Month: April 2017

Saturday April 21, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 21, 2017

Speculation Swirls Around Kathleen Wynne

Premier Kathleen Wynne is slapping a 15 per cent “non-resident speculation” tax on foreign investors to help cool down southern Ontario’s scorching real estate market, the Star has learned.

March 29, 2017

Wynne will join Finance Minister Charles Sousa and Housing Minister Chris Ballard on Thursday against a backdrop of condo towers in booming Liberty Village to launch a massive plan to improve housing affordability.

A key plank in that would be the 15 per cent surcharge on offshore speculators, who are estimated to make up just 5 per cent of the current market.

Modelled on British Columbia’s “foreign buyers’ tax” in Vancouver, the levy would apply to home purchasers in the so-called Greater Golden Horseshoe who are not citizens or permanent residents.

November 3, 2016

It would affect sales in and around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, Niagara, Kitchener-Waterloo, and encompass everywhere north to Barrie and Orillia and east to Peterborough. (Source: Toronto Star) 

Meanwhile, Speculation about whether Premier Kathleen Wynne can continue to lead the governing Liberals is at a f‎ever pitch.

Party stalwarts are hoping next week’s balanced ‎budget from Finance Minister Charles Sousa will tip the scal

September 9, 2016

es for Wynne’s teetering political fortunes.

But with public and private polling showing the Liberals languishing in third place well behind the Progressive Conservatives and the New Democrats — even after Wynne’s 25 per cent cut in residential electricity rates — there is mounting uncertainty she will remain at the helm.

The Ontario Liberal Party’s chief fundraiser, Zak Bailey, has quietly resigned just seven months into a job made even more challenging by campaign finance reforms triggered by a Star series last year.

“You’d have to ask the party what their plans are,” Bailey said Monday, declining further comment. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Friday April 21, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 21, 2017

Snap Election called in Great Britain

 

March 30, 2017

In a dramatic statement on the steps of Downing Street, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, fired the starting gun on a poll that she hopes will deliver her an unassailable majority to shape the country’s future.

She blamed opposition parties who have been trying to frustrate Brexit for her sudden change of heart after months insisting she will not hold an election – singling out Nicola Sturgeon’s efforts to exploit the situation to tear the UK apart.

The bold move took even Cabinet members by surprise, having been kept a closely guarded secret between a handful of the premier’s closest allies and aides.

March 14, 2003

Brexit Secretary David Davis and Chancellor Philip Hammond have been jointly pressing the PM to call an early vote for some time, and were informed of Mrs May’s decision at a meeting yesterday. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson and Home Secretary Amber Rudd are understood to have been told this morning shortly before the gathering of her top team in No10.

Mrs May revealed the shift was driven by soul-searching while she hiked in Snowdonia with husband Philip over the Easter break.

The media were given barely an hour’s notice of the speech this morning, and there had been no rumours at Westminster about her change of heart. Even as the Cabinet meeting began this morning, aides to senior ministers were still sending out updates on other areas of government business.

Mrs May said Britain needed strong leadership to navigate the fraught divorce talks with the EU, insisting she was now convinced an early poll was in the ‘national interest’.

She said ‘every vote for the Conservatives would give her a stronger hand when she sits across the negotiating table from the EU’s presidents and prime ministers to hammer out a Brexit deal.

The election is an astonishing U-turn from the Prime Minister who has repeatedly said she would not call another ballot before 2020 – insisting it would cause instability and hurt the country. (Source: Daily Mail) 

 

Thursday April 20, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 20, 2017

Canadian envoy fires back at Trump over dairy claims

Canada’s envoy to Washington has shot back at criticism by President Donald Trump and U.S. milk producers, saying the facts don’t support a charge that the Canadian dairy industry is to blame for the woes of some American farmers.

January 26, 2017

“Canada does not accept the contention that Canada’s dairy policies are the cause of financial loss for dairy farmers in the United States,” Ambassador David MacNaughton said in a letter to the governors of Wisconsin and New York that was released Tuesday night in rebuttal to Trump’s surprise criticism of Canada earlier in the day.

“The facts do not bear this out.”

The U.S. president’s surprise decision to call out Canada by name Tuesday put dairy farmers north of the border on notice that they are in America’s fair-trade sights.

Trump launched his broadside after a brewing trade spat that has seen the U.S. dairy lobby accuse Canada of “systemic disregard” of its trade obligations, while the Canadian industry accused its American rival of “scapegoating.”

October 10, 2015

Trump also signalled he wants to do more than simply tweak the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying he is looking for “very big changes” to the trilateral pact that includes Mexico, or else he will scrap it once and for all.

Trump levelled the threats — some of his strongest-ever anti-Canadian rhetoric — during an event at a Wisconsin factory where he unveiled his “Buy American-Hire American” executive order.

After what has been a relatively warm beginning in relations with Canada, which included what was seen by many as a positive trip to Washington by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump dropped the gloves on Canada’s well-guarded dairy sector.

He appeared to be taking dead aim at the Canadian industry and its supply-management system during an appearance in Wisconsin, a state he took from the Democrats with his “America First” anti-trade message.

It is also a state that is feeling the effects of Canada’s decision to impose import taxes on ultra-filtered milk, a protein liquid concentrate used to make cheese. It had been duty-free but Canada changed course after its milk producers complained. (Source: CBC News)

The Telegram, St. John’s, Nfld., April 25, 2017

Wednesday April 19, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 19, 2017

LRT: What’s in it for me?

The $1-billion LRT project will use provincial cash to replace 11 kilometres of infrastructure in Hamilton. If we did it ourselves, the same work would cost local taxpayers $200 million.

The LRT waiting game gallery

This is true, with some important caveats. Metrolinx has agreed to pay to replace all “like-for-like” city infrastructure along the 11-kilometre LRT line. That’s sidewalks, street asphalt, sewers, water pipes, light standards — even the repair or replacement of the Longwood bridge, which will host a spur to a new storage facility.

But the city must share the cost of any upgrades — for example, bigger water or sewer pipes. Such upsizing is necessary given the expectations for higher-density development on the route and could cost as much as $35 million.

The city hopes to get around those shared costs by pitching consolidation, rather than upsizing, of some underground pipes.

Regardless, project fans point out we’re still getting plenty of mostly free new infrastructure — or we’re sharing the cost with all Ontario residents, anyway. We’re certainly getting a sweeter deal than local taxpayers in Kitchener-Waterloo, who had to put up a third of capital cash for their 19-kilometre, almost-finished LRT line.

The infrastructure argument is big in Hamilton because we fall behind on needed repairs and replacement of roads, bridges and buildings each year by $195 million. Meanwhile, the city has added about $13 to the average homeowner’s tax bill each year since 2011 specifically to help close that spending gap.

Skeptics among councillors argue multi-year LRT construction will dig up plenty of infrastructure that doesn’t actually need to be replaced at all. The city admits many underground pipes along the route, for example, have been recently relined or replaced.

They also point out correctly very little of the LRT-affected infrastructure is included on the 10-year capital priority list. (This is likely good news for the city, however, because Metrolinx has confirmed it won’t pay full replacement costs for any project the city has already budgeted for.) (Source: Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Tuesday April 15, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday April 15, 2017

Crucial vote looms for Hamilton’s LRT project

The survival of Hamilton’s $1 billion LRT project is balancing on a knife-edge.

Hamilton’s LRT gallery

If on Wednesday a deeply-divided council votes against submitting the updated environmental assessment to the province, Mayor Fred Eisenberger and others see it as the kiss of the death.

At this point there’s no telling how the vote will go, other than it’ll be a squeaker.

Only six of the 16 members of council, including the mayor, are firmly committed to keeping the train rolling.

That means, with Robert Pasuta on sick leave and unlikely to attend, Eisenberger must find at least two other supporters.

The most pliable in the mushy middle are probably veteran Tom Jackson from the east Mountain and rookie Arlene VanderBeek from Dundas.

Both are playing their cards close, virtually guaranteeing a cliffhanger.

“I haven’t decided,” says Jackson, who’s grown increasingly cynical about the project since the James Street spur was arbitrarily “de-scoped” by the province.

“I’ve pretty much decided how I’m going to vote, but I’m going to wait for the discussion,” says VanderBeek, noting she needs to find the balance between what’s good for Dundas and the rest of the city.

Stoney Creek’s Maria Pearson, another potential swing pro-vote, is equally guarded. Pearson says she’s still taking in information but admits she has “major concerns.”

To add extra suspense, the results of the councillor-funded poll gauging community support for the project are expected to be released Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the mayor has gone into overdrive — some say belatedly, some say desperately — to rally support. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)