Friday, October 09, 2020

Spend, Tax, Print, Repeat

Enjoy the decline, Canada!:

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The Liberals are shoving money out the door at a rapid pace, and this – combined with serious declines in investment that were taking place even before the crisis – has led to the Bank of Canada printing immense amounts of money.

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The federal carbon tax must increase fivefold, up to $289 per tonne or 69¢ per litre of gasoline, if cabinet is to meet emissions targets, the Parliamentary Budget Office said yesterday. The report confirmed a secret 2015 memo the Department of Environment earlier dismissed as hypothetical: “So, the question is — ?”

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Parliament must impose a surtax on excess corporate profits, New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh yesterday told reporters. Singh stopped short of threatening to withhold twenty-four NDP votes from any minority Liberal budget bill: “This is fundamental.”

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The heads of Canada’s five “supercluster” groups are pushing back against a recent report that highlighted spending delays in their program, claiming the study doesn’t properly account for a host of recent contracts that dramatically improves their progress.

Earlier this week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report showing that spending levels under the government’s $950-million Innovative Superclusters Initiative (ISI) had lagged behind projections, feeding criticism that the Liberal government had again failed to meet its lofty promises to taxpayers.

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We believe 10% to 20% of mortgages under deferral are at a higher risk of defaulting. We are most concerned about borrowers on a deferral program who are unemployed (and were receiving the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB) and borrowers on a deferral program who are employed but are earning less than what they earned pre-COVID,” wrote RBC analyst Darko Mihelic and senior associate Sanly Li in a report earlier this week.

 

I'm sure none of this is anything to worry about.


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