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CRA ties to industry, special deals demand Liberal action.

Cartoon by Greg Perry.

Note to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

We will not be distracted forever by your explanation of quantum computers and yoga poses. Or even by the admittedly impressive list of low-hanging fruit (most recently, the return of the long-form census) you have picked thanks to Stephen Harper.

It’s a comforting distraction to think that we might actually have a government that isn’t totally in the thrall of Bay Street billionaires and transnational corporations. But everything we know about your party suggests that nothing fundamental has changed. The litmus test will be how you deal with KPMG over an outrageous tax-avoidance scheme, and with the giant firm’s apologists in the Canada Revenue Agency.

By now most people are familiar with the KPMG tax “sham”uncovered by CBC News. The scheme involved at least 26 wealthy clients (minimum contribution, $5 million) for whom KPMG set up shell companies in the Isle of Man, one of many tax havens for the rich and large corporations.

The Canada Revenue Agency initially said the scheme was “grossly negligent” and “intended to deceive.”

Secretive ‘amnesty’ deals

But 15 of the 26 participants would end up getting special treatment. Some of the first ones caught were assessed huge penalties, but later KPMG clients were offered a secret deal. The “amnesty” agreement granted rich KPMG clients immunity from civil and criminal prosecution and freedom from any penalties, fines or interest as long as they paid the taxes they had dodged. Secrecy was written into the agreement: “The taxpayer agrees to ensure the confidentiality of the offer and will not inform any person of the conditions of the offer…”

Dennis Howlett of Canadians for Tax Fairness [disclosure: I am on the board] said KPMG should be charged with facilitating tax evasion. Other tax experts said a criminal investigation is warranted.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Justin Trudeau: Just Another Quantum Politician?

April 24, 2016

Justin Trudeau: Just Another Quantum Politician?

Like many other world leaders, PM shows how to be true and false at the same time.

Saudi-Deal

Cartoon by Greg Perry.

It was great theatre: The good-looking Canadian prime minister, standing before a blackboard full of equations, taking a spitball question about quantum computing and belting it out of the park.

Never mind that it was probably a setup, with a reporter primed to ask Justin Trudeau about a topic he’d just been intensively briefed on. If nothing else, it showed the former drama teacher is a quick study who doesn’t need to read his talking points off a sheet of paper like most of our parliamentary clods.

The online media went into a predictable tizzy: Not only cute, not only a boxing punchmeister, not only a good feminist husband and dad with six-pack abs and a cool tattoo, but he also does standup comedy about quantum computing.

Trudeau’s not the first Canadian to startle audiences with such wit and fluency. Mark Rowswell, a tall white guy, went to China to improve his Chinese. He got so good that he turned up on Chinese TV in 1988 as “Dashan,” doing a comedy shtick called crosstalk, swapping rapid-fire gags and puns with a native Chinese speaker.

Half a billion Chinese TV-watchers fell out of their chairs laughing — not because he was bad, but because he was really good. If anything, he spoke better putonghua — common speech — than they did. Rowswell became an instant star and made a tidy fortune appearing on TV and opening new shopping malls. China fell in love with him because unlike most westerners, he’d taken the trouble to listen to and learn their language and speak it like one of them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World watching as Canada casts aside austerity and gambles on a fiscal surge

March 24, 2016

World watching as Canada casts aside austerity and gambles on a fiscal surge

A global economic debate plays out in Canada as our government goes from miser to spendthrift

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau are taking Canada into unknown waters, betting that spending will do what austerity has not.

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau are taking Canada into unknown waters, betting that spending will do what austerity has not. (Reuters)

Canada has abruptly switched sides in one of the perennial political and economic battles over how to restart a sagging economy.

To put it in a way that would not please either side, it is the contest between the misers and the spendthrifts. After years of the penny-pinching approach, Canada has switched tack to become a big spender.

And despite some very strong feelings on either side, it is not absolutely clear which is the right path to prosperity. The world will be watching.

The clash over the best way to boost a moribund economy is by no means solely a Canadian argument. Nor is it just a modern debate.

Historical debate

Countries from China and Japan, to Greece and Ireland have taken different views on the subject.

Historically, the dispute has arisen repeatedly — notably during the Great Depression, when the first response of austerity was blamed for making the problem worse. But when governments then altered strategy, new spending failed to lead to a miracle recovery.

Despite monetary stimulus and negative interest rates, Japan’s economy has lapsed into deflation and economic stagnation. (Reuters)

There is plenty of evidence on both sides. As I noted back in 2010, Japan and Ireland backed opposing strategies. But the countries’ circumstances are so different it is hard to declare a definitive winner.

China and Greece switched sides. Greece was driven by the ballot box toward bigger spending, then restrained by their stern European central bankers. China faced alternating worries, first cutting back on fears of overheating and then suddenly spurring new spending on fears of falling growth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Top Five Climate and Environment Issues for Obama-Trudeau Bilateral Summit

March 10, 2016

Top Five Climate and Environment Issues for Obama-Trudeau Bilateral Summit

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was a staunch supporter of what he called the “no-brainer” project. President Obama, on the other hand, felt like all sorts of brain should be involved when deciding on the future of such major fossil fuel infrastructure. And he rightfully rejected the border crossing pipeline project, which had clearly failed his climate test.

Now, with Canada’s new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the helm of America’s Hat, the two most intimately tied economies in the developed world have a lot of catching up to do. Even with Keystone XL dead and buried (sort of), environment and energy issues are still top of mind for the two leaders.

In a recent Q and A with the Huffington Post, Trudeau acknowledged the timing is right for bold leadership on climate change and the environment: “There is a nice alignment between a Canadian Prime Minister who wants to get all sorts of things done right off the bat and an American President who is thinking about the legacy he is going to leave in his last year in office,” Mr. Trudeau said.

“The issues that are important to him and to me are climate change.”

Obama and Trudeau already had an informal ‘bromance’ meeting soon after the new Prime Minister took office in November 2015. But now, with the unprecedented Paris Agreement behind them, the two leaders have an incredible opportunity to break new ground on climate action and environmental protection at this formal summit.

Here are the top five energy and environment issues these self-proclaimed climate leaders should have on their agenda:

1. North American Climate Change Strategy

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Justin Trudeau’s Shame: Extending Carte Blanche to Israel

March 6, 2016

Justin Trudeau’s Shame: Extending Carte Blanche to Israel

Here’s a Middle East multiple choice question for you (warning: one of these will get you condemned by the government of Justin Trudeau).

Would you rather that the Palestinian people 1) once again take up armed struggle in order to end Israeli occupation of their land or 2) pursue a non-violent strategy of Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) until such time as Israel recognizes the rights of the Palestinian people?

Advocating a return to the use of violence against Israel may or may not get you condemned by the Prime Minister. But it is definitely not okay to advocate for the non-violent BDS campaign. This was made clear by the government’s support of a Conservative resolution opposing the campaign “which promotes the demonization and de-legitimization of the State of Israel,” and called upon the government “to condemn any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”

This is a sickening violation of Canadians’ basic rights enshrined by Justin’s father 35 years ago. As the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair (who once described himself as an “ardent supporter of Israel”) said, the resolution “makes it a thought crime to express an opinion.” The NDP and the Bloc, joined by three Liberals, voted against the resolution.

That the Liberal government is so in alignment with Israel lobby groups raises a number of questions: Just who actually makes Canadian policy towards Israel? Did Trudeau think this through at all – such as, is this in Canada’s interests? But perhaps more to the point, is it even in Israel’s interests? Does the Trudeau government have some brilliant ideas about how to get Israel to the bargaining table? Or does it believe the current situation doesn’t need resolving? It smacks of political cowardice.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Liberal fiscal plans less transparent than under Harper, Kevin Page says

February 27, 2016

Liberal fiscal plans less transparent than under Harper, Kevin Page says

Kevin Page, Canada’s former parliamentary budget officer, says the Liberal government is even less transparent on fiscal matters than their Conservative predecessors. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Listen 9:40

Canada’s former parliamentary budget officer says the Liberal government is even less transparent on fiscal matters than the Conservative government it succeeded.

“I don’t think it is [more transparent]. The documents — they’re not better from a government that promised to be better, more transparent … there’s no more information, perhaps even less information, than what we got from the previous government,” Kevin Page said said in an interview CBC Radio’s The House.

“I don’t think we’ve seen the transparency yet,” he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau campaigned on a pledge to run three “modest” deficits of no more than $10 billion a year. But Finance Minister Bill Morneau released his second fiscal update this week ahead of the March 22 federal budget, and his figures show it will be much higher than that.

The deficit will balloon to $18.4 billion in 2016-17 and $15.5 billion in 2017-18 — and that is before any new spending Morneau outlines in the March budget. Those numbers are drastically different from the $3.9-billion and $2.4-billion shortfalls forecast just three months ago.

“A less ambitious government might see these conditions as a reason to hide, to make cuts or to be overly cautious. But our government might see that the economic downturn makes our plan to grow the economy even more relevant than it was a few short months ago,” Morneau said Monday.

Page, who frequently squared off with the previous Conservative government over their fiscal secrecy, says his concerns about transparency stem from a lack clarity around the deficit figure.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Canada’s new deficit plan is trouble

February 24, 2016

Canada’s new deficit plan is trouble

Yesterday Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced the projected deficit for 2016-17 is now $18.4 billion. This amount does not include $10.5 billion in new spending promised by the Liberals during the election campaign. When the budget is delivered in one month’s time it is foreseeable the total deficit could be in excess of $30 billion. During question period Prime Minister Trudeau defended the proposed financial course of action as something the Canadians want and voted for, while the Leader of the Opposition, Rona Ambrose, alleged that increased federal spending will amount to waste. (Ms. Ambrose is likely well aware of the wastefulness of government programs after having served for three years as Minister of Public Works and Government Services. In that role and other portfolios she has held she is not innocent herself of producing and perpetuating waste.)

In their book Free to Choose, Milton and Rose Friedman exposed, among other things, the fallacy of the welfare state and the disappointing nature of all government programs. This is an unavoidable consequence of the spender spending someone else’s money on yet someone else. It is like paying for someone else’s lunch out of an expense account. The spender has little incentive either to economize or to try to get his guest the lunch that he will value most highly. Moreover, as Hayek (1945) explained in the “Use of Knowledge in Society”, spenders do not have and cannot obtain the information necessary to spend money on other peoples’ money on yet other people as effectively as when you spend your own money on yourself. This is the crux of why government spending is so wasteful. Legislators vote to spend someone else’s money. Bureaucrats who administer the spending programs do the spending someone else’s money on yet someone else.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trudeau & the Saudi Arms Deal

February 11, 2016

Trudeau & the Saudi Arms Deal

shutterstock_347301317

Things are definitely heating up around the controversial $15 billion Saudi arms deal that the Canadian government of Stephen Harper arranged in 2014 on behalf of General Dynamics and which the new Justin Trudeau Liberal government refuses to cancel.

In recent days, University of Montreal law professor Daniel Turp (an expert in international and constitutional law) and 17 students have filed a class action lawsuit against Ottawa in Quebec Superior Court, seeking to block shipments of the combat vehicles – a move that could force the governing Liberals to explain how they justify the sale. [1] The group also intends to file a similar legal action in Federal Court within the next three weeks. [2]

As I wrote in CounterPunch last October, in 2014 the Harper government announced that the Canadian Commercial Corporation (a Crown corporation) “had secured the largest weapons manufacturing contract in Canadian history: supplying armoured military vehicles to Saudi Arabia. The contract was secured for General Dynamics Land Systems-Canada, a subsidiary of the U.S. giant, which has weapons manufacturing plants in Ontario and Alberta employing a total of about 3,000 workers…It is now widely known that Saudi Arabia has long been funding terrorist activities in the Middle East.” [3]

Professor Turp and the student group have launched an initiative called Operation Armoured Rights, by which they “intend to contest, by all legal means at our disposal, the legality of exporting such military equipment.”

Their (January 2016) Open Letter states: “If the Canadian government refuses to show consistency between the ideals of human rights and its decisions on military exports, it is nevertheless required to comply with the law…Guidelines adopted by the cabinet in 1986 stated that ‘Canada closely controls the export of military goods and technology to countries […] whose governments have a persistent record of serious violations of the human rights of their citizens, unless it can be demonstrated that there is no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population.’

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Psst, Trudeau: IMF Now Pegs Our Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $46 Billion

February 1, 2016

Psst, Trudeau: IMF Now Pegs Our Fossil Fuel Subsidies at $46 Billion

Fastest way to transition Canada to a green economy? Quit the giveaways.

According to IMF economists, Canadian carbon-based fuels should be taxed an additional $17.2 billion annually to compensate for climate change. Oil photo via Shutterstock.

Justin Trudeau has a problem. How can Canada meet our international climate commitments so recently inked in Paris with an increasingly empty economic larder? The International Monetary Fund may have the answer. Last summer, the IMF updated its global report on energy subsidies and found that Canada provides a whopping $46.4 billion in subsidies to the energy sector in either direct support or uncollected taxes on externalized costs.

Globally, this figure balloons to US$5.3 trillion or 6.5 per cent of the world’s GDP. To put that enormous sum in perspective, the global giveaway to the energy sector amounts to 40 timesmore money than is contributed in aid to the world’s poorest people.

To be clear, the IMF is including all untaxed externalized costs of energy use under their definition of subsidies. The figures flagged for Canada still include $1.4 billion in direct “pre-tax” subsidies — the kind of direct public giveaways that Trudeau campaigned to eliminate. The remaining $44.6 billion is in the form of externalized costs to society from dirty and dangerous fossil fuels — things like air pollution, traffic congestion and climate change.

I realize that the folks at the Fraser Institute might get rankled by such a broad definition of subsidies by those pinkos at the IMF, and in fact they already have. But as they say in business, there’s no free lunch, so why should all taxpayers have to pick up the tab for very real costs resulting from our ongoing addiction to fossil fuels?

Let’s get down to brass tacks. How much money is being left on the table in favour of the fossil fuel sector?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

January 19, 2016

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

And why there’s still time for Trudeau to reject it.

The Trudeau government still has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the TPP on Canada’s behalf. Protest photo by arindambanerjee via Shutterstock.

The Harper government agreed to the text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade deal with 12 countries including the U.S., Canada and Japan, shortly before the federal election on Oct. 19. Yet the TPP text was not made public until after the election.

Before it can enter into force, the TPP must be signed and then ratified by member countries. Therefore, the Trudeau government has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the deal on Canada’s behalf.

In this article, I offer seven reasons why the TPP’s provisions on foreign investor protection — mostly found in its chapters on investment and financial services — should be rejected. These provisions reveal how the deal carries unacceptable risks for voters and taxpayers in TPP countries, while giving unjustified benefits to big multinationals and the super-wealthy.

1. The TPP would give special protections to foreign investors at significant public cost, without compelling evidence of a public benefit.

Like other trade agreements, the TPP would give foreign investors special rights to protect their assets by suing countries for compensation in the face of laws, regulations and other decisions that the foreign investor thinks are unfair. These potent international rights are not available to domestic investors or anyone else, even in the most extreme situations of mistreatment.

Why should foreign investors have a special global status and, effectively, a generous public subsidy against the economic risks of democracy and regulation that apply to everyone? The onus should be on promoters of the TPP to give compelling evidence of a corresponding benefit of foreign investor protections for the public. To my knowledge, they have not yet done so.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

January 18, 2016

Seven Ways TPP Favours Mega-rich Foreign Investors, Not Canadians

And why there’s still time for Trudeau to reject it.

The Trudeau government still has options to push for renegotiation or to decline either to sign or to ratify the TPP on Canada’s behalf. Protest photo by arindambanerjee via Shutterstock.

1. The TPP would give special protections to foreign investors at significant public cost, without compelling evidence of a public benefit.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

UN chief warns climate change could have link with terrorism

November 28, 2015

UN chief warns climate change could have link with terrorism

Ban Ki-moon tells CBC’s Margo McDiarmid social disruption could lead to more ‘terrorist fighters’

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, in an interview with CBC, said the effects of climate change will lead to social disruption, fuelling the frustration of the young and unemployed, who may then join extremist causes.

The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says the attacks in Paris can’t overshadow efforts to reach a climate change agreement at next week’s summit. He also warns in an exclusive interview with CBC News of a possible link between climate change and terrorism.

CBC’s Margo McDiarmid spoke to Ban Ki-moon in Malta on Saturday at the Commonwealth summit and he talked about an indirect link between the effects of climate change and the rise of extremist groups.

“He said climate change has a similar effect to terrorism in that climate change can lead to social disruption, it can lead to climate refugees, which in itself can lead to people looking for other answers or joining terrorist groups, especially among young people,” McDiarmid said.

“When we do not address climate change properly it may also affect many people who are frustrated and who are impacted and there is some possibility that these young people who [are] jobless and frustrated may join these foreign terrorist fighters,” the UN chief said.

“There is a concern whether it may overshadow the climate change agreement and I think we have to move on this climate change [agreement],” he added.

French President Francois Hollande was meeting with environmental groups Saturday, pushing for an ambitious global deal to reduce man-made emissions blamed for global warming.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is among leaders attending the Paris talks, has been in Valetta, Malta for the Commonwealth meeting, where he pledged his government would spend $15.3 million over four years to improve the lives of young people in Africa.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Pacific Trade Deal Will Test Trudeau’s Resolve

November 13, 2015

Pacific Trade Deal Will Test Trudeau’s Resolve

As chorus of critics sound alarm, this is PM’s chance to show us he’s listening.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau renewed his promise to listen to labour’s TPP concerns this week.

Justin Trudeau has proven to be much more bold in his first couple of weeks than almost anyone imagined. Unlike Jean Chrétien and his 1993 election Red Book, Trudeau actually seems to be intent on keeping many of his promises.

Most importantly he has done what no other premier or prime minister in my memory has ever done. He has put numerous people in ministries who actually have a passion for their portfolios: a doctor in charge in health care, a potato farmer in charge of agriculture, an Aboriginal former treaty commissioner in justice, a former CIDA staff person in charge of international development. Prime ministers who want to exercise executive control don’t do this. Trudeau, it seems, genuinely wants to run a government by cabinet.

But the real measure of how bold Trudeau will be is how he deals with the economy. After all it is the economic ministries — finance, the treasury board, international trade most prominent among them — that are most directly responsible for managing capitalism, something every federal government has to do no matter what their ideology is. The Liberals have always been a Bay Street party and any move away from that tradition seems unlikely. The biggest test Trudeau will face on this front is right on the top of the issues pile: the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement.

First off, let’s be clear that these “trade” agreements are only nominally about trade — they are actually, as economist Jeffrey Sachs says “investment protection agreements.” And for every Canadian government starting with Brian Mulroney’s the almost exclusive economic policy for this country has been a focus on attracting international investment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trans-Pacific Partnership text has been released

November 5, 2015

Trans-Pacific Partnership text has been released

Canada has entered into side letters with U.S., Japan, Malaysia as part of deal

New Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, left, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, seen with Canadian Governor General David Johnston, right, will be challenged early by how they respond to a critical economic agreement that was negotiated by their predecessors.

The long-awaited text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal was released on Thursday, revealing the details of a pact aimed at freeing up commerce in 40 per cent of the world’s economy but criticized for its opacity.

The partners — which in addition to Canada include Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United States and Vietnam — have made commitments to discourage imports of goods produced by forced labour and to adopt laws on acceptable working conditions, and the first prohibition on harmful fisheries subsidies.

But TPP, which will set common standards on issues ranging from workers’ rights to intellectual property protection in 12 Pacific nations, was kept largely from public scrutiny, angering transparency advocates concerned over its broad implications.

The Liberals, before assuming power, criticized the Conservative government for a lack of transparency regarding what Canada may have given up in the negotiations, although they support the notion of free trade.

Justin Trudeau, in a statement on Oct. 5, promised “a full and open public debate in Parliament to ensure Canadians are consulted on this historic trade agreement.”

Ed Fast, seen speaking to reporters on Sept. 30 from the site of the most recent talks, Atlanta, said he believed the deal could be worth about $3.5 billion of additional economic activity to Canada. (Alex Panetta/The Canadian Press)

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ontario to increase Syrian refugee targets to help meet Trudeau’s goals, Kathleen Wynne says

October 31, 2015

Ontario to increase Syrian refugee targets to help meet Trudeau’s goals, Kathleen Wynne says

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says her government will try to expedite the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the province to coincide with Justin Trudeau’s bold commitment to bring in 25,000 refugees by the end of the year.

“We need to align with what the new government is going to do,” Wynne said in an interview with CBC Radio’s The House.

Ontario pledged $10.5 million last month to help deal with the Syrian refugee crisis, and Wynne said then that the province hoped to resettle 10,000 refugees by the end of 2016, including an initial 2,500 by the end of this year.

But the province is now looking at a more ambitious timetable after her meeting this week with prime minister-designate Justin Trudeau at Queen’s Park.

“If we can ramp that up because of assistance from the federal government we will do that,” Wynne told host Chris Hall. “Our ministry is getting ready to do more than the 2,500 if we can. but we just have to see what kind of process we can land on with the federal government.”

At the same time, Wynne acknowledged that there are obstacles, including security precautions, that have to be taken into account and the province is trying to determine whether Ontario needs to put people on the ground in the Middle East to help process families.

“Those are the kinds of questions we will be asking the new government,” she said.

New relationship with the provinces

Trudeau has spoken on the phone to premiers since becoming prime minister-designate, but Kathleen Wynne was the first one he met in person since his election victory on Oct. 19.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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