Dan Mitchell, Tax Expert and Cato Institute Senior Fellow was interviewed by Frontier Centre’s David Seymour at the Mont Pelerin Society meeting in Tokyo, September 2008.
Year: 2008
Dan Mitchell, Flat Tax Advocate
There are now 18 former communist countries that have flat taxes. There are 25 countries overall that have flat taxes and a lot of this is being driven by three things. One, it’s being driven by tax competition. Globalization means it’s easier for tax payers saving and investment and labour to cross national borders and that means that if adopt a good system like a flat tax as a country you are going to attract a lot of productive economic activity into your borders so countries are figuring out this is a route to economic prosperity.
Governments Sleepwalking Into Water Crisis
Governments, if they are not careful, are allowing communities to sleep walk towards a water supply crisis. Governments are not dealing with long term supply needs and are potentially jeopardizing the future economic prospects of rural communities.
McGuinty and Charest: a fine bromance
“My dispute is with Ottawa,” he told reporters at the end of Ontario Chamber of Commerce “economic summit” to which he had invited Mr. Charest. “Ottawa makes the rules and we have to play by them.” There is a surface logic to this argument but it ignores the fact that Ottawa was hoping in 2006 that the provinces could reach a consensus on equalization reform. It never came.
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Fit To Be Tied Over Native Crimes
Ending political divisions on reserves and moving remote reserves closer to urban centres would help reduce native crime rates in cities.
“I Was Worse Than A Child Abuser”
So rather than try to shut me up, bully and vilify, why don’t they engage in an honest discussion about the science? I’ll tell you why. Because the theory of global warming is crumbling round their ears. For the past decade now, world temperatures have been static or slightly declining – and that’s according to the IPCC. I don’t remember their silly models predicting that 10 years ago.
Lonely Voice Of Dissent Declared Valid
There is something odd about the ferocious amount of energy expended suppressing any dissent from orthodoxy on climate change. So, if their case is so good, why try so fervently to extinguish other points of view? There is a disturbingly religious zeal in the attempts to silence critics and portray them as the moral equivalent of holocaust deniers.
Council Votes 7-4 to Expropriate Land
“The fair determination of any private transaction should and can only be characterized by two fundamental principles – the first that the transaction should be voluntary, and secondly that the price is between the maximum that the buyer will pay for it and the minimum that the buyer will accept. >”This is not fair. There’s nothing fair about this transaction. Some may consider this extreme, but I look to this as theft.”
Absolute Princes and the Alberta Human Rights Commission
Another Human Rights Commission has refused to proceed with complaints against a media outlet; such commissions should be stripped of the ability to even investigate opinions in the first place.
American Myths
When the September 11th terrorist attacks happened, many in this country were astonished at how quickly it took for many Canadians to reveal they secretly believed America had it coming. In fact, it seems anti-Americanism is our civic religion that we can barely conceal any longer. In this excellent collection of 15 essays, Griffiths has assembled a diverse group of writers to each present a particular area of life touching on Canadian-American relations that has been distorted by anti-Americanism.
Next Step: More Accountable And Transparent Native Governments
Similar to the municipal level, the effective use of public money by first nations requires transparent governments responsible to their own citizens, who pay a significant part of their cost by taxing themselves. It also requires a vigorous civil society in which most people are self-supporting, own property and are not dependent on government to do everything for them.
Common Sense on Canadian Bilingualism
If governments wish to spend money on language, it should be to make sure immigrants can speak one of the two official languages according to the dominant language of the province in which they reside: French in Quebec and English in Alberta. Beyond that, they shouldn’t go overboard.
The Strange Death of the Tory Climate Crusade
The recent success of the Conservative Party has owed little to quixotic environmentalism, and almost every Tory attempt to play the green card has been a disaster. While there is little public appetite for raising energy taxes or overhauling the British economy to deal with climate change, there is widespread support for boosting investment in green-friendly technologies, and the Tories are well-placed to advance this.