In a vain attempt to keep pace with the avalanche of policy announcements, I’m wading into the NDP’s proposal of a wealth tax of 1% to be applied annually to all Canadians whose net worth exceeds $20 million. A wealth tax fundamentally differs from how most taxation in Canada presently…
Read more
This weekend’s announcement of a plan for a “Universal Tax Cut” by the Conservative party signalled the first major tax discussion of Election 43. The basic premise of this plan is to reduce the rate in the lowest federal income tax bracket from 15% to 13.75% gradually over a three…
Read more
With somewhat less media coverage than previous years, Statistics Canada has released its tuition fee estimates for 2019/20. And for the first time since I can remember, the national average for undergraduate tuition fees actually declined from the previous year. Good news, right? Not so fast. Erika Shaker looks at…
Read more
As leaders debate the federal track record on Indigenous issues, there are several key issues that cannot, and should not be ignored. View the story Federal election primer: What we can't ignore when it comes to reconciliation By Alyssa O'Dell “The structures and processes of colonization, which are often relegated…
Read more
Canada’s federal government has committed to working towards achieving the goals set out in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development both at home and abroad. Yet the scale and scope of investments to date continue to fall considerably short of SDG targets. Implementing the 2030 Agenda requires concrete action and…
Read more
This blog post is the third in our series of election primers. It looks at three key issues—child care, housing and employment insurance—and what’s at stake in Election 2019. View the story Federal election primer: Investing in public services edition By Katherine Scott Election 2019 is shaping up to be…
Read more
When we talk about housing affordability the focus is usually on home ownership and high housing costs. Less discussed is the affordability crisis faced by the third of Canadian households (4.7 million families) who rent their homes. This paper looks at the extent of the problem by determining the hourly…
Read more
As public opinion polls confirm, the wheels seem to have come off the Ford Fiesta. After months of fallout from cuts to education, hundreds of educators across Ontario receiving redundancy notices, and a round of collective bargaining-related gauntlet-throwing, provincial MPPs retreated to their ridings for an extended summer break that…
Read more
The Ontario government is cutting two-thirds of the funding for the Ontario Seniors’ Transit Tax Credit program. Whereas previously $9.7 million was allocated for the program, now there is $3.5 million. The spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Transportation says, “no negative impacts to seniors are anticipated.” That sounds odd….
Read more
Interest is building in Canada around a number of bold, progressive policy ideas – everything from implementing universal single-payer pharmacare (as recommended recently by the Hoskins commission) to a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels and towards a new green economy. But how can we afford to make…
Read more