The video here was released today by the Liberal Party of Canada. It’s just over 7 minutes an in it, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau uses charts and figures to present his diagnosis of what’s wrong with Canada’s economy.
Laval University economist Stephen Gordon watched it and had these thoughts: Continue reading Trudeau on the economy. Economists on Trudeau
Was Jim Flaherty benched during Question Period after suggesting his party might back away from a 2011 platform promise on income splitting? Flaherty said next to nothing in Wednesday’s Question Period, the first one following the tabling of his budget on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the PM took an unprecedented number of questions. And the first minister to follow Harper was Employment MInister Jason Kenney, who, after Flaherty had backed away from the income splitting commitment had loudly affirmed that commitment to reporters.
Today, Flaherty was in the House answering questions — on income splitting, of course — and stuck to a very particular phrase, the same phrase Harper would stick to at an event near Toronto. (Harper was not in the House today.) Conservative sources are telling reporters, including me, that Harper and Flaherty both believe that their campaign commitment of 2011 now needs a re-think. Fine. Still don’t understand why Question Period unfolded in such an odd way yesterday.
So I looked back at all of the 10 Question Periods which immediately followed the tabling of a budget. Turns out Flaherty played a central role in them only a handful of times and in fact, missed 5 post-budget QPs. Here’s the tale of the tape: Continue reading Flaherty and his post-budget QP performance:The record
Conservatives, if you ask them, believe, above all else, in smaller government. U.S. conservative Grover Norquist once said government should be small enough you could strangle it in a bathtub, a line I’ve heard repeated by Canadian Conservatives.
But often enough, the rhetoric of these conservatives does not match what nominally conservative governments do in office. Case in point: The current Conservative Party of Canada government in Ottawa, led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his finance minister Jim Flaherty.
Prime Minister Harper has overseen the worst economic growth since R.B. Bennett in the Great Depression. 1/2
— Justin Trudeau, MP (@JustinTrudeau) February 7, 2014
It may not be a fair comparison but Justin Trudeau’s tweet is at least accurate.
The country has had two prime ministers from Calgary and each man’s tenure coincided with the two worst economic recessions of the last century.
Continue reading On economic growth, Liberals rank PMs from first to worst
The House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance is easily the busiest committee on Parliament Hill mostly cuz it spends a lot of its time considering hundreds of presentations from Canadians who have ideas about what should be in the federal budget the following spring.
That committee held its first meeting of the new parliamentary session today and immediately got down to work on sorting through ideas for next year’s budget. Here’s the release: Continue reading What do you want in the next federal budget?
One of the most important jobs for any minister is handing out tax dollars. The federal government collects more than $245 billion dollars a year in taxes and fees paid by individuals and businesses and, more often than not, spends more than it collects. Some of that spending is unavoidable — think Old Age Security benefits or transfer payments to the province for health care and social services — but a good chunk every year is quite discretionary. And when there’s a political spending choice to be made, you can bet a government minister wants his or her name associated with this decision.
As I’ve written here before, I try to track as many press releases as I can detailing spending announcements through my “OttawaSpends” project and, so far, up until Monday’s cabinet shuffle, Continue reading The Ministerial handout: The scorecard on who in Harper's cabinet handed out how much
“We have set out these bold goals and we are reaching our targets. I’m going to run in the next election on the strong economy. I’m going to run on (being) number one in job creation.”
– Christy Clark to her party’s convention in Whistley, BC, October, 2012
This morning, Statistics Canada released the final report card before Tuesday’s general election in B.C. on Clark’s 17-months-old Jobs Plan. BC is unequivocally not “number one” in job creation. In fact, it is not number one in any employment measurement used by Statistics Canada. And yet, it could be a lot worse, I suppose. So I’m giving the BC Jobs Plan a “C-” at this point. Continue reading The report card on Christy Clark's "BC Jobs Plan": A "C-"
E-2 Labour sponsored venture capital tax credit
Submitted by : various members
WHEREAS labour-sponsored venture capital companies, like the Fonds de solidarité FTQ, Fondaction, and GrowthWorks Capital, are important drivers for economic development, particularly for the start-up of small businesses, which create and maintain quality jobs here in Canada; Continue reading NDP Convention: E-2 Labour sponsored venture capital tax credit
4-05-13 Resolution on International Trade
Submitted by Submitted by: Kitchener Waterloo, Davenport, South Shore-St. Margaret’s, CEP (the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union), New Westminster-Coquitlam
WHEREAS the people of Canada’s ability to regulate and support local economic development has been undermined numerous times under World Trade Organization tribunals and NAFTA investor-state arbitration regimes
BE IT RESOLVED that the following clauses be added to Section 4.5 of the policy book:
“g. preserving the rights of municipal governments and provincial entities such as Hydro Quebec and Manitoba Hydro to include local content and other local economic development requirements as part of their procurement policy
h. not negotiating investor-state dispute resolutions mechanisms into trade agreements, consistent with the policy of the Labour government and party of Australia.”
MP Don Davies spoke in support of this motion. MP Libby Davies spoke to this motion.
The convention passed this motion.
