....That around the same time Pierre Bourque was in the media for taking cash for headlines,
*
....And Warren Kinsella was judging the federal Tories for allegedly utilizing said service,
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....That the Dalton McGuinty started getting incredibly positive headlines on Pierre's site?
Higher tuition, better access
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My colleague Philippe Gohier over at macleans.ca has this excellent primer on the recent debate over tuition fees in Quebec. Philippe links to a study by a Quebec student group that rehashes all the standard arguments for keeping tuition low — thus massively subsidizing the education of affluent students who could afford to pay their way, but you know, what the heck — but he also includes this statistic, which makes the heads of self-respecting "progressive" student leaders explode whenever I quote it to them:
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"...Quebec's low university enrolment rate (20%) compared to those of Ontario (26%) and Nova Scotia (33%)."
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That's right. Nova Scotia has the highest tuition and the highest participation rate in Canada. Just as British Columbia has been building new university spaces by the tens of thousands since that mean Gordon Campbell abolished the tuition freeze there a few years ago: when each new space is a sunk cost for the state, the state builds fewer spaces but wins applause from the student lobby for its enlightenment. When new spaces can be built at lower cost, the state can build more spaces. And be excoriated by a student lobby that, for 30 years, has amounted to little more than a protection racket for lucky insiders.
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These things are all relative. Higher tuition, past a certain point, becomes an obstacle to accessibility. But low tuition is a radically inefficient way to allocate resources, and in places like BC, where the cutoff entry grade for UBC a few years ago was 89%, low tuition starts to look like a conspiracy between the state and the lucky students to keep the rabble out. Which is what Bob Rae meant when he called tuition freezes "regressive policy."
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I love to make this argument. Students who were lucky enough to get into university, while others with slightly lower grades whom they'll never meet were shut out, get so upset.
Ms. Elizabeth B. Kingston
Clerk for The Standing Committee on Finance
House of Commons
673 – 180 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
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Dear Ms. Kingston:
*
The Province of Manitoba supports the proposal of the Government of Canada to improve the neutrality of the tax system by adopting more equal treatment of corporations and flow-through entities such as income trusts. It is important for the efficient functioning of our economy that business decisions be based on commercial considerations, and not be driven by opportunities for tax arbitrage. Because of differences in tax treatment, corporations were increasingly under pressure to convert to income trusts solely as a result of tax considerations, even in instances where trusts were not otherwise the most appropriate form of organization.
*
We were also concerned that income earned by non-resident investors in income trusts was escaping taxation altogether. The proposed federal changes address this problem.
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The four-year delay in adopting the new tax regime is both reasonable and fair. We note that pensioners, some of whom were invested in income trusts, have received an offset in the form of pension income splitting for tax purposes. Manitoba has confirmed that this measure will apply for purposes of provincial income tax as well. Manitoba was also one of the first provinces to announce that it would parallel the federal increase in the dividend tax credit on dividends distributed by corporations that are not eligible for the small business deduction. The higher dividend tax credits have also helped to create more equal treatment on income from corporations and flow-through entities.
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Manitoba hopes that members of the Committee will be able to support the proposed changes.
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Sincerely yours,
*
Greg Selinger
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cc: The Honourable James Flaherty
bcc: E. BoschmannH. Wood/S. Watson
If, as expected, the next government is a minority, the cycle will repeat itself, and pre-election preparations will begin again. At some point, this constant state of political crisis will start to exact a toll.
*
It will show up in desertions from the public service, in lost investment caused by the uncertain political climate, in an international reputation for instability. ("So who's the Canadian prime minister this year?") At some point, voters are going to start asking politicians the question they ought to be asking now: "What are you going to do to ensure that the next Parliament is stable and co-operative, regardless of who wins?" They're going to take proposals for electing the House through proportional representation more seriously. They're going to demand coalition governments.
Lets hear your take on the Safe Injection Site Issue!
Most willing to sacrifice for environment: poll
Updated Fri. Jan. 26 2007 11:07 PM ET
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An increasing number of Canadians are willing to make sacrifices for the environment, according to a poll conducted for CTV News and The Globe and Mail.
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About 93 per cent of those surveyed said they were willing to make some kind of sacrifice to solve global warming, according to findings from the poll conducted by the The Strategic Counsel.
"My friends, for too many years, our city has just sat back as Vancouver, then Calgary and then Edmonton passed us by," Katz told a Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce luncheon crowd Wednesday. "Sure we told ourselves that they had inherent competitive advantages like geography and oil. In reality, we just gave up. We didn't even try to be more competitive."
It's not a crisis. We're not in an economic tail-spin. Far from it. We have very steady but mediocre growth. But it's a pace so slow that others are leapfrogging ahead of us.
The Conservative government has unveiled a plan to spend $300 million over four years to encourage homeowners, businesses and industry to use energy more efficiently.
IIHF explores alternatives for '08 World
1/19/2007 12:49:29 PM
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Quebec City could be in danger of losing the right to stage the 2008 IIHF World Hockey Championship.
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Hockey Canada released a statement on Friday, saying the IIHF Steering Committee in charge of the 2008 event was exploring "alternative sites" for the championship after failing to receive a written response from Quebec City officials.
WEEK THREE:
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US Weekly has a feature called "Who Wore it Best?" where 100 people in NYC choose between side-by-side photos of two celebs wearing the same outfits, then the results run in the magazine. I hate this feature because the judges have no credentials and could be homeless or Russian for all we know....But what really made me mad was The Rock's wife losing 86 percent to 14 percent to Charlize Theron. She's not even a celebrity!!!! Yeah like that was ever going to be close. If Bill were famous and Charlize trounced me by a landslide in US Weekly, I'd never attend another red carpet event and probably wouldn't leave the house anymore. Although I guess I'd be kind of psyched that I was in the magazine. I don't know. Either way, I think US Weekly owes Mrs. The Rock an apology.
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WEEK SIX:
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Instead of picking princes and quarterbacks, I think ABC should go in the other direction. [With The Bachelor] My friend Melissa thinks we have hot homeless guys out here in L.A.; she calls them "the hot homeless." We can't figure out why there are so many good-looking ones. Maybe they're failed actors, I don't know. But since it's practically hopeless for single women over 30 in L.A., Melissa thinks they'd have a better chance by taking in a hot homeless guy, cleaning him up, getting him a job and trying to turn his life around. I agree. I'd like to see ABC pick a hot homeless guy as the next Bachelor.
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WEEK TEN:
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Sometimes Bill makes bets ahead of time for who will win the NFL or NBA. (I can't remember him ever winning, but he claims he's won a few. Whatever.) I think they should have these bets for celebrity breakups. Every year would be a season and there would be odds for each couple. If they had this when I was in Vegas this summer, I definitely would've bet on Ryan/Reese and K-Fed/Britney. Now I'd bet on Patrick Dempsey and his wife. When he married her, he was just the guy from "Can't Buy Me Love." Now he's the hottest guy on the hottest TV show and his wife is probably a basket case every time he leaves the house. He'll end up breaking up with her and immediately hooking up with someone awful like Kirsten Dunst. I am already mad at him and it hasn't even happened yet.
I think that this city has grown so sick and tired of seeing scumbags get off*
with a slap on the wrist, that most people are just happy one of them received
some actual form punishment, even though it was administered for all the wrong
reasons, in all the wrong ways.
*Anita Neville: SOFT ON CRIME?
Liberal, NDP and Bloc Quebecios members on teh justice committee recently voted to effectively gut a bill that would take away the possibility of house arrest for serious crimes. The amendment would mean that many serious crimes will remain eligible for conditional sentences, including house arrest. [emphasis theirs] "Crimes like auto theft, arson and break and enter deserve tough penalties, not for offenders to do their time at home on the couch," said Justice Minister Vic Toews. "Property crimes like these turn lives upside down, and they have been on the rise under soft Liberal justice policies for years. Our government doesn't intend to compromise public safety by watering down this bill."
The most powerful committee is the Priorities and Planning Committee, also known by the shorthand — P&P. This is the only committee Harper participates in and he is its chair. Transport Minister and Lawrence Cannon — political minister for Quebec and the man who becomes Prime Minister if Harper falls unconscious — is the vice-chair. This committee “provides strategic direction on government priorities and expenditure management, ratifies committee recommendations and approves appointments.” All the heavy hitters in Cabinet are on this committee. No one who was on the committee before the shuffle is out of this group and there are two new members of this committee: Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Health Minister Tony Clement.
Clement also finds himself as a new member of cabinet’s second most powerful committee, Operations. Among those who didn’t get a new job, this may be a sign that the PMO is approving of how Clement has handled the Health file. Pundits last session thought otherwise, that Clement’s star was fading.******
The biggest changes are at the Social Affairs committee, which considers, as you’d expect, all governnment’s social policy issues in areas like health care, justice, immigration and so on. Tony Clement continues to chair this committee (so, he’s chairing a committee and a member of both P&P and Ops — pretty nice guy to get to know if you want something done)...
