Canada

Friday April 1, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 1, 2022

Minister of Everything must tell Liberals they can’t have it all

December 30, 2021

Ms. Freeland is now tasked with delivering a budget at a critical time for Canada: when the country is in the early yet unstable stages of pandemic recovery, when a war is being fought in Ukraine, when drought caused by climate change has affected domestic and global yields and when inflation in Canada and abroad is surging. Indeed, the country is now at a precarious financial moment, when it could use the steady hand of that minister it saw on Feb. 24, speaking with genuine conviction about a policy she believes in deeply. What it doesn’t need is a minister dressed in Liberal garb, selling a politically advantageous budget when Canada can’t endure any more risk.

Next week, Ms. Freeland will produce a budget that accounts for her government’s many spending promises – and the new spending promises inherited through the supply-and-confidence agreement with the NDP, plus a likely increase in defence spending – while somehow also reassuring capital markets and stimulating long-term growth. This government has never been shy about spending beyond its means, and it has done so every year far beyond projections, while citing low interest rates and an ill-defined need to “invest” in the economy. The pandemic, of course, necessitated emergency spending on a record scale, although Canada’s trillion-dollar debt and projected deficits over the coming years now mean the country is staring down hefty financing costs: $43.5-billion in 2025-26, to cite one figure from a recent Parliamentary Budget Officer report. For context, the government is spending less than that to settle a years-long dispute over compensation for Indigenous children.

September 22, 2021

With the economy now recovering (GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2021 exceeded the forecast rate, and the unemployment rate is down to prepandemic levels), the time for runaway, short-term spending is over, and indeed it risks exacerbating inflationary pressures. Interest rates are going up, and Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to be 48 per cent for 2021-22 (up from 31.2 per cent in 2019-20), which means the government has far less room to manoeuvre should it get hit with another crisis. The Liberal Party’s impulse may be to continue to promise everything – Child care! Dental care! Fighter jets! Green retrofits! Rapid housing! – and to leave the bill for some future government to sort out, which is why Canada depends on Ms. Freeland now to make some tough calls and bring the budget down to earth. (The Globe & Mail) 

 

Thursday March 31, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 31, 2022

It’s past time for action on payday loans

Sometimes, requests made of governments seem so eminently reasonable that it’s amazing they need be repeated over and over again.

March 6, 2021

In a report last week, ACORN, a non-profit group advocating for low- and moderate-income Canadians, once again asks the federal government to crack down on exorbitant interest rates charged by high-cost lenders.

The gaudy outlets offering payday loans and other such provisions of quick money at high cost are symbols of desperation on the main streets of almost all towns and cities.

They are the physical manifestation of an inequitable society — a divide both highlighted and aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As ACORN has long argued, the lenders profit off the most vulnerable.

The pandemic has worsened things for those on the margins, it said. Many of those trying to pay their bills turn to so-called payday loans — small, short-term loans with extremely high annual interest rates.

These loans don’t exceed $1,500, must be repaid within 62 days, and can carry interest as high as 500 per cent in some provinces. They are regulated by provincial governments and lenders are exempt from even the 60 per cent limit on interest.

Tuesday March 29, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 29, 2022

Pope meets Canada Indigenous groups seeking apology for abuse of children

June 3, 2021

Pope Francis has heard first-hand the horrors of abuse committed at church-run residential schools in Canada, as Indigenous delegations pressed him for an apology.

Indigenous survivors are visiting the Vatican this week for meetings with the pope about the scandal that has rocked the Catholic church.

More than 1,300 unmarked graves have been discovered since last May at church-run schools attended by Canada’s Indigenous children as part of a government policy of forced assimilation.

“The pope listened … (he) heard just three of the many stories we have to share,” Cassidy Caron, president of the Métis National Council, told journalists in front of St Peter’s Square. “While the time for acknowledgment, apology and atonement is long overdue, it is never too late to do the right thing.”

Thursday March 24, 2022

March 24, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 24, 2022

Patrick Brown and Jean Charest have a deal that could make one of them the next Conservative leader

November 28, 2017

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown — who is expected to announce his bid Sunday — and former Quebec premier Jean Charest — who launches his candidacy Thursday — have forged a pact, sources familiar with the strategy tell the Star. Opinion by althiaraj

Brampton’s mayor and the former Quebec premier have forged a pact in the federal Conservative leadership race, sources say.

Brown and Charest — who launches his candidacy Thursday — have forged a pact, sources familiar with the strategy tell the Star. Could it lead the party to elect a more moderate leader?The men have been friends for more than 25 years. Brown credits his involvement with the Conservatives to Charest, whom he met as a teenager while visiting his aunt, Charest’s next-door neighbour in North Hatley, Que.

The two have spoken at length about the leadership race. I’m told to expect neither will say a bad word about the other — a non-aggression pact, if you will — and that they will “publicly” help one another.Their goals are similarly aligned: a united but more inclusive party that represents the country. Each anticipates the other’s supporters will mark him as their second choice on the party’s ranked ballots, and they may make that expectation clear when members start receiving their ballots this summer.

Wednesday March 23, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 23, 2022

What the Liberal-NDP deal could mean for ‘aggressive options’ on defence spending

September 23, 2021

The prospects for a significant increase in Canadian defence spending in the coming federal budget looked a little less likely as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was set to head to Europe after announcing a stunning political deal with the New Democrats.

The Liberal government had been hinting that it was looking at aggressive options for injecting more money into the Canadian military in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Canada has been under heavy pressure to meet the NATO military alliance’s target, set in 2006, of spending at least two per cent of its national gross domestic product on defence, as a growing number of allies have since promised to do.

Trudeau was largely noncommittal on Tuesday as he announced the new confidence and supply agreement with the NDP, which will see the fourth-place party support the Liberal minority government through to 2025 in exchange for new investments in other areas.

Those include the creation of a dental-care program for lower-income Canadians, national pharmacare, affordable housing and phasing out subsides for fossil fuels, among others.