Joe Oliver announced cuts to EI premiums for small businesses yesterday – but it’s not quite as easy as it sounds. It’s actually more of a tax credit only on the employer side, and only for two years, which Oliver insists is not a sign of worry, but “confidence” that they’re on the right path. Um, okay. Economist Stephen Gordon, meanwhile, shows that this kind of tax credit is actually more counterproductive because it encourages these businesses to stay small for tax reasons, and that by not actually cutting payroll taxes, they are not actually creating the right conditions for all small businesses to hire.
Author Archives: Dale
Roundup: Dubious slogan at the ready!
Unveiled during their caucus retreat – err, “strategy session” – in Edmonton, the NDP’s election-ready slogan is “Change that’s ready.” While grammatically it sounds like the change itself is ready, the message is that they’re ready to form government – never mind that they have never formed government federally, and that few members of their caucus has any government experience provincially. They are largely trying to position themselves as the party with substance as opposed to style (à la Justin Trudeau) – but they nevertheless continue to speak in generalities about things like how they want to build more refineries. The captain of the Edmonton Oilers also spoke to caucus, so cue everyone swooning about hockey and politics.
Roundup: Lost ship found
At long last, part of the mystery of the Franklin Expedition has been solved, as we have located one of the two sunken ships, and relatively intact as well, meaning that we can likely send divers there within the next few days. It’s caused a bit of a global buzz, and even Her Majesty sent congratulations on the find, which is lovely. While Harper is pleased as punch, and his detractors bemoaning that he’s spending resources on this and not other issues, it bears reminding that this is also part of our bid to map the ocean floor as part of obligations we face under the Arctic claims process before the UN. Not to mention, the Franklin Expedition has captured our imaginations for a few generations now, and it’s nice to see some answers will finally be found.
Roundup: Witnesses that don’t fit the narrative
The Senate is conducting pre-study hearings on Bill C-36 this week – seeing as the government wants it passed quickly and are doing everything possible aside from imposing actual closure to ram it through – and among the witnesses they’ll be hearing from is a male escort who has exclusively female clientele. You know, someone who will completely mess with the narratives that the government has been pushing with this bill about “protecting vulnerable women,” since the Senate tends to be good about that. I can imagine that the other sex workers will probably get a better hearing at the Senate committee than they did at the Commons justice committee, seeing as there is less of a vested interest in pushing the government agenda.
Roundup: Prentice the winner
It’s not a huge surprise, but Jim Prentice won the PC leadership in Alberta, and now needs to win a seat in a by-election. The turnout for said leadership was incredibly poor in comparison to leadership contests past, which some are reading as a bad sign for the state of the party. The fact that their e-voting system was one giant colossal disaster didn’t help either, and once again serves as a warning as to why paper ballots remain best. It also serves as one more reminder as to why we need to return to the system of caucus choosing the leadership, given how ridiculous the whole contest was from start to finish. (Also, please stop using the term “premier-designate.” It’s not a Thing.)
Roundup: Passing knowingly flawed bills
The Senate, it turns out, passed a tough-on-crime private members’ bill that contained a gaping error in it, and they knew it had an error in it and passed it anyway – with observations attached about the errors. Why? Because said private member had become a parliamentary secretary, and sending it back to the House to fix the error would have basically killed it because its sponsor could no longer sponsor it. It seems to me that there should have been a fix for that – generally a unanimous vote in the Commons that someone else take it on, as has happened when an MP retires while their bill is in process – but more to the point, if the government was so enamoured with it, then they should have drawn up a government bill that fixed the errors and put it through the process, which likely would have been expedited since it had already had committee hearings in its previous form. But hey, let’s keep up this nonsense of backbenchers sucking up to the government with these nonsense bills, and let’s keep up this bawling that the Senate shouldn’t overturn flawed bills that passed the Commons because they’re not elected. It’s really helping our legislative process, clearly.
Roundup: A modest contribution
The NATO Summit is underway in Wales, and Canada is contributing a modest $4 million to assist against Russian aggression – $1 million to helping Ukraine build up its command and control capacity, and the rest to be distributed among three NATO trusts to help strengthen capacities in the Baltic region. Aside from that, it remains unclear what kind of a role Canada will play in the region, and if we will contribute troops to a rapid response force in the area. As for the ISIS threat, the US and UK are discussing potential bombing campaigns, but we’ll see what comes from discussions, though word has it we may be offering military advisors to help Iraqis counter ISIS. The end of the Afghan mission has also been under discussion at the summit.
Roundup: A surprise trip to Iraq
John Baird quietly took a trip to Iraq along with is opposition critics, Paul Dewar and Marc Garneau, to meet with officials there and to pledge aid. James Cudmore looks at what Canada could contribute if we take the fight to ISIS, which could include special forces or aerial reconnaissance and support, but unlikely boots on the ground, as it’s politically unpalatable in an election year. Whatever we do, Harper has stated that it’ll be done on a tight budget because we really want to be cheap about fighting the kinds of grave threats that Harper is making them out to be.
Roundup: NATO spending commitments
As that NATO summit gets set to get underway in Wales, it looks like the face-saving final communiqué will state that the 2 percent of GDP on defence spending that they hope members will achieve will simply be “aspirational,” since it’s not going to happen with some members like Canada (which would essentially doubling our current defence budget). Stephen Saideman explores why it’s wrong for NATO to focus solely on the spending levels of member countries than it is on capabilities. It also sounds like NATO members are going to discuss making cyberwarfare as much of a threat to member nations as bombs, which is quite true of the modern era. It also sounds like the attention will be split between the threats posed by Russia and ISIS. Michael Den Tandt notes that while Harper keeps sounding tough, there is no escaping that the Canadian Forces are badly under-resourced – possibly as bad as the “Decade of Darkness” – and we can’t have it both ways of doing good work on the cheap. Katie Englehart has more on the broader context of the situation here.
@Murray_Brewster yep 1% of Canadian interoperable, reliable participation >> 2% plus Greece unreliable, sit at home effort
— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) September 3, 2014
Roundup: “Stolen” land for a memorial
An Ottawa architect is raising the alarm about the plans for the site of the “Victims of communism” memorial, saying it’s been “stolen” by the current government. The site, between the Supreme Court and Library and Archives, was supposed to be the future site of a building to house the Federal Court, but the current government has quietly scuppered those plans. That Federal Court building would have completed a triad of national buildings – the Justice Building, the Supreme Court, and the Federal Court building (which had approved designs and was ready to go before the Liberal government delayed the plans). The fact that the plans for that building to have been disappeared without explanation deserves explanation, but none are forthcoming. That such a prominent site is going to host a memorial (and one that is politically driven and is fairly controversial) rather than a significant national building should be concerning, however I fear this is going to be shrugged off like so many of the ways in which the national capital is being constantly denigrated and undermined by the current government.