Business Council of Alberta that thinks the government should consider a provincial sales tax and carbon tax
More than 90 big-wig business executives think you don’t pay enough taxes. It’s all laid out in a report released by the Business Council of Alberta that thinks the government should consider a provincial sales tax and carbon tax. The BCA’s website refers to itself as “a group of over 90 chief executives from across…
How criminals are conning people out of millions posing as the CRA
“They were so convincing that in minutes I had gone to the corner store, bought $500 worth of prepaid credit cards and read the numbers to a voice at the other end of the phone.” A client shared this story with me nearly in tears, which were a combination of anger and embarrassment. Over the…
The stakeholder-shareholder debate in finance has narrowed down to a false dichotomy between good capitalism and bad capitalism. Good capitalism means funding green energy to fight global warming, while bad capitalism means investing in fossil fuels, tobacco, or other “sin stocks.” However, the economic downturn should be a wake-up call to investors regarding the hidden…
We naturally tend to rationalize taxes on others. However, the arithmetic is undeniable: we can’t solve our problems by soaking the rich
Eat-the-rich rhetoric is good politics but bad policy. The wealthy minority contribute precious investment and much-needed employment, but no good deed goes unpunished. The spectre of a wealth tax, which hangs over Canada, epitomizes infantile, self-defeating governance. Last autumn, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh introduced a motion in the House of Commons calling for a…
Researcher studies tools for recovery from tax clinics to guaranteed basic income
Financial strain is affecting Canadians’ mental and physical health and addressing it will be key to the country’s post-COVID-19 social and economic recovery, according to public health professor Candace Nykiforuk. Nykiforuk and her team received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to study ways to address the health impacts of the pandemic related to…
Smart meters remove the need for someone to travel to homes to read meters, enabling customers to avoid costs and maintain distance
Few practical measures have been presented to achieve the lofty goals laid out in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s green agenda or the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Gender equality, increased daycare spending and reduced fossil-fuel usage might make for pretty speeches, but they do little to boost economic growth or help struggling Canadians. Genuine,…
A growing class divide between those who receive a government paycheque and those who pay it
Last year was a surprisingly good year financially for Alberta bureaucrats, unless you were one of the unlucky rubes who doesn’t work for the government. Even though the private sector was shedding jobs by the thousands, many Alberta bureaucrats received pay raises during lockdowns, courtesy of Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer. If that doesn’t seem fair…
But opposition to resource development means Canada is being left out in the cold
Extreme cold weather and mismatched supply and demand have pushed spot prices for liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Asia through the roof. Bloomberg reports that LNG spot prices went from “almost to zero” in April 2020 to above US$30 per one million British thermal unit (MMBtu), rising “18-fold in less than nine months.” Prices in…
As Canadians watched this week’s presidential inauguration and the immediate aftereffects (which include a scuttled Keystone XL pipeline), many wonder what a Biden administration will mean for Canada. And for good reason. A dramatic change in governance in the United States will likely have significant implications for Canada so Canadian policymakers in both the private…
Among the many races the pandemic has accelerated, none is so pointless as the issuance of central-bank digital currencies. The Canadian government, which should know better, has jumped into the fray despite earlier opposition. Reversing comments made in February 2020, Bank of Canada deputy governor Timothy Lane now believes state involvement in cryptocurrencies is a…