Pursuing Truth, Goodness, and Beauty
And they are in the home stretch: NDP surges and Liberals suffer a stutter step – is it really neck and neck to place? and where is the Bloc – and will the Green cross the wire this time? The Conservative have not broken their purposeful stride throughout the race; yet have they pulled far…
Entering into the backstretch, it’s no longer about winning the Run for Sussex Drive. For the Prime Minister, it’s about winning decisively – lengths ahead of the other ponies. In a candid response to reporters this week, PM Harper repeated his claim that being first past the post will not be enough. The Conservatives needed a majority…
There are millions of good reasons (millions of taxpayers dollars!!) to eliminate the annual per-vote taxpayers’ subsidy of federal political Parties. Kudos must go to the Conservatives for promising to scrap this expensive life-line to political also-rans and Ottawa’s backrooms. This political Party subsidy must go because: 1) Political parties already enjoy enormous tax advantages…
Last year, Canadians paid Gilles Duceppe and the Bloc Quebecois Party $2.7 million to prepare for this federal election campaign. In 2010, Canadian taxpayers doled out $27 million to fill the coffers of the federal Parties. Here’s how the per-vote subsidy was divided amongst political Parties: Conservatives – $10.4 million Liberals – $7.2 million NDP…
Want to know how the world views Canada? Here’s the country’s portrait as painted by the Paris-based social and economic policy think-tank OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), which released a new analysis of social trends that compare many of the world’s nations. Canadians are hard-working, great readers, the most tolerant people in the…
I believe our government – all levels of government – has got too big, is growing too fast, and with no thought as to the costs to Canadians. So, as a frustrated taxpayer, who is a libertarian-at-heart, I have posted a half dozen snippets of what is wrong with our Big Government (not that I have…
Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s magazine, The Taxpayer, came in the mail today and I read it with some trepidation. I never know whether to laugh or cry when reading their feature stories. In this issue, CTF Federal Director Kevin Gaudet’s article on federal government spending confirmed my worst fears about “the run-away-train-wreck” we call Ottawa….
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation reports the federal public sector pension plan has created a situation where Joe Canuck would need to save $14,180 per year in his nest egg – every year for 35 years – to match that of a senior federal government bureaucrat pension. Here’s the math using the example of an…
There was a wonderful opinion piece by Kevin Libin in this Saturday’s National Post about the bulging Canadian bureaucracy and what it means for our country. The Wall Street Journal’s Dan Henninger recently put out an intriguing theory to explain why Egypt was such an economic basket case — with unemployment and…
“There’s nothing naturally “temporary” or “short term” about government spending. Creating taxpayer-funded programs means creating taxpayer-funded jobs to administer them. The expansion becomes structural — at least until politicians develop a stomach to unwind things.” – Kevin Libin
Ben Eisen of the Frontier Centre of Public Policy reported on public administration wage growth over the past decade – comparing remuneration for bureaucrats with that received by private sector employees doing comparable jobs. The numbers came from Statistics Canada data and they showed: Across the economy, wages grew by 30 per cent….
Charles Adler, unabashedly, telling it like it must be with This is Not a Pretzel. This is Canada. “… Canada is one country, not pretzel nation, not ghetto nation, not an abomination, which is what unfortunately we could become if we just keep on allowing anybody in the name of their…
There are more votes on Main Street than Bay Street. – John G. Diefenbaker In politics, madame, you need two things: friends, but above all an enemy. – Brian Mulroney In some ways, a vote is a little bit like falling in love. People do not fall in love with the best-qualified candidate. – David…
David Myles is a very entertaining Canadian crooner, who has some brilliant lyrics and a wonderful voice. His songs are thoughtful, engaging. One of my favourite songs is from his latest album and it is called “Pair of Shoes.” The chorus speaks of an eternal truth: We all walk in a…
Canadians’ apathy towards politics is reaching new lows. Today we have an ingrained sense of cynicism for anything political and, particularly among our country’s youth, a growing disenchantment and disengagement with our political process. This unhealthy condition is reflected during elections when we are able to best gauge the citizenry’s interest by the percentage…
In Angelo Persichilli’s Toronto Star column today, “No one bothers to watch the bureaucrats,” he rightly points out that our country’s bureaucrats have an easy way of it when it comes to doling out taxpayers’ money. The unknown (largely unaccountable) bureaucrats hiding away in their Ottawa and Toronto office towers, are a troubling piece…
The Walrus feature article this month is a review of the current state of hockey in Canada. David MacFarlane and Michael Adams take a look at how Americans are hijacking our game. It’s an up-dated review of an old lament as MacFarlane travels to arenas in Nashville, Florida and Phoenix. http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2010.06-sports-hockeyland …
Did the bags full of money the government threw around to help us from the world’s economic collapse last year help us? Did big government manage us through dire straits? A new study by The Fraser Institute suggests not. Here’s the lead from today’s CanWest news story: Canada‘s economic fortunes have seen a…
When considering the spot Canadians are in with out-of-control government spending, political columnist Angelo Persichilli has written a great article in today’s Toronto Star. It’s politics as usual as deficits mount up http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/782554–persichilli-it-s-politics-as-usual-as-deficits-mount-up He writes: “You want to cross a wide, deep river but keep going up and down the shore…
When our governments tell us (as they have these past few years) that they will right our economy by spending gobs of money and buy us out of our economic downturn, we must realize that it all comes at a cost. Bigger government and increased public sector activities have a direct impact on a…