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By Obert Madondo, on June 16, 2013, at 6:05 pm By: Obert Madondo Twitter: @Obiemad
An Alberta businessman is included in a massive online database of secret tax-haven names released to the public on Friday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. David Ghermezian, the president of the West Edmonton Mall, is linked to a British Virgin Islands-registered company called Regal Mega Malls Development Corp, the CBC News reports.
Ghermezian’s inclusion on this list got me thinking about the pro-business Harper Conservatives and their undisguised determination to coddle tax havens and tax cheats.
The database, first leaked by the CBC and ICIJ in April, indicates that at least 130,000 people globally are (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on June 13, 2013, at 10:45 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- Mike Fancie offers this year’s definitive response to the the misguided concept of “tax freedom”: The Fraser Institute’s math on income and taxation has been roundly criticized, including by a former Assistant Chief Statistician and by our Andrew Jackson for skewing numbers to make a point. But while we take issue with the Fraser Institute’s numbers, and setting aside the bias inherent in their tax calculator’s $150,000 income ceiling, the more important discussion lies in appreciating why we pay taxes in the first place. Our tax dollars, far from disappearing into a (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on June 10, 2013, at 10:00 am Miscellaneous material to start your week.
- Jason Fekete reports that the Harper Cons are taking the side of international tax evaders against other G8 leaders trying to implement an effective enforcement system. And CBC reports that the Canada Revenue Agency has repeatedly turned down the opportunity to access information about tax cheats based on a policy of not offering enforcement rewards.
- In the wake of revelations about the U.S.’ PRISM surveillance system (summarized by Mathew Ingram), Michael Geist warned that Canadians should be equally concerned about their privacy. And that observation looks particularly apt in (Read more…)
By Greg Fingas, on May 15, 2013, at 10:10 am Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.
- Michael Babad takes a look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data on wages and employment levels – reaching the conclusion that the corporatist effort to drive wages down does nothing to improve employment prospects. But the absence of any remotely plausible policy justification hasn’t stopped the Sask Party from “modernizing” the province’s rules governing work by setting them back upwards of half a century.
- Meanwhile, Pat Atkinson rightly notes that the most important problem with the Cons’ push for temporary foreign workers is the “temporary” part. And Nicholas Keung and Dana Flavelle (Read more…)
By Admin CP, on May 13, 2013, at 5:39 pm By: Canadians for Tax Fairness May 10, 2013: Canadian money stashed in the top 12 global tax havens has topped $170 Billion, according to data on foreign direct investment released yesterday by Statistics Canada. This amounts to a quarter of all Canadian money going abroad. This figure is also equivalent [...]
The post $170 billion: Canadian money in foreign tax havens, an all-time high appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Greg Fingas, on May 5, 2013, at 11:41 am Assorted content for your Sunday reading.
- Aviva Shen looks at Monsanto’s history of regulatory capture – with the recent “Monsanto Protection Act” serving as just a minor example in a long list of control over U.S. law: Monsanto insists that its revolving door is in overdrive because Monsanto employees are simply the best qualified for positions in these agencies, who certainly don’t hold onto their loyalty to the company in their new roles.
Yet it’s hard to ignore how Monsanto has benefited from these connections. The USDA has never denied a single application for Monsanto’s genetically engineered crops. (Read more…)
By Obert Madondo, on April 15, 2013, at 3:51 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The use of tax havens is at an all-time high in Canada and it’s costing Canadians an estimated $7.8 billion annually, the executive director of Canadians for Tax Fairness, Dennis Howlett, recently said in his brief to the House of Commons Finance Committee. Now the Canada Revenue Agency [...]
The post Canada Revenue Agency asks CBC to submit data on tax havens appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
By Greg Fingas, on April 4, 2013, at 11:17 am This and that for your Thursday reading.
- John Greenwood and CBC News both report on the offshore tax avoidance being revealed through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. And Susan Lunn observes that Canada’s federal parties are all at least paying lip service to the issue – though of course the Cons’ cuts to tax enforcement speak louder than their spin.
- Meanwhile, Paul McLeod notes that income inequality will also receive at least some much-needed attention in Parliament. And Danyaal Raza’s discussion of the damage done to public health by inequality looks to offer one important point worth
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
By Obert Madondo, on March 24, 2013, at 1:45 pm By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The Harper Conservatives’ 2013 federal budget is a ”missed opportunity for the economy and services”, says the Public Service Alliance of Canada. PSAC says austerity measures hurt Canadians, urges the government to reverse course. This press release: The union representing most federal government workers in Canada says that [...]
The post Federal Budget 2013 missed opportunity for the economy and services: PSAC appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.
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 Greg Fingas, on March 16, 2013, at 11:03 am Assorted content for your weekend reading.
- Jason Fekete reports on the growing recognition that tax evasion and avoidance are serious global problems – and the Cons’ attempt to be seen nodding at the issues. Needless to say, that posturing would be far more plausible if the same Cons weren’t simultaneously announcing their intention to slash the Canada Revenue Agency’s enforcement capability even further (in keeping with their past moves to attack the CRA).
- Meanwhile, the fallout from Peter Penashue’s acceptance of illegal corporate campaign donations continues. And it’s well worth highlighting the fact that the financial agent
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
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 Greg Fingas, on March 2, 2013, at 4:32 pm This and that to end your Saturday.
- Bill Curry breaks the news of the Cons’ next round of public service slashing – with Canada Revenue Agency employees whose work far more than pays for itself once more looming as one of the main targets of a government determined to ease the way for tax evasion and avoidance.
- Jodie Sinnema reports on the Parkland Institute’s ideas for a more progressive tax system in Alberta. And it’s particularly worth noting that Albertans themselves recognize the value of fair taxes even as their government continues to insist on the need to
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
By David Climenhaga, on January 16, 2013, at 1:57 am This just in! The latest mainstream media news straight from the Vancouver studios of the Fraser Institute, complete with no fact checking!
No sooner noted than illuminated – yesterday morning mainstream media was credulously reporting another “Fraser Factoid,” this one a report by the far-right political lobby group purporting to show Albertans get poor value for the money they spend on public health care.
Actually, since in this case the market-fundamentalist “think tank” had little choice but to rely on publicly available and legitimate research to tease out its predictable conclusions, the news couldn’t be made to seem as bad
. . . → Read More: Alberta Diary: Misleading with statistics: the Fraser Institute on health care and ‘value for money’
By David Climenhaga, on January 15, 2013, at 1:01 am Michael Walker, right, President of the Fraser Institute Foundation and former director of the Fraser Institute, looks at a copy of the Edmonton Sun with a well-known columnist from that newspaper. The great public intellectuals of the Canadian right may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Consistent Fraser Institute donors Charles and David Koch.
In 2011, the market-fundamentalist Fraser Institute continued to accept substantial funding from the U.S.-based Koch Brothers, the far-right New York billionaires who have helped bankroll the extremist American Tea Party.
A U.S. tax filing for a foundation controlled by Charles Koch (pronounced “coke”)
. . . → Read More: Alberta Diary: In 2011, Fraser Institute continued to take Koch Brothers donations and file tax returns claiming no political activity
By Greg Fingas, on December 19, 2012, at 11:42 am Boy, this would seem like a great opportunity for anybody truly concerned about government interference in a fulsome political debate to make the case for freedom of speech. We could even label that hero with a pithy term like “free speech warrior”. Now if only such a person existed.
By Greg Fingas, on November 17, 2012, at 12:04 pm Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Bill Curry reports on the Cons’ latest public-sector slashing. But there hasn’t yet been much discussion of the most alarming number: upwards of 30% of the Cons’ cuts are coming from the Canada Revenue Agency… . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
By Greg Fingas, on November 11, 2012, at 10:30 am Assorted content for your Sunday reading.- Haroon Siddiqui highlights the similarities between the Harper Cons and the U.S. Republicans – who lost last week’s election, and are even less popular outside their country’s own borders (including in Canada)… . . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
By david, on October 29, 2012, at 2:05 am Tory MP wonders about Bill C-377: “Is anybody really interested in breaching Sally the Receptionist’s privacy because she earns 40k answering the phones at the Union Hiring Hall?” Below: Stephen Kushner.
Surely it is one of life’s little ironies that among the groups certain to be caught in the web of Bill C-377, the federal private member’s “transparency” bill mischievously designed to cripple unions with onerous reporting requirements, would be the anti-union Edmonton-based Merit Contractors Association.
Earlier this year, the Merit Contractors and their counterparts in other provinces set up a website and launched a national campaign complete with
. . . → Read More: Alberta Diary: There is a God: Merit Contractors, advocates of Bill C-377, would be caught in its web
By david, on August 14, 2012, at 1:29 am Commentator Ezra Levant lets go a broadside at Tides Canada on his Sun News Network program. Below: Researcher Tony Clark; Jamie Ellerton, executive director of Mr. Levant’s Ethical Oil Institute; National Revenue Minister Gail Shea.
As is well known, the “Ethical Oil Institute,” the Edmonton-based organization founded by Sun News Network commentator Ezra Levant to support petroleum extraction companies in Alberta, has complained to the Canada Revenue Agency demanding the charitable status of Tides Canada “be reviewed for violating Canada’s charities law.”
Last week, Ethical Oil accused the Vancouver-based environmental and social issues charity of “‘laundering’ money from contributors
. . . → Read More: Alberta Diary: Ethical Oil charity complaint sparks Alberta corporate complaint
By Obert Madondo, on June 28, 2012, at 12:05 pm Nature, one of the biggest and most-read scientific journals in the world, made this call in a February 29th editorial. The journal lamented the Harper Government’s undisguised hostility to openness, expert opinion and publicly-funded scientific expertise. Rightly so.
At some point, the government’s stated communication policy, posted on a federal website and directed civil servants, was to: “Provide the public with timely, accurate, clear, objective and complete information about its policies, programs, services and initiatives.”
That was then. Long before Harper and the Conservatives became entrenched and power-mad.
The journal observed:
Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party won power
. . . → Read More: CANADIAN PROGRESSIVE WORLD: Harper Government Must Set Canadian Scientists Free
By Jeff Gailus, on June 5, 2012, at 8:54 am Fraser-Institute.jpg
On March 25, 2012, the Compliance Division of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) received a letter from Jensen Shawa Solomon Duguid Hawkes LLP (aka JSS Barristers). In 11 detailed pages, JSS Barristers lodged a complaint against Environmental Defence, a charity registered with the CRA, on behalf of Ezra Levant’s brainchild, the Ethical Oil Institute. A month later, on April 24, the JSS-Ethical Oil team sent the CRA a second, similar letter, this one a 44-page imputation that the David Suzuki Foundation, like Environmental Defence, was “in contravention of the CRA rules surrounding
. . . → Read More: DeSmogBlog: Time to Audit the Fraser Institute
By Greg Fingas, on May 28, 2012, at 11:29 am Thursday, May 3 saw yet another debate over the Cons’ use of time allocation – this time respecting the omnibus budget bill which features so many radical changes that demand serious discussion. And not surprisingly, the opposition parties raised plenty of entirely valid concerns, while the Cons obfuscated and ran out the clock.
The Big Issue
The Cons’ talking-point-dispenser for the day was Ted Menzies. And Menzies highlighted the absurdity of the Cons’ constant deflection tactics by answering the simple question of what path the bill would follow with the answer that he didn’t bear any responsibility for the choice.
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: May 3, 2012
By Greg Fingas, on May 24, 2012, at 11:29 am Monday, April 30 featured discussion of two opposition motions dealing with the federal government’s responsibility to ensure the safety of Canadians. And on both fronts, the Cons went out of their way to disclaim any such role for our public servants.
The Big Issue
Jack Harris started off the safety theme with a motion to the effect that Canada’s search-and-rescue capability should meet an international standard of 30-minute readiness. But perhaps Harris’ most important point (particularly in light of recent developments) came in response to a typical Con “why’d you vote against our budget? huh?” straw man: I
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review: April 30, 2012
By Greg Fingas, on May 13, 2012, at 4:32 pm After the Cons refused to listen to the opposition parties’ proposed amendments, Wednesday, April 4 saw a day of debate on the main budget motion in the second-last day before a Parliamentary break.
The Big Issue
Nycole Turmel rightly labeled the budget as being based entirely on (gratuitous) austerity, while Peggy Nash described the NDP’s proposed alternative to the Cons’ ill-advised choices. Andre Bellavance pointed out how cuts to both agriculture programs and food safety could create serious issues for Canada’s food supply. Dennis Bevington lamented the lack of investment in renewable energy, then wondered what happened to the Stephen
. . . → Read More: Accidental Deliberations: Parliament in Review – April 4, 2012
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