Calls grow for more information about Canada Infrastructure Bank
Industry advocates want more details about the Trudeau government’s promised Canada Infrastructure Bank, while some question the need for the program. Michael Atkinson, president of the Canadian Construction Association, said he still doesn’t know why the Trudeau government is pressing ahead with its $35-billion bank, but gets the sense that it will be used to “leverage” private-sector […]
Budget 2017 a game-changer for municipalities
For two years, municipal leaders have laid out a bold vision for Canada’s future. We’ve shown how communities—large and small, urban, and rural—are this country’s economic engines. And we’ve shown that one of the best ways to build a prosperous and sustainable Canada is to empower local governments. Last month’s federal budget does that in […]
Budget 2017 was billed as an innovation budget, but was it really?
TORONTO—Budget 2017 was supposed to be an innovation budget. But was it really? And are we much further ahead as a result? The answer to both questions is negative, not positive. We are still far from achieving the Trudeau government’s stated goal to “make Canada a world-leading centre for innovation” and it is hard to […]
Liberals say right things about helping veterans, but devils are in the details
OTTAWA—With widespread tensions simmering just beneath a deceptively calm public profile, injured veterans and their families are running out of patience. The 2017 Liberal budget was no doubt intended to turn down the heat, but emerging details of the programs will likely chafe the veteran community, leaving them, at best, curious, cautious, and, intently concerned. […]
Morneau serves interests of finance capital when he says ‘cupboard is bare’: Vancouver reader
After the 2008 financial crisis, central banks created trillions of dollars to bail out big banks and corporations. Under Canada’s Economic Action Plan, our government stepped up with a $200-billion package for troubled lenders, the Extraordinary Financing Framework. In normal times, however, bankers don’t like it when governments create money. For example, the more the […]
International assistance: sound investment, good foreign policy
Canada’s budget 2017 was a missed opportunity—not only for millions of people in poor and fragile states, but for Canadians themselves. International assistance is too often treated in the federal budget as a nice-to-have, but non-essential foreign policy expenditure. Governments focused on the well-being of citizens and the sovereignty of the state tend to give […]
Opposition parties not ready to give up filibuster as Liberals set for pre-summer legislative push
PARLIAMENT HILL—Opposition House leaders say the government continues to do a “poor job” of moving legislation forward and promise to continue to filibuster the Procedure and House Affairs Committee over changes to the House rules, saying it will be “the No. 1 thing” they’re focused on. MPs return to Ottawa this week with seven more House weeks scheduled until June […]
There’s more to the stay-the-course budget than suggested
OTTAWA—So what kind of budget was it? An innovation budget? A skills budget? A gender-aware budget? A social safety net budget? Or an environmental budget? Stay-the-course seemed to be the pundits’ consensus. I’m not so sure. Depending which part of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget you focus on, it was any of those things and […]
Government needs to deal with technology’s effect on future job market
TORONTO—Will robots and artificial intelligence take our jobs? One of the greatest uncertainties as we face the future is what kind of jobs, if any, will many of us have as technology continues to take over many tasks that once only humans could do. Investment superstar Warren Buffet has even suggested we tax robots and […]
Yurdiga biggest spender in the House for most of 2016, Speaker Regan among the thriftiest
Conservative David Yurdiga billed taxpayers $427,322 for travel, living, and advertising costs, meals, gifts, and office expenses over the last nine months of 2016, the most of any MP during that span, new House of Commons statistics show. As part of his official duties, Mr. Yurdiga (Fort McMurray-Cold Lake, Alta.) expensed $216,644 in staff salaries, $9,200 […]
