With the addition of five more Senators, the Conservatives are the largest group in the Senate with 50 Senators, one the Senators, Rose-May Poirier will not be a Senator till February 28th.
The Conservatives lead the Liberals by 2. The other six Senators include one that is barred from the Senate, 2 Progressive Conservatives, and three independents. So the actual total number of Senators right now is 103 (shortly to 104), they split Liberal and allied 49 - Conservatives and right wing 53 - one truly independent.
Harper has a working majority in the Senate now, though not a totally loyal one.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Local Government Elections Task Force
The Local Government Elections Task Force has a website up and is looking for input from the public.
The core issues they are looking for input on are:
They will be taking written submissions until April 15th at localelectionstaskforce@gov.bc.ca
The task force will be making recommendations to the Province and the Union of BC Municipalities by May 30th.
I will be writing a detailed submission including the need for the task force to look at how we elect our local councilors, the committee members can add other areas to make recommendations on.
The core issues they are looking for input on are:
- Campaign finance, including contribution/spending disclosure and limits, and tax credits
- Enforcement processes and outcomes
- Role of the chief electoral officer (B.C.) in local government elections
- Election cycle (term of office)
- Corporate vote
- Harry Nyce, Nisga'a - President of UBCM (co-chair)
- Bill Bennett, Minister of Community and Rural Development (co-chair)
- Barbara Steele, Councillor City of Surrey and First Vice-President of UBCM
- Mary Sjostrom, Mayor of Quesnel and Third Vice-President of UBCM
- Donna Barnett, MLA, Cariboo-Chilcotin
- Douglas Horne, MLA, Coquitlam-Burke Mountain
They will be taking written submissions until April 15th at localelectionstaskforce@gov.bc.ca
The task force will be making recommendations to the Province and the Union of BC Municipalities by May 30th.
I will be writing a detailed submission including the need for the task force to look at how we elect our local councilors, the committee members can add other areas to make recommendations on.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Feds Shoud Save our Money and Scrap Western Economic Diversification
Bernard von Schulmann's 24 hours column
Thursday, January 27th, 2010
In 1987 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney created Western Economic Diversification to shift the economy of the West away from natural resources. 23 years later this agency has spent close to $6 billion trying to improve the economy in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
The mission statement of WED:
to promote the development and diversification of the economy of Western Canada and advance the interests of the West in national economic policy, program and project development and implementation.
The economy of the West has not significantly diversified in the last 23 years, natural resources are still the core of the economy. Clearly WED is failing on their core mandate. They try to justify the spending with a list of success stories, but it is very thin list for $6 billion. The evidence on the ground indicates they have failed to diversify the economy.
They are supposed to advance the interests of the West in national economic policy. They must be very quiet because I have never heard of any stand they have taken for the West. The GM bailout is a good example of this. Why did WED not fight against the GM bail out when this harms the economy of the West? Why has WED not pushed to have GM or their suppliers to move factories to western Canada?
WED is supposed to reduce boom bust cycle of natural resources through diversifying the economy. Since the mid 1990s a crisis has been coming to the BC forestry from the pine beetle. Communities like Quesnel, Vanderhoof, and Williams Lake are headed towards a big drop in forestry after the pine beetle wood has been harvested. Where has WED been? Why have they not focused their energy on bringing in blue collar manufacturing jobs to these towns? This is a crisis with enough lead time even for a federal bureaucracy to react with a plan of action. This sort of crisis was the point of WED and they have failed completely to make a difference.
One new mine in the private sector, the Prosperity mine in the Chilcotin, will create more jobs than anything WED has done in the Central Interior.
The reality is that government economic development agencies do not work. They spend a lot tax dollars to accomplish very little. WED spends about 25% of their money administering what they invest. In total each year the federal government spends close to $1.2 billion on regional economic development agencies with no measurable success.
If WED did not exist and the money was given directly to the western provinces it would have more of an impact. For BC this would be $140,000,000.
The economy in West is doing well, but there are problems in rural communities. I see no evidence that WED is any way responsible for western success or is doing anything to help rural communities. The time has come for the Federal government to admit that WED is failure and shut it down.
Thursday, January 27th, 2010
In 1987 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney created Western Economic Diversification to shift the economy of the West away from natural resources. 23 years later this agency has spent close to $6 billion trying to improve the economy in BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba.
The mission statement of WED:
to promote the development and diversification of the economy of Western Canada and advance the interests of the West in national economic policy, program and project development and implementation.
The economy of the West has not significantly diversified in the last 23 years, natural resources are still the core of the economy. Clearly WED is failing on their core mandate. They try to justify the spending with a list of success stories, but it is very thin list for $6 billion. The evidence on the ground indicates they have failed to diversify the economy.
They are supposed to advance the interests of the West in national economic policy. They must be very quiet because I have never heard of any stand they have taken for the West. The GM bailout is a good example of this. Why did WED not fight against the GM bail out when this harms the economy of the West? Why has WED not pushed to have GM or their suppliers to move factories to western Canada?
WED is supposed to reduce boom bust cycle of natural resources through diversifying the economy. Since the mid 1990s a crisis has been coming to the BC forestry from the pine beetle. Communities like Quesnel, Vanderhoof, and Williams Lake are headed towards a big drop in forestry after the pine beetle wood has been harvested. Where has WED been? Why have they not focused their energy on bringing in blue collar manufacturing jobs to these towns? This is a crisis with enough lead time even for a federal bureaucracy to react with a plan of action. This sort of crisis was the point of WED and they have failed completely to make a difference.
One new mine in the private sector, the Prosperity mine in the Chilcotin, will create more jobs than anything WED has done in the Central Interior.
The reality is that government economic development agencies do not work. They spend a lot tax dollars to accomplish very little. WED spends about 25% of their money administering what they invest. In total each year the federal government spends close to $1.2 billion on regional economic development agencies with no measurable success.
If WED did not exist and the money was given directly to the western provinces it would have more of an impact. For BC this would be $140,000,000.
The economy in West is doing well, but there are problems in rural communities. I see no evidence that WED is any way responsible for western success or is doing anything to help rural communities. The time has come for the Federal government to admit that WED is failure and shut it down.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
RRSPs versus TSFAs
The CD Howe Institute has released an interesting review of RRSPs versus TSFAs. Alexandre Laurin and Finn Poschmann have written Saver’s Choice: Comparing the Marginal Effective Tax Burdens on RRSPs and TFSAs.
Everyone in Canada gets sold on the idea of putting money into an RRSP, but is that really the best option for people? A Registered Retirement Savings Plan is really a tax deferral system, the assumption is that your income taxes on the money now is more than what you would pay when you withdraw your money. The tax savings when you are young or in a low income year is not that much.
A Tax Free Savings Account is funded with income you have paid tax on but the savings are then never taxed again. You can access the money whenever you want and not have to pay any taxes on it.
If you have a split between RRSPs and TSFAs, when you get to retirement age only the income coming from the RRSP is taxable. You could use the TSFA to effectively reduce your taxable income in retirement dramatically.
All in all I am very happy that the government created the TSFAs because it gives people more cost effective options for saving money. It is in the interests of the country to have a much higher savings rates but savings have been penalized through taxation when the money was earned and then any interest or capital gains from the savings, the money was taxed twice.
Everyone in Canada gets sold on the idea of putting money into an RRSP, but is that really the best option for people? A Registered Retirement Savings Plan is really a tax deferral system, the assumption is that your income taxes on the money now is more than what you would pay when you withdraw your money. The tax savings when you are young or in a low income year is not that much.
A Tax Free Savings Account is funded with income you have paid tax on but the savings are then never taxed again. You can access the money whenever you want and not have to pay any taxes on it.
If you have a split between RRSPs and TSFAs, when you get to retirement age only the income coming from the RRSP is taxable. You could use the TSFA to effectively reduce your taxable income in retirement dramatically.
All in all I am very happy that the government created the TSFAs because it gives people more cost effective options for saving money. It is in the interests of the country to have a much higher savings rates but savings have been penalized through taxation when the money was earned and then any interest or capital gains from the savings, the money was taxed twice.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Proroguing protests
Have been reading the coverage of the protests against proroguing of parliament and I am underwhelmed at the numbers. A total of only 25,000 people across the country turned out to protests.
I know that in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria you can get this size of crowd at the drop of a hat to almost any protest - I have been part of organizing ones in all three cities for different issues.
The very low turn out of what looks to be the typical protest crowd says to me that there the issue is not resonating with Canadians.
- Victoria - 1500
- Vancouver - 1000
- Ottawa - 3500
- Toronto - 3000
- Halifax - 500
- Edmonton - 250
- Montreal - 500
- London UK - 20
I know that in Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria you can get this size of crowd at the drop of a hat to almost any protest - I have been part of organizing ones in all three cities for different issues.
The very low turn out of what looks to be the typical protest crowd says to me that there the issue is not resonating with Canadians.
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