C A I T I - O N L I N E

How Ben Sasse can actually help "Zelensky get more" weapons

2022-03-20T09:42:00.000-04:00

I just send this email to Senator Ben Sasse, no-nonsense US Senator for Nebraska:

Ben Sasse is calling for more support for Ukraine's defense.

I totally agree. The political impediment to providing more for Ukraine is Putin's repeated threat of the use of nuclear weapons. This threat has neutralized the West and rendered it impotent. If that threat could be eliminated then more military support could be provided to Ukraine, as Ben Sasse is calling for.

Both Ukraine and China share borders with Russia. China has a very close relationship with Putin, and will game this conflict to China's advantage, meaning they will be of no help to Ukraine or the West. HOWEVER, China needs to be called out by the West and by Ukraine. Ben Sasse can lead that charge. No doubt, China has received assurances from Putin that Putin has no real plans to use nuclear weapons.

Chairman Xi of China owes it to his people to share with them those assurances. otherwise he is putting his own citizens at risk. China needs to be called out in a very PUBLIC way on Putin's threat of the use of nuclear weapons. If he does not, then China will be held responsible by the West should Putin resort to the use of nuclear weapons. China will OWN that outcome, as they are the only country with sway over Russia.

This needs to happen ahead of the NATO meeting in Brussels on March 24, 2022. Once the threat of nuclear weapons has been taken off the table, then Russia will be in a MUCH weaker position, and politicians in the West will be less able to deny Ukraine the military support it needs to WIN this war. China will be in a corner, as they will be compelled to reveal what they know about whether Putin's threats are real or simply bluff, since the 1.5 billion Chinese people who share a border with Russia are very much at risk, since no nation can stand idly by while nuclear weapons are exchanged.

Dear President Zelensky: Call out China

2022-03-19T00:11:00.002-04:00

Putin's threats about use of nuclear weapons, may be real or may be bluffing.

Either way, these threats are having a dampening effect on the response of the West.

For example, would the West be more willing to respond to Ukraine's request for a no fly zone, were it not for fear of a nuclear response?

I believe it would.

Putin's threats can be used against him to Ukraine's benefit, as follows:

China's Chairman Xi is the only person who can influence Putin, given their close relationship and shared global objectives.

China will play the events in Ukraine to their advantage, and can not be relied upon to do the right thing. China will draw things out, in the belief the West won't have staying power.

China needs to be put in an awkward position, in order to do the right thing.

Given Putin's many threats about the use of nuclear weapons, Chairman Xi would no doubt have sought out assurances from Putin that he has no plans to use nuclear weapons.

President Zelensky, along with other global leaders (Biden, Trudeau, etc.) should publicly call out China, and ask what assurances Chairman Xi received from Putin about his use of nuclear weapons.

To be effective and to put Xi in an awkward spot, this should be done in the name of the people of China..

The people of China need to hear from their dear leader whether such assurances have been received and whether Chairman Xi believes they can be relied on.

This would totally undermine Putin, both in the eyes of the world, but also in the eyes of the people of Russia.

In addition, President Zelensky and other global leaders should publicly tell China that China and Chairman Xi will be held responsible by the world community, should Russia resort to the use of nuclear weapons.

China shouldn't think it can stand idly by, while Russia threatens the use of nuclear weapons, since their use would be as devastating for China, as it will be for those in the West and the rest of the world

Such an approach, would change the balance of play between Ukraine and Russia and will accelerate the resolution of this war at the negotiating table.

Today Putin announces a no fly zone over Russia

2022-03-16T22:43:00.007-04:00

There's much discussion these days about no fly zones over Ukraine to thwart Russia's invasion.

Today Putin's announced his own no "fly" zone over Russia, in this public rant to the Russian oligarchs:

"Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from traitors and just spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouth. Such a natural and necessary self-purification of the society will only strengthen our country."

This can only mean that the sanctions must be working! Thanks Vlad for the update.

Only China can stop this Ukraine madness

2022-03-14T09:15:00.002-04:00

It's to be expected that both China and Russia would deny Russia asked China for weapons to support its criminal invasion of Ukraine. Both have a deep vested interest in such denials, as such actions would make Putin look weak and Xi look complicit.

What can't be denied however, is that Putin has made numerous threats about the use of nuclear weapons, while at the same time weaponizing the nuclear power stations in Ukraine, including Chernobyl.

These threats, lessen the West's ability to end the war and the needless human suffering.

China needs to be put on formal notice by the West that China will own the outcome of any use of nuclear weapons by Russia., conventional or otherwise. China can't idly stand by thinking it will be an innocent bystander in such a global catastrophe.

The sooner that NATO, Joe Biden and every leader in the West calls China out on this, the sooner this atrocity will end.

Then we can get back to the regular business of trying Putin for war crimes at the Hague. Something that is long overdue.

Profiles in Cowardice

2020-02-01T09:53:00.001-05:00

A Dishonorable Senate

Republican legislators abdicated their duty by refusing to seek the truth.

By: New York Times, The Editorial Board

Jan. 31, 2020

Alas, no one ever lost money betting on the cynicism of today’s congressional Republicans. On Friday evening, Republican senators voted in near lock step to block testimony from any new witnesses or the production of any new documents, a vote that was tantamount to an acquittal of the impeachment charges against President Trump. The move can only embolden the president to cheat in the 2020 election.

The vote also brings the nation face to face with the reality that the Senate has become nothing more than an arena for the most base and brutal — and stupid — power politics. Faced with credible evidence that a president was abusing his powers, it would not muster the institutional self-respect to even investigate.

The week began with such promise, or at least with the possibility the Senate might not abdicate its constitutional duty. Leaks from John Bolton’s forthcoming book about his time in the White House appeared to confirm the core of the impeachment case against Mr. Trump: his extortion of Ukraine by explicitly conditioning hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid on the announcement of investigations into his political rival.

For a moment, it seemed that enough Senate Republicans would come to their senses, listen to the overwhelming majority of Americans, and demand to hear testimony under oath from Mr. Bolton and maybe even other key witnesses to Mr. Trump’s Ukraine scheme.

How could senators cast such a consequential vote — how could they call what they were doing a trial — without hearing from the people with the most direct knowledge of the actions that led to impeachment? Every impeachment trial in American history had included witnesses.

Some Republicans made a show of concern before throwing up their hands. “I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said on Friday in explaining her refusal to vote to hear from any witnesses. “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything. It is sad for me to admit that, as an institution, the Congress has failed."

On the one hand, this statement was a suffocating tautology: Ms. Murkowski was saying that because the trial would be unfair, she would vote to prevent witnesses, ensuring that the trial would be unfair. On the other hand, her statement was such a searing indictment of the institution’s capacity to perform a critical constitutional function that one wonders how she can bear to work there.

In any case, Ms. Murkowski has it partly right. But it’s not Congress as an institution that has failed; it’s Senate Republicans. They didn’t refuse to hold a fair trial so much as they refused to hold any trial at all. Of course, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader for whom bipartisanship is a dirty word, had promised no less. He announced in December that he planned to work in complete coordination with the White House in protecting the president from any accountability, and that he had no intention of honoring the oath he would take to be an impartial juror.

The irony is stifling. For months, Mr. McConnell and other Republicans complained that the impeachment process was being rushed, that the president was being denied basic procedural protections, and that there was no testimony from those with the most direct knowledge of Mr. Trump’s actions and motivations. Then they refused to hear from a single witness and refused to demand a single document from the White House.

Continue reading the main story

There’s an obvious explanation for this cover-up: With the exception of Mr. Bolton and a few other key figures, everyone who has provided incriminating evidence about Mr. Trump has done so in public and under oath; and everyone who he claims would exonerate him has either refused to testify or been blocked from testifying by Mr. Trump. Mr. McConnell, calculating that any testimony would be very bad for the president and thus for the Republicans’ Senate majority, persuaded his colleagues to take their lumps and vote no on witnesses.

The precedent this sets is alarming enough: the Senate abandoning its role as the ultimate guard against a dangerous president. Just as bad is the rationale on which most Republicans have settled for refusing to hear from witnesses — that whatever you think of Mr. Trump’s behavior, it wasn’t impeachable, and there is no evidence that could change their minds.

Given the seriousness of the charges against Mr. Trump, it’s hard to envision anything that this president could do that would require Republican senators to vote for his removal.

There is one apt criticism leveled by Republicans, even if they have made it in bad faith: Democrats in the House of Representatives moved too fast in the impeachment process, voting before they could hear from key witnesses like Mr. Bolton. They justified this by pointing to the urgency of the situation. Mr. Trump has accepted foreign assistance to win one election, has actively sought it out for another and has given no indication that he plans to stop doing so. He also pledged to stonewall any congressional inquiry into his behavior, which could have led to months or years of litigation over witnesses and documents.

But would that have been worse than where we are now? Had the House kept the impeachment inquiry open on the grounds that it could not vote until it had completed its investigation, the spotlight would have remained on Mr. Trump and his corrupt behavior. Evidence would have continued to come out, and the American people would get the fullest possible picture of the president’s behavior.

Instead, with the Senate’s blessing for his scheming to have Ukraine investigate the Bidens, Mr. Trump now poses an even greater threat to the next election.

Senate Republicans’ indifference to the overwhelming public support for calling witnesses was of a piece with the party’s minority politics. Its president lost the popular vote by three million votes. Its Senate majority represents 15 million fewer Americans than the Democrats’ minority. In states like North Carolina, it rigs the maps to turn popular-vote losses into legislative majorities, then strips power from duly elected Democratic leaders.

Oath. What Oath?

2019-04-04T12:39:00.001-04:00

I, Judy Wilson-Raybould, do solemnly and sincerely swear (declare) that I shall be a true and faithful servant to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, as a member of Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada. I will in all things to be treated, debated and resolved in Privy Council, faithfully, honestly and truly declare my mind and my opinion. I shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed to me in this capacity, or that shall be secretly treated of in Council. Generally, in all things I shall do as a faithful and true servant ought to do for Her Majesty.

It’s time to revisit income trusts while avoiding their worst excesses

2016-03-18T09:42:00.003-04:00

James Scarlett

The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Mar. 18, 2016

James Scarlett is a partner at Torys LLP.

There’s a lot of talk these days about the need for Canadians to save more for retirement, but with a sputtering economy, weak job-creation numbers and interest rates seemingly stuck at near-record lows, that’s easier said than done.

Fortunately, Canada has a new federal government that has committed itself to applying open-minded and fresh thinking to tackling difficult issues. So, here’s a suggestion for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government looking for ways to boost the economy and create a steady stream of investment income for Canadians who need it: It’s time to give income trusts another look.

On Oct. 31, 2006, the Conservative government killed income trusts and, in so doing, dealt a serious blow to capital formation and retail-investor choice in Canada. It appeared at the time that the government was concerned about a loss of corporate tax revenue (despite the fact that numerous studies did not support that fear) and the unbridled growth of income funds generally.

Unfortunately, the government’s actions that day ended any discussion about how income trusts could have been adapted to address those concerns without losing the benefits they brought to the Canadian economy and investors.

A lot has changed since late 2006. Back then, the economy was doing well. Capital markets were robust. Commodity prices were strong. There wasn’t the faintest inkling of the impending paralysis of credit markets in 2007 and crash of stock markets in 2008.

Since then, Canada’s economy has not done well. Stagnant growth. Low or negative after-tax returns on investment. Moribund capital formation. We are clearly in need of ideas to stimulate economic activity and returns for investors.

How would bringing back income trusts help achieve these goals?

First and foremost, income trusts would give Canadian retail investors a wider choice of higher-yield, income-producing investment alternatives at a time when traditional retail-debt investments are producing rates of return that are low, or even negative after tax and inflation. Income-trust investments would give people more money to save for retirement or to spend and further stimulate the economy.

Institutional investors, such as private equity funds and pension funds, can currently make investments that are functionally equivalent to income trusts. Why not provide the same opportunities to retail investors? Allowing income trusts to return would put retail investors on a level playing field with institutional investors. Think about the hundreds of billions of dollars that are needed for infrastructure projects in the coming decade. Institutional investors will be big players in that space and the stable, long-term income-generating investments it will produce. Why not give retail investors a shot at those investments through the involvement of publicly traded income trusts?

More generally, revising income trusts would help to revive a moribund market for initial public offerings, generating capital-market activity and putting more money to work, which could have positive effects on the broader Canadian economy. Income trusts would also provide small- and medium-sized companies with access to the subdebt market, giving them a source of funds at lower cost than other financing options currently available.

But can we bring back income trusts in a way that captures their benefits while avoiding the worst of their excesses, real or imagined?

In their first incarnation, income trusts owned debt and shares of corporations in which the business was carried on. The corporation owned by the income trust relied on traditional sources of tax shelter, such as interest expense and capital cost allowance, to free up cash that could be paid to the income fund and on to holders of trust units.

The amount of tax shelter was largely fixed at the inception of the trust, so any growth in the underlying business was subject to usual rates of corporate tax. But the moderating effect of this structure was lost when, with the concurrence of Canadian tax authorities in the form of favourable advance tax rulings, income trusts were organized without the use of corporations but rather through the use of partnerships, which are flow-through entities and do not pay corporate-level tax. This change allowed – and even encouraged – virtually unlimited distribution of operating income without payment of any corporate tax.

So what if we went back to the early structure of income trusts, where the underlying business of the trust is held in a corporation that issues shares and debt to the trust, and where distributions on those securities would fund the income trust’s distributions to its investors? The moderating effect of this structure, with the underlying business held in a corporation and with the available tax attributes being essentially fixed at the outset, should avoid the excesses of the past, while allowing substantial benefits to flow to capital markets and investors. It might be necessary to put limits on the amount of debt that could be issued to prevent abuse, and that should be part of any discussion about the merits of reinstating income trusts for retail investors.

The issues presented by income trusts are challenging and complex, but if fairness and neutrality between retail and institutional investors are good policy objectives – and they are – it’s time to begin the discussion.

By revisiting the issue in a spirit of flexibility and creativity, it should be possible to come up with a solution that’s positive for investors and businesses, for capital markets and for the economy as a whole.

The views expressed are those of the writer alone and may not reflect the views of his law firm.

The latest joke from the CBC

2016-01-30T08:16:00.001-05:00

What a joke! The CBC has set up a website where sources can post anonymous tips about wrongdoing in the belief that the CBC will actually pursue these stories.

Any belief on the part of Canadians that the CBC would actively pursue wrongdoing is totally misplaced, as evidenced by the CBC's complete unwillingness to pursue Harper's $35 billion income trust fraud.

The CBC was repeatedly asked by Canadians across the country to investigate this matter, but instead CBC actively suppressed this news story and the falsehood's behind Harper's tax leakage arguments, as blogged about here:

CBC’s active suppression of the news

CBC has flushed income trust taxpayers down their toilet

Blown off by Don Newman

CBC’s pretense of soliciting questions from Canadians for Stephen Harper

This is grossly irresponsible on the part of the CBC

Hey, doesn't CBC's Amanda Lang's husband work for Peter Munk?

etc. etc.

Now that the Liberals are in power, this should be a no-brainer

2015-11-07T23:19:00.003-05:00

March-03-08

For Immediate Release

February 29, 2008

Liberal Finance Committee Members call on Auditor General to Examine Government’s Claims of Income Trust Tax Leakage

OTTAWA – Liberal Members of the Standing Committee on Finance today called on the Auditor General to investigate the tax leakage claims that the government used as the basis for its October 31, 2006, decision to tax income trusts.

“I think that this government’s stonewalling has gone on long enough and it’s time that Canadians got to see that the Government simply made up its story that income trusts cause federal tax leakage,” said Liberal Finance Critic John McCallum.

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised to Canadians that he would never tax income trusts. Then he went back on his word, costing Canadians billions overnight and in the wake of his silence on the issue we feel that only the Auditor General can shine some light into this matter.”

All four Liberal Members of the Finance Committee signed a letter to Auditor General Sheila Fraser asking her to investigate the matter, particularly the government’s unproven allegations about income trusts causing tax leakage.

“This has clearly become much more than just another instance of the government not doing its homework before acting. It has become a full-blown scandal and cover-up,” said John McKay, Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Guildwood. “We have tried virtually every tool at our disposal to get the government to show us how they came to their conclusions about tax leakage and the Auditor General may be Canadians’ last resort.”

An Access to Information request asking for the Department of Finance’s assumptions, data and methodology resulted in the release of only 23 pages of documents that are almost entirely blacked out.

A direct request from the Finance Committee to see the data was met with two thick binders of superfluous information that did not contain the data or methodology originally requested.

A written question was placed on the Order Paper asking the government to recalculate its estimate of tax leakage using the 15 per cent federal corporate tax rate that will actually be in effect in 2012, the year after the income trust tax begins, as opposed to the 21 per cent tax rate that was in effect at the time of the announcement. The government’s response to the question indicated that that this would be a hypothetical calculation and therefore impossible to do.

“That’s not a hypothetical, that’s what the federal tax rate will be,” said Garth Turner, Member of Parliament for Halton. “If the government can’t manage to run the new 2012 corporate tax rate through their calculators then I have no reason to believe they ran the old one through their calculators in October of 2006.”

In 2006, Stephen Harper ran on a campaign commitment to never tax income trusts. The Conservative election platform characterized any attempt to impose such a tax as, “An attack on retirement savings.”

“That election commitment was obviously a falsehood. Unfortunately the voters who believed it and invested even more money in income trusts lost a significant portion of their nest eggs,” said Massimo Pacetti, Member of Parliament for MP for Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel.

“Even today, 15 months after they broke their election promise, Members of Parliament still hear from the thousands of Canadians whose retirement plans were shattered by this deception. Liberal Members of Parliament continue to stand up for them.”

-30-

The full text of the letter sent to the Auditor General is attached.

To see the government response to written question 149 on the Order Paper please visit: www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/080229_Q-149_en.pdf

Harper's faded economic vision for Canada

2015-07-14T12:11:00.000-04:00

Pretty much sums it up.

Mr. Tory - tear down this wall

2015-06-11T08:52:00.001-04:00

John Allemang wrote an interesting piece in today's Globe concerning the decision facing Toronto council about whether to spend another $1 billion to perpetuate the bad idea known as the Gardiner extension or do something more progressive than repeating past mistakes.

That article is entitled: Beneath the Gardiner, a soul-destroying wasteland lurks to which I posed the following comment:

Well put John Allemang, and from an interesting perspective, that of the pedestrian.

Any decision concerning this portion of the Gardiner needs to be made, not in isolation, but in the broader context of what's to be done with the entirety of the Gardiner. $1 billion is no trifling sum of money that Toronto taxpayers will be spending. This decision also needs to be made in the broader Toronto interests, rather than the more narrow interests who are calling for a preservation of the status quo (at a cost of $1 billion).

I think everyone agrees that the Gardiner is an idea that did not realize on its original 1950's promise, and is not something that any urban planner would recommend today. That said, how can it possible be considered a good idea to simply perpetuate a bad idea, by preserving the Gardiner at a cost of 41 billion?

Tory's hybrid idea sounds more like a campaign to mask all of the obvious ills of the Gardiner, with some token gestures of making what's bad feel less bad, much like the exercise of putting lipstick on a pig.

Fixing what's wrong with the Gardiner won't be cheap, but rather than throwing $1 billion to perpetuate the bad idea known as the Gardiner, how about spending some real money and coming up with a real solution, such as the tunnel that is being proposed? Toronto and Torontonians deserve real solutions and not band aid solutions as the incremental cost, as between the two, will prove itself money well spent over the short, immediate and long term and won't be a decision that future generations will be second guessing, as we are now doing with the Gardiner.

Maybe we could call it the Tory Tunnel as that might appeal to the Mayor's ego and might get him to think straight on this major decision that he's presently headed down the wrong direction on.

Well put John Allemang, and from an interesting perspective, that of the pedestrian.

Any decision concerning this portion of the Gardiner needs to me made, not in isolation, but in the broader context of what's to be done with the entirety of the Gardiner. $1 billion is no trifling sum of money that Toronto taxpayers will be spending. This decision also needs to be made in the context of the broader Toronto interests, rather than the more narrow interests who are calling for a preservation of the status quo (at a cost of $1 billion).

I think everyone agrees that the Gardiner is an idea that did not realize on its original 1950's promise, and is not something any urban planner would recommend today. That said, how can it possibly be considered a good idea to simply perpetuate a bad idea, by preserving the Gardiner at a cost of $1 billion, as people like John Tory are proposing?

Tory's hybrid idea sounds more like a campaign to mask all the obvious ills of the Gardiner with some token gestures of making what's bad feel less bad, much like the exercise of putting lipstick on a pig.

Fixing what's wrong with the Gardiner won't be cheap, but rather than throwing $1 billion to perpetuate the bad idea known as the Gardiner, how about spending some real money and come up with a real solution, such as the tunnel that is being proposed? Toronto and Torontonians deserve real solutions and not band aid solution, as the incremental cost, as between the two, will prove itself money well spent over the short, immediate and long term and won't be a decision that future generations will be second guessing, as we are now doing with the Gardiner.

Maybe we could call it the Tory Tunnel as that might appeal to the Mayor's ego and might get him to think straight on this major decision that he's presently headed down the wrong direction on.

Don't fire Evan Solomon, reassign him as CMO of the CBC

2015-06-10T14:49:00.000-04:00

Quite interesting that the CBC, as an organization, is struggling with how to monetize its service, while enterprising folks like Amanda Lang and Evan Solomon figured that out a long time ago, albeit leveraging off their CBC gigs for personal gain.

Maybe Evan should be reassigned to Chief Monetization Officer of the CBC instead of fired? That way he could employ his true talent for leveraging off the CBC brand and generating money for the cash strapped organization, in the same way he did for his own self, by brokering art deals and using his guest list at Power and Politics as a "prospect list".

Amanda, on the other hand, should simply be fired, as she is beyond reprieve or useful purpose.

Unfortunately what neither Amanda Lang or Evan Solomon realize is that whatever power they think they possess, it's very fleeting and actually not even theirs to begin with.

People like Amanda Lang and Evan Solomon got easily seduced into thinking they possess the power they employ, when in fact that power derives from their employer, namely the CBC. Management of the CBC, on the other hand, seem to think the power resides with their on-air personalities, which is why these scandals are perpetuated in the CBC rather than dealt with.

Management of the CBC has created a culture where these kinds of abuses have been allowed to flourish, and management are the main culprit, which is not to absolve folks like Amanda and Evan, who simply opportunistically exploited a weak system, as greed driven persons are want to do.

David Brooks of the New York Times often makes this very point when he appears on PBS Newshour every Friday saying things like "I doubt whether much of what I have to say would be of much relevance if it weren't for the fact that I write for the New York Times."

Time for the media "personalities" at the CBC along with management of the CBC to awaken to that reality as well.

Evan Solomon: Latest entrant to Canadian Journalists' Hall of Shame

2015-06-10T08:19:00.003-04:00

Canadian journalists have their Canadian journalists awards, that are awarded annually for excellence in journalism, whereas it seems the Canadian Journalists' Hall of Shame, awarded for excesses as a journalist, requires daily updates. It currently reads:

Canadian Journalists' Hall of Shame

Evan Solomon of CBC
Amanda Lang of CBC
Mike Duffy of CTV
Peter Mansbridge of CBC
Leslie Roberts of Global News
Jian Ghomeshi of CBC
Pamela Wallin of CTV

Adscam 2, the sequel, starring Pierre Poilievre

2015-05-15T09:11:00.003-04:00

This sounds a lot like the sequel to Adscam, only with a new cast of characters, but hopefully the same outcome, namely a new party in office.

Adscam 2 coming to an polling booth near you. Just make sure to avoid getting the polling station location from some Robocall ne'er-do-well.

Poilievre paid public servants overtime to help film promotional video

No debate about debate debacle's ulterior purpose

2015-05-13T10:58:00.001-04:00

Canada's closet leader won't participate in election debates!

2015-05-12T11:12:00.001-04:00

For the latest news in our gutless leader.

This is no surprise, especially with Elizabeth May as part of the election debate mix!

Back in the 2008 Election, where I ran as the Liberal candidate in the Whitby-Oshawa riding,

Flaherty bailed out of the marquis televised debate on CTV.

The producers of CTV were running cover for Flaherty on their reasons for not holding the debate, saying that a number of candidates declined participating.

They were right, as that "number" turned out to be the number 1, as in Flaherty and Flaherty alone.

Being on excellent terms with the other candidates (Green and NDP) I was able to quickly reveal this CTV/Flaherty lie for what it was. After I had exposed the lie for what it was, I called the CTV producer back, had her repeat her lie, and then told her it was a total fabrication, as Flaherty was clearly the person behind why the televised debate did not occur.

Welcome to Harper land. When he isn't hiding in closets, he's running from debates. What a leader. NOT

Don't you think it's time Canadians cleaned out the closet and elected a real leader?

my-oh-my Ms May!

2015-05-12T08:54:00.001-04:00

This incident only serves to demonstrate, once again, what hypocrites journalists are. Hey guys, let's have an evening of fun and merriment where politicians can let their hair down and crack a few jokes, even some off-colour jokes, BUT STOP, we are journalists and having set a trap, we will exploit it for news advantage should anyone like Elizabeth May dare cross an ill-defined line of decorum that turns on whether we can exploit someone's failed attempt at humour and turn it into manufactured public outrage, or not.

Not much different than when journalist cajole people into having their photographs taken with some goofy prop or pose, the sole purpose of which is to make those same people look like pawns/idiots in the press, something which Elizabeth May clearly is not.

No mention in the news coverage of this non-event of the fact that Harper has never attended one of these events as PM, only as Opposition Leader, and no mention that Harper in real life says outrageous things like the LIberals side with child pornographers, and yet Elizabeth May's use of the F word in the same sentence as Omar Khadr in what was clearly a joke at some journalists' version of the Comedy Club, becomes some litmus test for Elizabeth May's integrity and whatever else it has become in some people's creative minds.

Truly pathetic on the part of those who exploited this for news and political advantage. Talk about a double standard.

The only thing that Elizabeth May said wrong was that instead of saying:

'Omar Khadr, you've got more class than the whole f---ing cabinet, which was clearly a joke, she should have said:

'Omar Khadr, you've got more f---ing class than the whole f---ing cabinet, Harper included", since that would have been the truth, rather than a joke.

Maybe next time? (just kidding).

IT'S OFFICIAL: Jim Flaherty is politically toxic

2015-05-09T12:43:00.005-04:00

Being a former Minister in Harper's cabinet doesn't cast much of a halo.

Just look at Prentice and now Flaherty's wife. I guess Baird sold out when the selling was good.

Patrick Brown wins Ontario PC leadership

Backbencher Brown bested Whitby-Oshawa MPP Christine Elliott.

Jim Prentice becomes the Kim Campbell of Alberta politics. Is Harper next?

2015-05-06T07:36:00.004-04:00

CALGARY

After 12 consecutive majority governments and more than 43 years in power, Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives lost to the New Democratic Party in a sea change in power that will be felt across the country.

New Democrats won an unprecedented majority in what was once the most right-wing province in the country, sweeping all 19 seats in Edmonton and making inroads in previously NDP barren territory in Calgary and Lethbridge.

Amanda Lang: Explained

2014-12-22T20:01:00.004-05:00

See: Lang Did Paid Manulife Speaking Gigs and Then Gave Them Favourable Coverage

Like we've asked before:

Hey, doesn't CBC's Amanda Lang's husband work for Peter Munk?

Will Amanda Lang continue to espouse Flaherty's tax leakage lies on CBC?

Profiles in courage

2014-12-10T14:12:00.001-05:00

The ballot box question for the next election, will be whether Canadians think we need a bigger closet or a bigger Prime Minister.

I vote the latter.

Eric Reguly claims income trust tax revealed Jim Flaherty's true character

2014-04-11T20:54:00.001-04:00

In the new cottage industry that has sprung up known as Jim Flaherty myth building, we have the Globe and Mail's Eric Reguly positing in a piece entitled The brave move that showed Jim Flaherty's true character that Jim Flaherty's income trust tax is what defines Jim Flaherty's true character, with the conclusion that Jim should be revered for making this decision. To which I posted this comment:

"Yes, the income trust issue sure showed Jim Flaherty's true character. That is, his true character as someone willing to blatantly lie about the policy's main allegation that income trusts cause tax leakage, which is a completely false construct. Just ask any reputable source about whether tax leakage is truth or fiction, like BMO Capital Markets, Royal Bank, Pricewaterhouse Coopers or HLB Decision Economics.

Even Jack Mintz admitted that to me in an email dated November 28, 2006 in which he stated:
"I do want to point out that there is a serious flaw in many of the [tax leakage] analyses especially on the taxation of pension and RRSP accounts. Finance was not right to treat the impact as ZERO."

So Flaherty lied to all Canadians when he said the Conservatives 2006 election promise to not tax income trusts had to be reversed since conversions of firms like Telus and BCE would cause tax leakage, since that was patently untrue. This revealed Flaherty's true characters as either someone grossly deceitful or grossly incompetent. Take you pick. That's Flaherty's true legacy.

That aside, my condolences to his family."

Yes, the income trust issue sure showed Jim Flaherty's true character.That is, his true character as someone willing to blatantly lie about the policy's main allegation that income trusts cause tax leakage, which is a completely false construct. Just ask any reputable source about whether tax leakage is truth or fiction, like BMO Capital Markets, Royal Bank, Pricewaterhouse Coopers or HLB Decision Economics. Even Jack Mintz admitted that to me in an email dated November 28, 2006 in which he stated:
"I do want to point out that there is a serious flaw in many of the [tax leakage]
analyses especially on the taxation of pension and RRSP accounts. Finance was
not right to treat the impact as ZERO."
So Flaherty lied to all Canadians when he said the Conservatives 2006 election promise to not tax income trusts had to be reversed since conversions of firms like Telus and BCE would cause tax leakage, since that was patently untrue. This revealed Flaherty's true characters as either someone grossly deceitful or grossly incompetent. Take you pick. That's Flaherty's true legacy.

That aside, my condolences to his family.

Flaherty's real legacy: Dead Money

2014-03-25T19:01:00.001-04:00

By killing income trusts in 2006 (using his false argument of tax leakage) Jim Flaherty enshrined corporations and as a result enshrined the concept of dead money. Flaherty killed the income trust model favoured by Canadians saving for retirement that distributed the earnings of businesses throughout the economy and thereby avoided the dead money trap. This is Flaherty's real legacy:

Canada's Corporate Cash Hoard Is Nearly One-Third Of GDP: IMF

The Huffington Post Canada | By Daniel Tencer Posted: 03/25/2014 Canadian companies have been accumulating “dead money” — cash sitting idle in bank accounts — faster than companies in any other country in the G7, according to a report from the International Monetary Fund. The issue of corporate cash hoards exploded in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008-09, as consumers’ advocates accused businesses of harming the economy by sitting on cash instead of investing, hiring or at least paying out dividends to shareholders.

Idle cash sitting in Canadian corporate accounts amounted to less than 10 per cent of GDP as recently as the late 1990s, but has exploded to more than 30 per cent of GDP since then, said the IMF report that came out in January and was recently flagged by PressProgress. The average cash pile among G7 countries is around 25 per cent of GDP.

Statistics Canada data released earlier this month showed Canada’s corporate cash hoard was $626 billion in the last quarter of 2013, a jump of 6 per cent over the previous quarter.

As United Steelworkers economist Erin Weir pointed out, that makes Canada’s corporate cash hoard larger than the country’s federal debt, which sat at $612 billion at last count.

“The corporate sector’s aggressive accumulation of cash helps to explain the lack of investment and employment growth,” Weir wrote.

Some have linked growing cash piles to shrinking corporate tax rates. That’s a debatable notion, but it is noteworthy that these cash piles grew during the same period as Canada saw its corporate tax rate slashed aggressively.

Cash hoarding is hardly unique to Canada. Tech giant Apple’s cash pile was $147 billion U.S. at last count, more than the GDP of a majority of countries.

In Canada, companies’ individual cash hoards aren’t nearly as large, but they are large enough for former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney to worry about what it means for the economy.

If Canada’s corporations can’t figure out what to do with the money, "give it back to shareholders and they'll figure out what to do with it," Carney said in 2012.

But many in the business community say it only makes sense for businesses not to spend money in times of uncertainty.

In an internal memo prepared last year for then-Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, the government called the corporate cash piles “legitimate,” and argued they reflected “sound decision-making.”
Not everyone sees it this way. Weir argues the stockpile shows the government should reverse corporate tax cuts.

“If corporate Canada will not invest its dead money, the government should resuscitate some of it,” he wrote.

Game over for the gaming mechanism known as executive stock options?

2014-02-22T09:26:00.003-05:00

Banks investors, watch for the vote on CEO pay

DAVID MILSTEAD

Special to The Globe and Mail

Feb. 22 2014,

Stock options, the once-revered and now beleaguered compensation tool, face a challenge in Canada this spring.

A Montreal-based shareholder group, Le Mouvement d’éducation et de défense des actionnaires, or MÉDAC, has placed shareholder proposals on the proxy circulars of seven companies, including Canada’s big five banks, calling on them to “gradually eliminate” the use of stock options in their compensation plans.

MÉDAC, an organization that has placed many governance-oriented proposals on proxies over the years, argues that executive compensation should be based on performance criteria that the executive can actually control — and stock price is not one of those things.

MÉDAC cites an academic paper by Michel Magnan of Concordia University and Sylvie St.-Onge of HEC Montreal arguing that 90 per cent of the stock-price changes at the big five Canadian banks were due to attributes of the banking sector as a whole, such as the economy and interest rates. Only 10 per cent of the changes were the result of factors specific to each bank – and CEO performance was just one ingredient.

Companies embraced options a generation ago as a way to link executive pay to performance. Options programs proliferated during the markets’ long winning run in the 1980s and 1990s. The end of that boom, in 2000, helped expose their flaws. Executives who had accumulated, and then used, many years’ worth of stock options retained their wealth even as their long-term investors suffered.

Options continue to allow lacklustre executives to benefit from the rising-tides-lifts-all-boats phenomenon. Stock options reward the holder for a rising share price, even if the shares are performing no better, or even worse, than the market.

Consider a company that awards its CEO 200,000 stock options when the shares trade at $50 apiece. Over the next five years, the company’s shares appreciate by 5 per cent each year — but the market gains an average of 8 per cent. The company’s shareholders would have been better off investing in an index fund. The stock options, though, are worth $2.8 million.

Many companies, awakening to these problems, have been shifting away from their use over the past several years. MÉDAC president Daniel Thouin says his group chose seven companies that already seem to be reducing their option awards for its proxy initiative this year.

Royal Bank of Canada, whose AGM is Wednesday, is the first of the big banks to face MÉDAC’s proposal. In its response, RBC notes that it has been reducing the proportion of options in the equity portion of its executive compensation packages, from 40 per cent in 2010, to 25 per cent in 2011 and 20 per cent in 2012. “These changes were aligned with a broad market trend to reduce stock options and overall compensation program leverage,” RBC says.

The response, attributed to the company’s board, says its compensation committee believes stock options that are “duly approved by shareholders, modestly dilutive and properly structured, provide alignment between management compensation and the creation of shareholder value.”

Stock options can be designed differently. A few companies, for instance, allow stock options to vest only if certain operating criteria are met. One U.S. company, Level 3 Communications, has an “outperform stock option” program, in which the company’s shares have to beat the Standard & Poor’s 500 index before the stock options have value. (There’s a catch, however: The options can be worth as much as four times as much as a normal option, depending on how much Level 3 outpaces the S&P 500.)

Another corporate-governance group, the Shareholder Association for Research and Education, or SHARE, is endorsing MÉDAC’s proposal, noting that Royal Bank and others already use performance-based vesting for restricted stock in its compensation program. (Unlike stock options, restricted stock is given to executives but “vests,” or becomes sellable, only over time or if other criteria are met.)

“With Royal Bank’s stock options, there’s no basis in performance at all, for the awards or vesting,” says Catherine Smith, SHARE’s senior research analyst. “So the question is, what behaviour do you want to motivate with those stock-option awards? And the way the Royal Bank is doing it, all you’re motivating is for them to stick around. It’s a reward for not quitting.”

Many of the banks’ performance-share programs still award some portion of the stock, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or even millions, if the bank’s performance trails peers.

For example: RBC executives can still get 100 per cent of the target performance share award even if the stock’s total shareholder return is as low as the 40th percentile of a peer group. (The 50th percentile is average.) They can only get a zero award if the shares are in the 20th percentile or lower, and the bank’s three-year average return on equity is below 10 per cent, a number RBC routinely achieves.

Much of the grousing about executive pay seems to come from governance scolds and ordinary citizens. Shareholders, given a chance to rebel, have not. Of the S&P/TSX 60 Index companies that conducted a “say on pay” vote in 2013, the median approval rate for the compensation plans was a robust 94 per cent.

MÉDAC also placed its option proposal on the proxies at Cogeco Inc. and Metro Inc., which conducted their annual meetings in January. The proposal got 0.3 per cent of the vote at Cogeco and 5.1 per cent of the vote at Metro, according to SHARE’s database of shareholder votes.

“We have to start somewhere, and with this proposal, it’s probably the best way to begin to change the way [CEOs are compensated],” says MÉDAC’s Mr. Thouin. “Stock options are the least justified part of compensation.”

Income splitting spat is simply the means to divert attention away from Fair Elections Act.

2014-02-14T08:19:00.001-05:00

Harper is nothing if not devious and audacious.

Audacious is the word to describe the contents of Harper's so called Fair Elections Act, the purpose of which is to confer advantages on the Conservatives through increased campaign donation levels, as if more money thrown at politicians will fix what is fundamentally wrong with our electoral system?

Devious is the word to describe the purpose of Harper's little income splitting spat with members of his party, as the real purpose is to divert Canadians' attention away from the contents of Harper's Fair Election Act that is presently being rammed through Parliament. Whether that was the intended effect of the income splitting spat or not, it is certainly serving that end purpose.

At least Elizabeth May is not so easily diverted. Here is what she had to say about the Fair Elections Act in Parliament on Tuesday:

Fair Elections Act (Bill C-23)

On Tuesday, February 11th, 2014 in Speeches, Videos

Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be able to speak to Bill C-23 today. I want to pause and say that when we have these rushed processes with closure on debate and an abbreviated time to look at a critical bill, it is rare for me to have a speaking opportunity. Therefore, I want to thank the Liberal Party for giving me a speaking slot today. I do not know if I agree with them in every aspect of their objections to this bill, but I agree with many of them.
When I look at what we need in Canada to fix democracy, I remember a clever little ad put together by Fair Vote Canada. Don Ferguson of Royal Canadian Air Farce, one of my favourite icons of Canadian comedy, starred in it. He wore a white lab coat and started talking about the serious tragedy of electoral dysfunction in Canada, the failure to perform well when it came to elections.
I will not go down the double entendres that went through that Fair Vote Canada ad, but as members can imagine there were many of them. However, it did bring to mind the need for a prescription to fix an unhealthy system. The ad pointed to the issue of getting rid of first past the post, which is fundamental to fair elections in Canada, and having election results which are then mirrored in the composition of our house of commons.
We need reform. We need a fair elections act. We need to deal with the unhealthy level of hyper-partisanship, the non-stop attack ads, and the fact that we have not gotten to the bottom of the robocall scandal of the last election. However, this bill is not it.
A real prescription for a healthy democracy is in our grasp and instead we get this bill that would weaken our electoral system, weaken democracy, and further reduce voter turnout. We had an opportunity to sideline the cynical politics of non-stop attack ads that function as a “deliberate mechanism,” which is the language used by political spin doctors, of voter suppression. The goal of non-stop negative advertising is to reduce voter turnout in the interests of another party.
A lot of things now pass for political prowess, for which anyone who loves democracy should hang their head in shame and be condemned from ever standing for election again. This is not about every party getting out and urging everyone to vote, as we have heard people from across the aisle say all day. Over and over again, we have examples of efforts to do exactly the opposite. I am afraid this bill is in that spirit of reducing voter turnout.
We could have, with this bill, pursued the reforms found in private member’s Bill C-559, put forward by the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills. That would have led to fairer elections. We could have levelled the playing field for financing so that members of Parliament who come to this place as independents have a fair chance to raise the funds they need to run for re-election. However, we did not.
The ways in which this bill would reduce the potential for a healthy democracy and worsen voter turnout need to be reviewed. Many of my colleagues in this place have given very eloquent, articulate, and full reviews. In particular, I have to give credit and homage to my friend, the hon. member for Toronto—Danforth, whose work on this bill was brilliant.
Let me point out what I would agree with. I may be a minority on this matter, but I do not really think it is a problem to create a commissioner for elections who operates out of the office of public prosecutions. I see that as an independent place. The problem is the government has not given that office any tools. It has not given that officer subpoena powers. What is worse is, for some reason, it has created a “black box” surrounding the work. It would amend the Access to Information Act to remove, from access to information, anything going on in the work of the commissioner for Canada’s elections. They would also remove in the Elections Act the requirement to give any information about investigations.
What I also would agree with in this bill is the scheme to deal with the robocalls, to have a way of tracking who buys this kind of automated calling service. That is not bad. I would have voted for that.
However, the bill also includes a big new loophole for the spending of money. It now will not be considered an elections expense to spend money on activities that are considered fundraising for nomination candidates. That is an open door to abuse.
What is the worst part of this bill? This cuts to the core of democracy. This is a charter issue. I turn to a most recent statement by the Supreme Court of Canada on the right of Canadians to vote. It was a decision of October 2012. We are all familiar with it. It is in the name of the current member for Etobicoke Centre, so I will not say the name of the case. However, it was a strong decision written by Mr. Justice Rothstein and Mr. Justice Moldaver.
They had this to say:

The right of every citizen to vote, guaranteed by s. 3 of the Charter, lies at the heart of Canadian democracy.

In this instance, they did not find that those rights had been trampled upon, but that was because a lot of the provisions this bill would remove were in place. Therefore, I think this quote from the Supreme Court is timely and informs us, as my friend, the member for Victoria, recently pointed out, that this bill is probably unconstitutional. The following is what the Supreme Court had to say at the bottom of page 98 of the decision:

Our system strives to treat candidates and voters fairly, both in the conduct of elections and in the resolution of election failures. As we have discussed, the Act seeks to enfranchise all entitled persons,…

A voter can establish Canadian citizenship verbally, by oath.

That cannot happen any more, not with this bill.
The court went on to say:

The goal of accessibility can only be achieved if we are prepared to accept some degree of uncertainty that all who voted were entitled to do so.

The Conservative members of the House and the minister have utterly failed to provide any evidentiary background for the notion that we have a crisis of voter fraud in this country. There is no evidence for the notion that Canadians are covering themselves up through creating false IDs and voting more than once. The crisis in Canadian democracy is not that Canadians are voting more than once, it is that they are voting less than once, and this bill would worsen Canadians’ trust in the system and increase cynicism.
As for the treatment of the Chief Electoral Officer, talk about sharper teeth: they are all sharpened in the direction of going after Marc Mayrand. I find this shocking. He is a public servant, he is doing his job, and the job that was being done is now essentially going to be stifled.
When I worked on my last book, which was on the crisis in Canadian democracy ironically, I wanted to try to get to the bottom of why young people were not voting. Where could I find good research that informed that discussion? I found that good research because it was commissioned by Elections Canada. It started to inform political parties what we should do to ensure civic literacy and political understanding from the earliest possible moment.
I think it undermines political responsibility and civic understanding to refer to voters as customers. There is something fundamentally wrong with an Elections Act that talks about customer service when we are talking about voting. It is a right. It is not shopping, and every Canadian must be allowed to vote.
I cannot tell members how heartbreaking it is to hear from people, particularly young people, who have been turned away at the polls because they found that multiple forms of ID did not work. I remember hearing from a young woman in Dawson City when I was holding a town hall there on democracy. She said that she had tried twice. I asked her if she would keep trying and she said she did not know if there was any point, that they did not want her to vote.
I remember the tears in the eyes of an older man in Pictou County who had voted in his polling station during his 75 years until these new changes were brought in by the current administration and he was denied the right to vote because he could not produce a photo ID. He did not have a driver’s licence. His sister in law was working at the polling station, but under the rules she was not allowed to vouch for him because she had not gone there for that purpose. Under this new act, we would see more and more Canadians turned away, disenfranchised by the false notion that we have a crisis in voter fraud. That is not our crisis.
We need to do everything possible to restore faith among the Canadian public in the health of our democratic system, and this bill takes us in the absolute wrong direction. Why would a governing party do this? Why is there such a rush to disenfranchise Canadians? Is there an election coming right away that we do not know about? Do we have to have all these new rules in place for first nations, seniors, young people, the poor, and the groups that advocate for those parts of our society that are more disenfranchised by having to produce government-issued photo IDs? Is that the point?
I am baffled and appalled and deeply shocked and troubled by this bill. The things in it that are good could have been so much better, but the things that are bad are unforgivable in a democracy.