Plumbing the depths of absurdity and inefficiency:
Canadians face the “terrible job” of choosing between higher taxes or fewer services due to mounting federal debt, former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge said yesterday. Testifying at the Commons finance committee, Dodge likened the financial outlook to the 1970s: “Governments cannot borrow their way out of these difficult choices.”
**
Enacting a GST holiday on new apartment construction is intended to benefit the middle class, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said yesterday. MPs took up Second Reading debate on the tax measure in Bill C-56 An Act To Amend The Excise Tax Act: “It is important that we advance measures that are going to increase the supply for middle class households.”**
In the last year, Canada has witnessed about 20 cases of shrinkflation by major food manufacturers with most of them garnering significant media attention. Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, who is meeting with food manufacturers this week and has pledged to combat food inflation and increase accountability in the food industry, undoubtedly has shrinkflation on his radar.
I'm sure he'll get right on it.
The biggest tax frauds are those in the government:
Most Canadians say they pay too much for what they get from governments and consider tax cheating commonplace. In-house research by the Canada Revenue Agency also found few think cheaters will ever get caught: “Rich people have an easier time tax cheating than middle class Canadians.”
CMHC in eight years confirmed construction of 12 new homes under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to convert surplus Crown property into affordable housing, records show. The Department of Fisheries built one: “We are focused on building more houses.”
The official mouthpiece of the Liberal Party cannot operate out of a mini-van:
The CBC owns nearly half a billion dollars in real estate holdings, according to recently released documents, with more than two-thirds of the value comprised of its expansive downtown Toronto broadcasting centre.
A response to a May 2023 order paper question submitted by Conservative MP Adam Chambers about the government-owned broadcaster lists 12 corporation-owned properties across the country, a portfolio worth $444,414,469.
But the corporation’s most valuable property by far is the CBC’s Toronto Broadcast Centre at 250 Front St. West, valued at $313.8 million.
The 13-floor, 1.7-million sq. ft. facility, opened in 1992, is the CBC’s primary broadcasting, production and master control facility for its national English-language operations.
The CBC’s corporate headquarters are located at its Ottawa production centre, occupying several floors of a leased building on Queen Street near O’Connor Street just steps from Parliament Hill.
The CBC’s broadcast centre in Vancouver ranks as the corporation’s second most valuable property. Built in 1975 and renovated 14 years ago, it is valued at $99 million.
The CBC Manitoba Broadcast Centre at 541 Portage Ave. in Winnipeg is valued at $11.7 million.
Other CBC facilities worth over $1 million include its facilities in St. John’s ($4.4 million), Yellowknife ($3.1 million), Fredericton ($2.8 million), Charlottetown ($2.6 million), Saguenay ($2.5 million) Whitehorse ($1.8 million) and a second facility in Winnipeg worth $1.5 million.
Also:
A new United Nations declaration, launched Wednesday by Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly, says signatories will take steps to address online disinformation.
Like when your boyfriend boss calls his applause of a Nazi "Russian disinformation"?
**
In a letter Tuesday, 41 members of the House ways and means committee said “Canada’s unusually aggressive and discriminatory approach would target U.S. companies and workers who would disproportionally bear the burden of this new tax.”
The warning comes two months after the Liberal government confirmed it would to go ahead with the tax, even though 138 other countries and jurisdictions agreed to delay similar measures of their own. The Liberals took that move amidst an ongoing conflict with Google and Meta over legislation that would force the two companies to share revenues with news publishers.
**
The CRTC didn’t answer when asked how long that process could take. But given the average time frame of the regulator’s public consultations, and that the CRTC is already experiencing delays as a result of new legislation, it could be a couple of years or more until it makes a decision.
**
Subsidies will not save money-losing news media, says a Department of Heritage memo. A $595 million bailout fund approved by Parliament in 2019 is up for renewal next March 31: “Supports alone cannot redress the structural decline of the current business model.”
Fraud, the ability to prioritise, personal meaning - Canada is nothing to people:
The new immigration minister is still considering a controversial option to allow new Canadians to take their oath of citizenship with the click of a button, but there are no immediate plans to implement it, he said Monday.
The government asked for public feedback in February about the idea to allow new Canadians to skip a virtual or in-person ceremony and opt instead to take the oath with the click of a mouse.
Also:
An illustration of this is an interview Immigration Minister Marc Miller did last week with The Hill Times in which he called Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre a “charlatan”, “snake-oil salesman”, “classless jackass” and “serial bullsh–.”
Poilievre can give as good as he gets when it comes to insulting Trudeau, so that’s not the issue.
The issue is that Miller said nothing of substance about immigration in a lengthy interview over lunch, other than his view there’s a history of systemic racism in the only two government departments he’s held in cabinet, Crown-Indigenous relations and immigration.
Nothing about the concerns of a majority of Canadians (53% according to a recent Nanos poll, compared to 34% in March 2023) who think Trudeau’s policy to boost Canada’s immigration levels to 465,000 this year, 485,000 in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025 is too high.
But do keep cramming people in, especially students who might be scammed into coming to Canada.
What could go wrong?
No comments:
Post a Comment