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Syndicate
Here is that report KenS. The problem for the NDP is that is always suspect when it comes to the government finances so I suppose they cannot go out on a limb and support wholesale changes like Tom Kent proposes. Too bad!
The Repair of Taxation
http://www.caledoninst.org/PDF/553820789.pdf
Dexter and Chisholm are not the same personalities. But they came out of the same political mould. Darrel is just the more capable twin.
Which I guess is part of what made him more dangerous.
This is the kind of person that Mulcair needs to surround himself with. Tom Kent: A life of purposehttp://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1088816--tom-ken...
Seeing the Liberal party as weakened today as it was in 1958, he wanted a new reform agenda. Just recently he sent me a note arguing that the Liberal party would be strengthened if local ridings had real power and that real power meant they should keep the money they raise, rather than sending most of it to party headquarters. He never gave up fighting for a fairer Canada or a more democratic Liberal party.
His was a life of public purpose.
I don't think he did. And I think we'll see that the check was conditional if he shows himself to be the Blairite his critics still contend.
What is to stop him from just demurring to talk specifics about taxes for the next year plus?
By that time we are far from awareness raised during the leadership race, and there is lots else going on, and... [then the next small step...]. And I'm not saying any of this being planned ahead.
With nothing high profile to complain about- except the usual foreign policy that concerns people here, but we would have got from any of them- there's no Blairite. But that doesnt mean no problem.
People better be more pro-active than waiting to see something turn up that is overtly and obviously wrong. By then, the die will be cast, and plenty of people will be re-assuring themselves and rationalizing it.
What I like from what I have seen so far is that Mulcair is coming across as firm, but calm and reasonable, as opposed the shreiking sounds coming from some other leaders. I think Canadians will latch onto this in due course.
This is Mulcair’s momenthttp://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/07/rex-murphy-this-is-mulcai...
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One thing that has obviously been missing from the NDP history books is a big Quebec presence. Finally that is about to change which augers well for national unity for a national government.
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Maybe some of us are being too harsh on Dexter as sometimes you just gotta move to where the jobs are.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/education/as-money-moves-we...
Shouldn't this always be the case? As Cullen described himself as "unabashedly pro-busines" and Topp penned praise for Greece's austerity program, I don't see how it's more true now merely because Mulcair won.
Jack, despite his popularity within the party and electoral success, found he could carry his "modernization" program only so far before the members balked. Mulcair will also discover the same engaged base prepared to say "thus far and no further."
We did not see any 'modernization' from Layton like we got from the Dexter crowd.
We'll see about Mulcair. But there is no comparison to the experience under Layton.
I'm not referring to, nor do I care about talking pro-business. That's harmless, as much as people around here dont like it.
@ Howard:
Yes, its not new that people have to go down the road.
But it is new to be pushed out by an NDP government for whom the fiscal capacity to cut taxes is the most important thing.
Again: the deficit has already been broken. The reason to make cuts THIS deep in education, is that they needed to keep going to have the capacity to begin serious tax cuts next year.
If slaying the deficit was the only goal, further small cuts would have sufficed.
Yup, let's be anti-business and remain the official opposition forever.
Fair trade, sustainable development top Mulcair’s economic agendahttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/fair-trade-sustainable-deve...
Of course not. But neither have we seen any "modernization" from Mulcair comparable to Dexter's. I think the party's left always has to be vigilant - ever since Douglas our leaders have been either the safe, moderate choice, or tacked that way after their election - but I don't believe Mulcair's victory signifies anything like a neo-liberal fait accompli.
I think it's too bad when I hear NDP members brushing off the consequences to society and families of the destruction of the public sector as "your personal misfortune". It tells me that they don't understand how decisions taken at the macro level create systemic conditions that victimize people at the micro level. It's not just an individual "misfortune" that has befallen KenS's wife and her family.
KenS, I'm really sorry to hear that your wife, and by extension your family, has fallen victim to the new neo-liberal politics that every party appears to be embracing now. I don't blame you for being pissed off and disillusioned. I am too.
Michelle, I only speak for myself, not any political party, but the schools are empty in Atlantic Canada, and maybe ask yourself why the schools are empty - people who work in the schools perhaps need to move to find work. Most of us are not helpless, and we can do something about it. Yes it sucks, but such is life. I wonder what the per cent is of Canadians that have had to relocate to find work.
Will blue and orange squeeze out Bob Rae's red?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/jeffrey-simpson/will-blue-a...
I'm sorry for your troubles KenS, and I hope things work out for the best for you.
But what can we really do? I know you say be more pro-active, but what's that actually involve?
Make demands. Dont wait to be handed your ass on a platter.
Here is part of making demands.
This is utter crap.
As noted earlier, one-third of teacher position cuts are chalked up to catching up with declining enrollments. Two-thirds of the cuts are a consequence entirely of the depth of funding cuts, so that our government can give big tax cuts next year.
Who should we be making demands to? Mulcair? Or do you mean just making demands in general?
Just by not sitting around and unquestioningly saying "its tough you know." People who know what they want will get through, even if they dont know how.
Thanks for that KenS. I'm glad we have you around here. I wish I could be of more help to you though.
You know, when you put it like that, Harper raising the retirement age doesn't sound so bad either. Most of us are not helpless. It sucks, but such is life.
In my part of Quebec I sense an openness to Charest's Plan Nord because it "promises" jobs - and the destruction of the environment. I don't know how local those jobs will be, though.
You know, we have seen where taxcuts don't create jobs. At the same time KenS has a point. So KenS, how does declining student enrolment affect the number of teachers/staff in your schools? But and having said that, did the NDP just keep the same funding formula from the previous govt? Anyway, I agree with Ken that if we elect an federal NDP govt that acts like a liberal govt we will never get elected again.
And that would be a shame.
With declining numbers of students the teacher:student ratio gradually creeps down. And I do mean creep, it wasnt huge. It seems to be mostly from maintaing courses in each middle and high school when the numbers for them drop.
So the government changes to per student funding. But the cuts went much deeper than that. And even the logic of the per student funding- how are the schools to deal with the courses they still have to offer? The government does nothing about delivery of course.
And really that was all it was about. They sat around in Finance and the inner circle around the Premeir, and figured out how far can we squeeze the education budget. As I've said a number of times, only one third of classroom position cuts are chalked up to catching up [all at onec no less] with enrollment declines.
And even to 'only' cut that far, the Boards had to resort to cutting whole programs and functions, like the libraries, that even if they could spare for now, are not going to survive the further cuts down the road. Saving the furniture.
Tell me, where is the logic that cutting out libraries and programs for special needs students ENTIRELY is connected to 'declining enrollments'.
The basic dynamic over the last twenty under Libs and PCs is that governments expanded what the schools had to do, and roughly speaking, the funding because of and based on those functions increased. Now our 'social democratic' government just tells them they'll get the funding that they got 10 and 20 years ago and 'you decide what you are going to do'.
Sweet.
When all it requires is general talk, that's cheap. There is little or no commitment to anything in particular.