Elliot Sims speech and Q&A at a Frontier Centre for Public Policy Breakfast entitled: Red Tape: Canada's Hidden Tax. View the Power Point Presentation here: http://archive.fcpp.org/posts/red-tape-canadas-hidden-tax-powerpoint-slides
Taxation
The Auditor General Did Not Say that P3s Cost Taxpayers $8 Billion
The Auditor General of Ontario’s report is a technical document that few people actually read. Bullet points from executive summaries of such reports are often used as the basis for newspaper columns and political talking points in the grown up equivalent of the game...
Now is the Time to Harmonize Manitoba’s Provincial Sales Tax
Premier Sellinger’s decision to increase the provincial sales tax to 8 percent has hovered over provincial politics like a dark cloud for more than a year. The issue won’t go away. Sellinger himself admitted that the lingering unpopularity of the tax increase...
Balancing the Federal Budget to Ensure Fiscal Sustainability and Economic Growth – House of Commons Finance Committee – Sept 29, 2014
Speaking points of presentation to the House of Commons Finance Committee by Frontier Centre President Peter Holle on September 29, 2014. Three broader, longer term opportunities to keep the federal budget balanced while promoting better public policy that would...
Featured News
Let’s Celebrate Reaching Global Population of Eight Billion
Recently, the United Nations estimated that the population of Planet Earth had reached eight billion souls. Despite the chatter of the highly subsidized climate doomster complex this is quite an achievement - it certainly indicates that the carrying capacity of our...
China’s “Truckers’ Convoy”
Anti-lockdown protests are now taking place across China - the Chinese equivalent of our Truckers’ Convoy. The protests are a reaction to the brutal policies that literally lock people in their apartments, when even one infection is detected. As in Canada, when...
Harper Driven by Libertarian Ideology, not Reality
By the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year, and assuming there are no further tax cuts in the upcoming federal budget, the Harper Conservatives will have reduced the cost of government by $220 billion, according to the Toronto Star. Canadian corporations have pocketed $60 billion in savings. Over the same period, Ottawa has run up a cumulative $169-billion deficit.
Control Taxes by Counting Pennies
The City of Kelowna has the most transparent taxation process in Canada, according to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Welcome to 2012: All Debt, All the Time
Another year older and deeper in debt. You can Google “Canada’s debt clock” for a precise reckoning. Maintained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, this clock now ticks off another $1,000 in federal debt every second or, more precisely, $61,454 every minute.
Why Canada’s Corporate Tax Cuts Rate a Collective Cheer
In an end-of-year review of his government’s achievements in 2011, Prime Minister Stephen Harper noted Forbes magazine’s selection of Canada as the No. 1 country in the world to do business. (“Credit a reformed tax structure,” Forbes declared.) Mr. Harper was right to cite this distinction. On New Year’s Day, Canada’s corporate tax rate – federal and provincial rates combined – fell to 25 per cent, giving Canada the lowest rate in the Group of Seven countries, and a more competitive economy on a global basis.
Self Brewing in Nova Scotia
Tommy Douglas declare alcohol as bad
Municipal Mythologies: Infrastructure wish lists aren’t actual deficits
In a world with scarce resources, people want more money spent on something than what is available. But that is not a “deficit.” Otherwise, we have health, education and social deficits, to name a few. In principle, optimal spending would be based on a benefit-cost calculus and programs rejected if benefits are less than cost.
Where is a Recall Legislation When You Need It?
Brandon property tax to jump 20.3%
Lessons for U.S. from Canada’s ‘Basket Case’ Moment
Canada’s shift from pariah to fiscal darling provides lessons for Washington as lawmakers find few easy answers to the huge U.S. deficit and debt burden, and for European countries staggering under their own massive budget problems.
One of the Worst VATS: Canada’s GST/HST exemptions keep rates high
Canadians have been told that the GST (a value-added tax) is a far better tax than most other levies and that Canada has one of the best GSTS in the world, according to OECD analysis. The GST is not all it’s hyped up to be, due to its massive tax preferences and special provisions. In fact, Canada’s consumption tax is below average in performance.