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Québec budget makes workers and poor pay, kowtows to rich
March 13, 2011 - 2:51am
Below...
Unspeakable, cynical attack by this neoliberal regime:
Read other highlights here.
Of course, Charest claims this is all fair, because big business was demanding more - like getting rid of $7 per day child care and making parents pay the full shot.
This is not much of a gamble for Charest, given that the National Assembly is controlled by two neoliberal parties, regardless of any rhetorical differences.
at a newspaper I worked at, we used to have an electronic text "bin" for standard headlines,
as in "Pope urges world peace" or "US Congress deadlocked as key vote nears";
for provincial budgets, it was something like "Gas, beer hit with hikes; sales tax boosted to fight deficit"
plus ca change...
As for tuition fees, I am a paying parent, and just this a.m. transferred money (ouch ) to my son's RBC account for McGill expenses;
as such, I say: universities need more money, and as a major revenue stream, tuition has to go up. Otherwise, over the longer term, you just have lousier universities and bigger classes. In Europe, with "free" tuition the results are often painful, esp. for first-year students and researchers.
Post-secondary education is affirmed by the United Declaration of Human Rights. It is a public good in and of itself. As such, we should be fighting to move towards a public funding model, not away from it--indeed, the students of Quebec know this and that is why they enjoy the lowest tuition in the country and the best funding system. "Tuition has to go up" is the mendacious refrain of corporatized University presidents, not of students or of citizens in a democracy.
Believe it: the students of Quebec will not take this budget sitting down.
Awwwwww, I'd certainly hate that your son has a bad time with a crappy first year class :(
Nah, its okay, I'll pay more for him. I feel so bad that he might have shitty classes, because I've never had one. :(
so things should be lousy for everyone?!? not much of an argument ...
The argument is that pse should be publicly funded just like primary and secondary education is.
Why of course not. Things should be luxurious for a few.
How could you do that with a progressive tax system, Unionist? Have you been reading the Wealth of nations again?
I'd love to lay my invisible hand on a copy of that book. Unfortunately, the Wealth of Nations holds no interest for me. I'm a person of principal.
I was just reading in Le Nord Est that Quebec has a surplus of electricity, so why would rates increase???
Thread drift: with a surplus in electricity, why are there still proposals for more hydro dams?
Your a capital individual, Unionist.
Boom Boom, Québec has the cheapest residential rates in North America by far, although Manitoba and B.C. are quite close. You can read about the detailed comparisons here - for example, Torontonians pay 67% higher rates than Montrealers!
Neoliberals can't stand ordinary folks getting anything cheap. It's sort of like a religion with them. So, they've been pushing for hydro rates to rise dramatically (which this budget thankfully will not do) so they can soak everyone in order to increase government revenues and hand it over to their buddies; so as to finance more development so they can export more to the U.S. and other provinces; and ultimately to make Hydro a nice target for privatization (recall that it was the Quiet Revolution which nationalized Hydro in 1963).
Oh, I should mention that one reason the Charest neolibs don't raise them faster is rather selfish and greedy - they're afraid it would correspondingly reduce federal equalization payments!
O Canada!
Thanks, Unionist. Electricity isn't exactly cheap for us - I pay almost $200/month, but then I live in a very cold and isolated area of Quebec (and the power occasionally goes off - was off for 12.5 hours yesterday).
Do you use hydro for heating? That's put the $200 in better perspective.
What's your rate per Kw/hour, out of curiosity? You'll find it on your Hydro bill. Mine says $0.0545 for the first 30 kWh per day, and $0.0746 above that. Oh, and there's also something called "fixed charge" at $0.4064 per day.
Well, for those of us whose parents could not afford to pay our tuition and now have massive student loans at criminal interest rates, tuition needs to go down...not up. I am sorry, but adding that "ouch" in there is just offensive coming from someone who can afford to provide the current tuition and support increases for his children.
As for electric rates, we have the highest rates in Canada here on PEI and our premier is trying to work out some type of deal with Hydro Quebec at the moment (pls help us out, Quebec!). It is currently 13.54 cents per Kwh. Looks like your sales tax will be nearly as high as ours soon though.
Ghislaine, if you're prepared to change the name to Île-du-Prince-Jean, I think M. Charest might look at purchasing PEI (under the table - no sales tax) and bestowing all our neolib benefits upon your compatriots!
On a serious note, I agree fully with your post, having been there and done that.
Sorry, the moral-superiority act does not play well: for upper-middle class parents, they pay the full college-fee bill, d'accord.
But when parents/students demonstrably cannot afford that, yes, subsidize them to the max. It comes out kif-kif.
Why should medical students and a fortirori MBA students be subsidized by the general revenues levies from all taxpayers??
Agreed, DaveW - we'll omit the MBA wannabe wealthmongers. They add no value to society.
But I was hoping to generate some discussion here about the budget as a whole - we've had many threads about the tuition debate and I wouldn't mind seeing another one. The students will hopefully be rising up as they have in the past and will need our support.
Dave W. asked: Why should medical students and a fortirori MBA students be subsidized by the general revenues levies from all taxpayers??
Caissa answers: because educate is a right and fees should not be charged regardless of academic level, elementary, secondary or post-secondary.
I've always found it interesting that we subsidize everyone who drives but not everyone who learns.
But I digress. Any thoughts about the budget overall? Health care premiums? User fees? Hydro? Fuel? Etc.
It's the kind of budget that Ontario would have tabled if it were as heavily indebted as Quebec. We're not there yet but we're working on it.
Well, considering how low tuition is in Quebec already (less than $2,000 a year), everyone who learns is subsidised. And quite a lot. Just not 100%.
Re increased rates for electricity and taxes on fuel, I'm not quite sure how that "kowtows to the rich" . . . nor how cheap electricity and cheap gasoline is progressive in the face of the threats posed by climate change.
Colleges and universities are actually quite heavily subsidized. Currently about half of a student's tuition is covered by the government and the other half by tuition. The government actually spends MORE, per student now than they would have 20 or 30 years ago (in adjusted dollars).
I never cease to be amazed that individuals on a progressive website support user fees for pse. Sigh!!
Oh and the budget sucks, Unionist. User fees for health are regressive and classist.
As a kid, it amazed me that OHIP would cover just about any medical procedure to any part of my body except my teeth. They could rot out of my head as far as OHIP was concerned. I guess you can't pay for everything.
On the one hand, I'm glad to see a budget that seems to realize that in order to deal with debt, we cannot simply cut programs and attempt to reduce spending: some tax increases are needed. So kudos to Quebec for being more honest than the Feds or the Ontario gov't.
On the other hand, most of the tax increases will disproportionately affect the low income and this is not the way to go. Quebec would do better to increase the marginal tax rate on income above a certain point. I note that the province's top tax bracket applies to everything above around $77,000. Why not start another tax bracket at, 90-something and another at 120-something (or some other amount, these are completely arbitrary)?
With respect to user fees for medical premiums: are they structured progressively so that the amount of the premium is related to your income? If so, they do not bother me as much as increasing the PST and hydro rates, for example. Assuming it is like the Ontario medical premium/fee, it will be collected by Revenue Quebec with the income tax and is really no different from a tax. I think that psychologically, calling something a fee instead of a tax is easier to digest. Healthcare is important in Canada and we understand that it's not free. It's not like Quebecers will have to pay the fee per visit or anything like that, is it?
So to summarize my view: tax increases = unpleasant but necessary to deal with debt and preferable to slashing spending and gov't programs; progressive taxes are better than regressive taxes = so income tax increases are better than increased fees or flat taxes (like PST, hydro, EI premiums etc.)
Oh, I'm not complaining about tuition fees in Québec. The struggle here has been very successful. We're only fighting against erosion. I was addressing those "progressives" who are demanding fee hikes.
I haven't analyzed the fuel issue personally and so I haven't commented on that. I explained in an earlier post above exactly how increasing residential hydro rates kowtows to the rich. Here. Although I'm sure much more could be written, and much better, on the subject.
Don't shoot the messenger!!