NDP alone against integration

Written By: sthompson
Date: 2004-07-09 15:15:53
<a href="/article/151553244-ndp-alone-against-integration">Article Link</a>

Read the full column: <a href="http://www.rabble.ca/columnists_full.shtml?x=33103">Attention turns to Parliament</a>

I prefer that they focus on PR. Proportional Rep will definitely make a greater longterm change for our country. Voices such as the Green Party and CAP will suddenly start being heard.

But a decent wage should also be in there.

And some sort of law that stops corporations from using tax havens to dodge our fair taxes. If you want to run a corporation or a subsidary in Canada, you should be paying Canadian taxes. That's what it costs to maintain our infrastructure and our people. And that's what you need to run a corporation. No free rides for the rich!

-KY

---
Kory Yamashita

"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Can't do that under NAFTA. NDP are not going to abrogate that so this is an exercise in futility.

AHA! So that's where he is... I though he should write for us, but he's writing for Rabble.

---
"These Yankee politicians are the lowest race of thieves in existence." - Sir John Sparrow Thompson

Duncan Cameron’s summation: “The Liberals have quietly brought Canada ever closer to the U.S. economic model of low wages, privatized services and tax breaks for the wealthy. The NDP leader could signal party support for Canadian concerns about Canada adopting the U.S. economic model by making indecent wages the subject of his first question in the House.”

While I agree with him entirely, the philosophy of the “flat tax society” is in the midst of a run-away. Without the dampening effect of progressive taxation, preferably steeply progressive taxation, and its day or reckoning every April 30th, there is not even a prayer for the disadvantaged, and anyone on a fixed income bidding for the same basics as the “big winners” of Americanization and free trade.

Heck, just today the Supreme Court Judges questioned the 180 thousand dollar salary, and said $250,000.00, or in that order, would be more appropriate. These are the people appointed to this prestigious position, presumably for their sense of justice and “fair play”! What a remarkable statement on their part!

mcgowan

Lawyers.

Enough said.

---
"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca

I think money leaving the country should be taxed. If I spend it here it circulates, when it leaves the country somebody else must repatriate it.

I also think universal public health care should be at the forefront of any NDP argument. They`ve been all too quiet about it as of late. Get rid of public health care, and you instantly widen the gap between rich and poor.

---
Dave Ruston

So what is the essential difference between "flat-tax", and a progressive income where the loop holes and write offs generally not afforded the poor, never-the-less exist for the rich?

---
RickW

You have a good point (your hair hides it well :-)

?)

A progressive tax complete with loopholes is no better than a flat tax, but boy the wealthy like those loopholes.

Laws written by the wealthy for the wealthy.

Close off ALL offshore tax havens !!!!

Paul, can you hear me ?

BTW, Ontario is going through a computer program that was developed by Accenture Canada, head office in Burmuda, and guess what ?

The program will not allow an increase to those on welfare or disability benefits.

Money spent so $500 million can leave the country, and the harris government had never intended to increase social service benefits, so the program suited them just fine.

We now have a 3% increase in the welfare and disability rates, but the system will need some $10 million to fix it. It cannot calculate the increase.

Where does it end ?

---
"Arrogance in Politics is unacceptable"
Jim Callaghan
Minden, Ontario
705-286-1860
www.misterc.ca

Dave the Healthcare issue is going to be big. I wrote to my MLA and got a copy of Alberta's proposals for the new Alberta way. I am presently composing a letter to discuss what I read; a annual deductible based on income, a person earning about $30,000.00 year will pay $465.00 deductible per person per year, as well as monthly premiums of about $88.00 per person. Now they say that if you need a $10,000.00 hip replacement that is a good deal. People who are disabled or chronically ill that have no earned income will not pay, 'earned income' could be CPP disability. So very few will not pay. Those who use it more will pay more, especially if they can, it says. Also they'll encourage people to use the tele-system; so self-diagnosis will be the norm.

Several things here that I see, one this tele-system must cost us something, self-diagnosis will result in more deaths, epidemics will go undetected, illness that can be cured in early detection, will not be found till it's too late.

The other questions I wonder about is where did our debt come from, free standing continuing care facilities which are proposed and some are already here, must cost us something, private companies don't work for free. The authors of the study make two statements, healthcare cost are rising, and we need to find new revenue to cover those costs because we can't sustain it any longer.

What they don't say is why are healthcare costs rising, when they started shipping the laundry out rather than having laundry in each hospital did that decision cost? They paid to have the Calgary General Hospital renovated and then about six years later they imploded it, cost analysis? Why can't we afford healthcare, where did the money from the Heritage Trust(rainy day)Fund go?

There are many questions and before I accept the made in Alberta solution I am going to find the answers.

---
If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

I think that the purpose of our tax laws has always been to allow the rich and influential to avoid paying taxes, and the reason they have become so complicated is that we "little people" manage to make use of them here and there, and it totally infuriates them that they can't just come out and say, "Look! Rich people keep this country running and don't deserve to pay taxes."--- RickW

For the amount of work supreme court justices do, they deserve a lot more than $180,000 a year. Their work is grueling. I remember Justice LaForest, when he was still on the bench, had a nervous breakdown and had to take time off.

Being a supreme court justice is not a cushy job. They deserve to be well compensated.

To paraphrase Lincoln's "of the people, for the people, by the people", we in Canada can easily say "of the lawyers, for the lawyers, and by the lawyers".

---
RickW