It is relatively easy to ignore the buffoon to the south of us attempting to look like he has a clue about anything. After all - it is another country and all Canadians know that it could never happen to us. It is however, much harder to ignore the absurdities of what is happening just a few provinces east of me. Because if it can happen in the country's largest province, it can happen anywhere.
After five months in power, having been elected on the promise to maintain core services while cutting taxes and of course, to make beer available for a dollar a bottle, Doug Ford has made some truly unintelligent ( I am being polite) decisions. Doug Ford is a man with almost no political experience outside of being the second-in-command of a small town fiefdom nurtured by his late brother; his political roots while they may be deep in terms of a specific brand of conservatism - the kind that does not require either math skills or foresight, are limited in terms of connecting with the rest of the world, or of understanding the concepts sharing or cooperation. He is riding the wave shaped by the affluents' fear of change and by a surprising large number of Ontarians who, somewhat naively, could not conceive that anyone could be worse than the Liberals.
His latest promised cuts are an example of both his complete lack of understanding of how the world works, and the need for the government to provide leadership and supervision. By closing three offices - two of which report to the legislature - not the premier's office, Ford has left the environment and children in care unprotected. That means that there if there is an issue that needs to be raised such as an abuse of care or a decision that affects the environment (e.g. not imposing a carbon tax), the government will not be held accountable in the legislature. All of the cuts are under the guise of cutting government cost. In spite of the fact that the government had as much time as they needed to prepare for these announcements - they are apparently unable to even guesstimate the amount of money that will be saved. It is obvious that Ford is just "cherry picking" those that he is attacking - the most obvious criteria is to choose groups who he does not think can fight back.
In fact the Ford government already has a track record of attacking the poor or those who are too poorly organized to complain, the basic income project and the cancellation of additional funding to some universities are but two examples. His decision to cancel Labour Reform Act, which in part was designed to provide some protection to the thousands of part time workers and in almost the same breath insuring that the landlords of new apartments can charge whatever rents they wish to ,is a clear indication of where his political principles (or the lack thereof) lay. Another three years of this guy? Our despair may become as great as some of those to the south. Or even worse people may get use to it and ignore the pain of others. One has to wonder when people will realize that cutting small programs and giving large tax cuts - does not make a balanced budget.
I have a couple of suggestions for Doug Ford in terms of balancing the budget: stop hiring friends to provide consultation service at a cost of $350,000 per year (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ford), stop cancelling programs that would generate income (i.e. carbon tax, higher hourly wages etc.), stop lowering taxes for high income earners, stop travelling around the country wasting money to meet with other, equally as regressive, climate denier premiers and if you really wanted to help the province - resign.
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
A Wee bit of Nice News
Whenever a group of left leaning armchair politicians/philosophers gather to discuss the chronic and systemic ills of our society, at some point someone says: the rich are not paying their fair share and they need to pay more taxes! And they are right. In a perfect world there would not be this huge inequality of wealth. For example Inequality.org (https://inequality.org/facts/global-inequality/) reports that "8.6 percent of the global population owns 85.6 percent of global wealth". Everyone other than the rich would agree that such an imbalance, is at best, obscene. It is almost inconceivable that the world economy can be sustained with such inequality. It, on some days. boggles my mind that we have all gone along with this.
The common man's acceptance of capitalism lies in part in the fact that at turn of the last century and well past the 1940s, there were numerous examples of how the overly wealthy contributed to society. For example the existence of the original libraries in hundreds and hundreds small towns and large cities is because of the contributions of Carnegie - an American capitalist; the much maligned Rockefeller gave a minimum of 10% of his annual income for all of his adult life to charities. The reason why so many buildings and public institutions carry the name of an individual, is because that individual donated a substantial amount of money. When I went to the University of New Brunswick in the late 1960s, it felt as if almost all of the major buildings bore the names of either the Irvings or the Beaverbrooks.
I would never suggest that these men were always good and kind people. They were not. They used resources and their workers with the same attitude: it was their right to use everything and everyone to maximize their income. They were however, public in their giving albeit with some fairly strong morality attitude attached.
However, more recently it appears as if there is less giving from those rich capitalist and more focus on maximizing wealth for the very few. Don Pitts in a CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/share-buyback-tech-stocks-1.4902823 )opinion piece has suggested that the tax cuts given to the large tech companies in the USA have not resulted in increased investment in the US but rather the increased profits have been used to increase the value of the shares. The media is full of stories of companies laying off employees to increase their bottom line - the investors demand it - there does not ever appear to be any consideration of the cost to the individual or to the community. I think there is a public perception, at least in terms of USA politics, that money is far more likely to be donated to political rather than to charitable causes.
However, while it may be a very small drop in the bucket - CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/refugee-fund-private-sponsors-1.4904367 )has reported that 685 refugees were supported coming to Canada through the donations from "major philanthropists". 3.5 million dollar may not be a lot of money but we need to learn how to make public note of these donations - perhaps the recognition will encourage others to do the same. It is always tempting and far too easy to find reasons to dislike a group of people. The rich are easy targets for those of us who have spent a life time railing against the profound injustices of our world - but in doing so we have run the risk of making the rich our enemies rather than our allies.
Just as it is wrong to lump all people of a certain skin colour, ethnic origin or faith into one disparaged group - it is wrong to assume that all wealthy people are always bad.
The common man's acceptance of capitalism lies in part in the fact that at turn of the last century and well past the 1940s, there were numerous examples of how the overly wealthy contributed to society. For example the existence of the original libraries in hundreds and hundreds small towns and large cities is because of the contributions of Carnegie - an American capitalist; the much maligned Rockefeller gave a minimum of 10% of his annual income for all of his adult life to charities. The reason why so many buildings and public institutions carry the name of an individual, is because that individual donated a substantial amount of money. When I went to the University of New Brunswick in the late 1960s, it felt as if almost all of the major buildings bore the names of either the Irvings or the Beaverbrooks.
I would never suggest that these men were always good and kind people. They were not. They used resources and their workers with the same attitude: it was their right to use everything and everyone to maximize their income. They were however, public in their giving albeit with some fairly strong morality attitude attached.
However, more recently it appears as if there is less giving from those rich capitalist and more focus on maximizing wealth for the very few. Don Pitts in a CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/share-buyback-tech-stocks-1.4902823 )opinion piece has suggested that the tax cuts given to the large tech companies in the USA have not resulted in increased investment in the US but rather the increased profits have been used to increase the value of the shares. The media is full of stories of companies laying off employees to increase their bottom line - the investors demand it - there does not ever appear to be any consideration of the cost to the individual or to the community. I think there is a public perception, at least in terms of USA politics, that money is far more likely to be donated to political rather than to charitable causes.
However, while it may be a very small drop in the bucket - CBC (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/refugee-fund-private-sponsors-1.4904367 )has reported that 685 refugees were supported coming to Canada through the donations from "major philanthropists". 3.5 million dollar may not be a lot of money but we need to learn how to make public note of these donations - perhaps the recognition will encourage others to do the same. It is always tempting and far too easy to find reasons to dislike a group of people. The rich are easy targets for those of us who have spent a life time railing against the profound injustices of our world - but in doing so we have run the risk of making the rich our enemies rather than our allies.
Just as it is wrong to lump all people of a certain skin colour, ethnic origin or faith into one disparaged group - it is wrong to assume that all wealthy people are always bad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)