Second, it’s stigmatising, as asylum seekers on the Azure card often point out – people don’t want
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on March 28, 2013, at 10:01 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Edward Greenspon discusses the importance of a public service whose focus extends beyond the narrow interests of the government of the day: The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work for governments, particularly those employed – in the evolving argot of recent decades – as knowledge workers or symbolic analysts or members of the creative class, are, in a sense, servants. They owe a duty of loyalty to carry out the programs and policies of the elected government of the day. But they also have a broader public duty to the pursuit . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Guest Blog, on March 23, 2013, at 6:58 pm By: Canada World Youth | Press Release: MONTREAL – Minister Flaherty announced, on March 21st, the amalgamation of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). Canada World Youth has enjoyed a strong working relationship with CIDA over the past 40 years [...]
The post Canada World Youth Concerned About The Amalgamation of CIDA and DFAIT appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.
By Jim Sadlemyer, on March 22, 2013, at 8:53 am Inspired by these headlines: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2013/03/ministers-hit-the-hometown-good-news-circuit-as-house-kicks-off-budget-debate.html
http://www.globalnews.ca/flaherty+to+forego+usual+budget+tour+for+asia+trip/6442832954/story.html
By Jim Sadlemyer, on March 19, 2013, at 8:21 pm Inspired by this headline: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/03/19/pol-flaherty-budget-letter.html
By Greg Fingas, on March 12, 2013, at 9:12 am This and that for your Tuesday reading.
- The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has unveiled its alternative federal budget – which highlights the choice between the Cons’ needless austerity, and the 200,000-300,000 extra jobs which could be created alongside important social improvements which could be brought about through well-placed public action.
- Meanwhile, Murray Dobbin worries that the use of interest rates alone as an economic growth strategy is feeding an unsustainable housing bubble – offering anpther indication as to why we should work on expanding socially productive activities rather than hoping that unfettered (and indeed exacerbated) market forces
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
By susanonthesoapbox, on March 10, 2013, at 3:23 pm “Opening new markets across Canada and around the world has become job one for this government.”—Finance Minister Horner on the 2013 Budget priorities, Alberta Hansard p1440.
That simple sentence tells you all you need to know about Budget 2013 and how your tax dollars are going to be spent in the coming years. What it doesn’t explain is why the government thinks that it’s in the oil and gas business.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
On March 7, 2013 I dragged myself out of bed (I had the flu) to watch Finance Minister Horner deliver
. . . → Read More: Susan on the Soapbox: Budget 2013 (If you want to play with the Big Boys, you play by Big Boy Rules)
By Greg Fingas, on March 7, 2013, at 9:03 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Lawrence Martin discusses how the B.C. Libs, Harper Cons and other governments have responded to transparency requirements by deliberately refusing to record what they’re doing and why: News from the government of British Columbia. Sorry citizens, we have no files. There is no written record of our decisions. You want to know how we operate? Sorry.
It’s no joke. A report from Elizabeth Denham, the province’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, says the rate of ‘no records’ responses to freedom of information requests is soaring. At the premier’s office, no less
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By vsp, on March 6, 2013, at 3:42 am The Conservatives, in a grand act of pettiness, have punted the Canadian Taxpayers Federation from the budget lockup on the 7th. It is likely in response to the organization holding the government’s feet to the fire. The budget lockup is a long tradition of the province that invites politicians from the opposition benches, the media, and [...]
By susanonthesoapbox, on February 24, 2013, at 3:45 pm We interrupt our regular programming—the PC spin on the cause of the $4 billion budget shortfall—to bring you an important public service announcement from the Premier-In-Waiting, Mr Lukaszuk.
Mr Lukaszuk steps up to the microphone and says: Listen up you pesky union types, and this includes all you doctors who aren’t in a union but who cares, from now on all collective bargaining will go through me. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Thomas Lukaszuk, MLA Deputy Premier (Photo credit: dave.cournoyer)
OK he wasn’t quite that blunt, but that was the gist of it.
. . . → Read More: Susan on the Soapbox: And Now…A Message from your Premier-In-Waiting: Mr Lukaszuk
By The Liberal Scarf, on February 21, 2013, at 4:27 pm Yesterday, Finance Minister Charles Sousa started his first round of pre-Budget consultations in Mississauga, listening to the concerns of everyday Ontario families as he works to prepare a budget focused on creating jobs, lowering youth unemployment, and fostering growth and opportunity as the way forward.
“My hope is that the members of the Opposition have heard how closely I’ve listened to their concerns and the concerns of people around the province,” Wynne told reporters.Sousa, meanwhile, said he will get in touch with Opposition parties as he prepares the budget.“Premier Wynne wants to work with members of the Opposition
. . . → Read More: The Liberal Scarf: Hudak wants a $300 million election, vows to vote against a budget that hasn’t been written yet
By Song of the Watermelon, on February 20, 2013, at 9:37 pm Five months ago, I predicted that the Liberal government of British Columbia would fail in its effort to balance the 2013 budget. Notwithstanding this week’s boastful headlines to the contrary, the jury is still out.
I will not assert, as many others have done, that the surplus is purely fictional, but rather that, for the time being, we just don’t know. So many variables are at play, and the projected surplus is so razor-thin — $197 million in a $44 billion operational budget — that we will have to wait until well after the May election before we can be (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on February 15, 2013, at 6:05 pm Unintentional setup… Ultimately, any evaluation of a government’s fiscal responsibility should include its willingness to make effective investments that carry a short-term cost and its prudence in avoiding unnecessary long-term liabilities – not merely any single-year balance sheet. And we’ll be left to pay the eventual price if we fail to demand that broader view.
…meet unfortunate punchline: On Friday, the government released its third-quarter financial report, projecting the province will finish the 2012-13 fiscal year with a pre-transfer surplus of $8.8 million in its general revenue fund. However, that’s a decrease of $86.2 million from what
By Greg Fingas, on February 14, 2013, at 9:04 am Here, on how a narrow focus on balancing budgets misses the more important story as to how our elected officials manage public money.
For further reading…- Paul Krugman makes a similar point with reference to happiness economics, while highlighting the particular value of stimulus within a depressed U.S. economy. – Ian Lovett reports on California’s proliferation of “capital appreciation bonds” as a prime example of the dangerous buy now, pay later approach, while Douglas Hainks points out that Miami’s new baseball stadium will escalate in cost from $91 million to $1.2 billion under a similar scheme.
By Greg Fingas, on February 4, 2013, at 8:52 am Shorter Brent Rathgeber:
What government backbencher would dare consider asking the Parliamentary Budget Officer for information if he can’t suppress any inconvenient findings? I’d rather stay ignorant, thank you very much.
By Obert Madondo, on January 28, 2013, at 12:54 pm by Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, Jan. 28, 2013: Remember Occupy, Canada? A new Statistics Canada analysis of income trends among Canadian taxfilers from 1982 to 2010, released today, confirms three of the many concerns Occupy protesters expressed in late 2011. Concerns relating to income inequality, poverty, corporate greed, etc. First, members of the exclusive club of the top READ MORE
By Edward Hollett, on January 23, 2013, at 6:00 am Right after Ross Reid’s new job, Jerome Kennedy’s trip back to the finance ministry was the second most overblown story of the past week or so.
Most seem to think Kennedy is headed back to finance in order to tackle the public sector unions as part of the upcoming budget. That gives a bit too much credit to the individual in all this. The budget isn’t handled by one person: it is the productive of collective action by a committee of ministers called the treasury board and ultimately by cabinet.
As the recent Telegram editorial on Kennedy’s appointment noted, the budget is all but finished at this point. They are absolutely right. What has normally happened in January since 2003 is essentially about the government delivering some kind of message or other. In January 2008, part of the message was about a pile of new spending right after the . . . → Read More: The Sir Robert Bond Papers: The Annual Mixed-Message Season #nlpoli
By Greg Fingas, on January 10, 2013, at 8:53 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Karl Flecker discusses how the Cons’ push to encourage employers to use temporary foreign workers will affect wages for everybody: In fact, what Kenney said was untrue. He has conveniently forgotten that his government significantly changed the wage rules for employers hiring high-skilled migrant workers. On April 25, 2012, after direct consultations with a select group of employers, Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources Skills Development Canada, announced a new “Accelerated Labour Market Opinion” to provide employers with “greater flexibility.” “Wages,” she said, “that are up to 15 per cent below
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Ian Chadwick, on December 24, 2012, at 11:05 am Tip of the hat to Ian Adams for clearing up any misrepresentation of council’s expenses and clarifying some information, in his most recent blog post. The total council expense allotment is well under budget this year. It usually is; we … Continue reading →
By Greg Fingas, on December 6, 2012, at 6:19 pm This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Pat Atkinson discusses the need to make sure that Saskatchewan’s boom-time spending actually sets us up for long-term prosperity, rather than fiscal disaster: Even though the OECD report, the burgeoning federal government deficit, China’s economic slowdown and America’s political deadlock all advise us that now is the time for caution, the Wall government is trapped. Its political image is completely dependent upon constant economic growth or the appearance of it.
It is so cemented in its own message of a New Saskatchewan, that any deviation from it is unlikely.
From its first
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
By Greg Fingas, on November 10, 2012, at 10:38 am This and that for your weekend reading.- Andrew Jackson takes a look at the UK’s strong movement for a living wage, and notes that it’s long past time for a similar push in Canada.- The most remarkable part of this week’s revelations about the Cons’ cu… . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
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