Sorry for my crude simplicity but any budget that allows $6 billion dollars in corporate tax cuts and gives $2 a day more to seniors who are going to food banks just plain sucks. There is nothing in this budget to help anybody but the Tories try to get re-elected. Oh yeah, there’s a new tax credit for children’s art classes but the millions of parents who watched their kids go to bed hungry tonite are never going to be able to claim that because they don’t have enough income.
There is nothing to help our struggling aboriginal communities except for $22 million to fix up a few of their leaking fuel tanks and maybe help a couple of them get clean drinking water. Think about it folks, they didn’t even give enough money to ensure that all aboriginal communities have clean water. This is 2011 not 1811. No wonder many aboriginal people wish we had never come here. They had a better life back before Canada.
Most of all what this budget does is entrench the wealth in this country in the hands of a very few already very rich Canadians. The gap between the ultra rich and the other 95% of us will continue to grow and those at the bottom of the heap are guaranteed to stay there. This is a status quo budget, unfortunately none but a select few have any status with the Harper Government.
This is also an iceberg budget. What you see on the surface is just posturing for Bay Street support for the up-coming election and pandering to the suburban and rural voters that the Tories would like to hang onto. Underneath are very real and serious cuts to public services, transfers to provinces, and a continuation of the undermining of any kind of equality in this country. We won’t see these cuts until after the election but the impact will be long and severe.
There was never a case of a budget that did so much for so few and so little for the many. This budget sucks.
A recent issue of the Economist magazine highlighted a concern that countries across the world are grappling with; how to deal with the growing income inequality in modern society. This is a problem that is particularly acute in both developed and developing countries from China to Brazil and from Britain to right here in Canada. Why is it a problem?
There may always be rich and poor among us but for the last twenty years the gap between the groups has been growing at a pace that according to the Economist, even the bankers and industrialists in Davos are worried about. When one segment of the economy moves so far ahead of the others that you cannot no longer see the smoke from their caboose then there is a real and pressing concern that the others might react unfavourably through labour unrest or even revolution. Certainly that is an issue in places like China and other newly emerging economies. Even the steel-willed rulers of the Communist regime know that there must be a strong middle class to ensure continued growth and stability.
In Canada we seem to have forgotten these lessons. It’s not likely that Canadian workers are poised to revolt but if you look at the data then you could understand their unhappiness. The Canadian economic pie has undergone a radical re-slicing in the last ten years and while we have had a period of unprecedented growth the richest Canadians have taken the lion’s share of the profit and glory. According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives the richest 1% of our population accumulated one third of all income gains during this period, leaving the rest of us to scrabble over the remains. To add to their economic gains they also got to keep more of it thanks to generous personal and corporate tax reductions that far outstripped the minimal tax cuts for middle class Canadians.
How bad is it in Canada? Pretty bad. In fact Canada has one of the worst records in the world when it comes to the equality gap. In 2008 the respected Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development warned Canada that we were on a slippery slope and that the income gap in Canada between rich and poor was growing faster than almost all of the other developed countries in the world and that we had to take steps to deal with it.
This massive wealth transfer has already had an enormous impact on our social cohesiveness, one of the major sustaining pillars of our Canadian society. Those who fall out of work because of a downsizing, privatization or globalization of the economy have few supports to help them get back in the game and find themselves and their families just barely surviving. They join the structural poor including but not limited to aboriginal peoples both on and off reserve, people with disabilities and seniors, especially senior women all whom are struggling to stay alive at incomes of less than $20,000 a year.
If there was ever a sign that we have a problem with inequality in Canada one only needs to look at the growth in the new industry of food banks. In 2009 close to 800,000 people accessed food banks every month in Canada and 37% of these were children. A stark and depressing reality is that 14% of all people who went to the food bank in 2009 actually had a job.
These poor within us are more likely to face life situations with higher murder rates and lower life expectancy and according to the Equality Project in the United Kingdom fare worse in all manners of social indicators from poorer health to more likelihood of drug dependency to the weaker educational performance of their children. These are not simply other people’s problems that we can ignore. They show up in crime statistics, in our prison population and in our health facilities. Together we pay for the costs of the growing inequality.
But perhaps it is the Canadian middle class who have paid the most for the growing inequality in our society. As each economic tsunami moves through our society we are working harder, longer, for less. At least in comparison to our richer and usually corporate cousins. Despite being better educated than any generation in history our median pre-tax incomes are about the same level today as they were in 1980. Where did all of the wealth that was created during this period go? It went to the richest among us.
So what can we do about the situation? How can we get the tide to start flowing in the right direction again? It is clear that the status quo will not help, in fact this trickle up theory of peanuts for the poor and tax cuts for the wealthy doesn’t work at all and unless you are a banking executive, a corporate bigwig, or a cabinet minister you can look forward to having less in your pocket for retirement, assuming and hoping you get there.
Canadians know that this situation is unfair and untenable. A recent Focus Canada survey by Environics Research pointed out the obvious. Two-thirds of Canadians believe the disparities in income between rich and poor in this country are growing and eighty percent believe that government has a responsibility to reduce such disparities. So what can governments do? At a very minimum they should follow the Hippocratic Oath and first do no harm. Maybe that should be do no further harm. A welcome and overdue step in the right direction would be for the Conservative Government to cancel the latest round of corporate tax cuts. They simply reward wealthy corporations at a direct cost to taxpayers who will have to pay the money back.
But there is much more to do in both the short and long term. Investment in infrastructure, income supports for the unemployed and low income Canadians and housing initiatives have a direct impact on not only reducing income disparities but even according to Finance Department officials are better for job creation and economic growth than another round of tax giveaways to the corporate rich. In the longer term the Federal Government needs to revamp the taxation system to restore some semblance of fairness and to launch a clear poverty reduction strategy with targets and timelines in partnership with the provinces and territories.
It’s more than time to develop and implement strategies to deal with our growing inequality gap and a Federal Budget is a good place to begin that debate. If not then there will be a Federal Election some time soon and Canadians should demand and not just ask their political leaders what they are doing to make Canada a fair place to work and live.
This is one article that I almost didn’t write. It’s been so long since Canadians have had a debate about military spending that we’ve forgotten how to do it. For the last number of years the only question up for “debate” was whether or not you “supported the troops”. This narrowing of public dialogue only served to shut people up because if you disagreed with the war in Afghanistan and Canada’s mission there you clearly did not “support the troops.” And therefore your opinion didn’t count.
Well, I do support the troops, at least the rank and file members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the civilians who help support their work. I do not support the Generals at NDHQ nor the politicians of all stripes and colours who agreed to the current military mission in that part of the world. I support the troops having the necessary tools and equipment to do their job and I even support paying them a lot more money to do a dangerous job on our behalf.
I would just like us to have a say on what that job is going to be. And I don’t mean a debate in the loony bin on Parliament Hill. I mean a real honest discussion with Canadians from coast to coast to coast on what role we want our military to play in serving us at home and around the world.
There are two issues that have prompted my thinking about this issue. First of all there is the imminent purchase of a new batch of fighter jets. The second is the release of a report on Canadian military spending produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Please see: http://www.policyalternatives.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/publications/National%20Office/2011/03/Canadian%20Military%20Spending%202010.pdf
I must admit that I don’t know anything about fighter jets but to purchase 65 F-35 stealth aircraft at an initial cost of over $9 billion and a long term expense of $30 billion should concern anyone. I am troubled by the expenditure of so much money but I am more concerned with exactly what they are going to be used for. Yet there is absolutely no public discussion about this at all. Are they going to be used to defend us? If yes, from whom? I thought the Cold War was over. If they are going to be used to attack someone, then whom? Or maybe that decision is already made as well.
The review by the CCPA is much too technical for me but the numbers are a bit staggering. I did not know that we will spend close to $23 billion in military expenditures this year. Nor did I know that this is as much as we spent at the peak of the Cold War. A lot of this has to do with the Afghan war which according to the CCPA accounts for about half of the total increase but even after we end our “military mission” in Afghanistan the military expenditures are budgeted to continue to rise. What is up with that? After every war in the past we received a “peace dividend”. I am not a military analyst but looks like that dividend is going to be spent on fighter jets.
The other important issue raised in the CCPA report is Canada’s recent dismal role in peacekeeping. For the country that invented peacekeeping it is a disgrace to find that in 2010 we contributed just 56 military personnel to peacekeeping operations. That massive show of force was divided among 7 operations. It wasn’t like there wasn’t any peacekeeping happening in the world. Last year there were 15 operations that involved 84,316 UN peacekeeping troops. We just weren’t involved.
So what do I want to see changed? I want to see the fighter jets cancelled. I want to see a real “peace dividend” by a reduction in the overall military spending that reflects the military’s reduced costs when we end the military mission in Afghanistan and I want some reordering of our military spending to reflect a wider range of Canadian views than just the Generals who seem to hold every in thrall and rapt silence.
I want my Canadian military to be there for us, just like they were during the ice storm, the floods in Quebec and in Newfoundland after Hurricane Igor. I want them to help patrol our waters and support search and rescue. I want them to show our face to the world, not just through guns and artillery but in humanitarian missions and disaster relief. And most of all I want them to be restore our image in the world as peacekeepers. At one time if you travelled the world you proudly displayed the Maple Leaf and were known and respected as part of the world that believed in creating solutions and not adding to the problem. Today, in many parts of the world, Canada and Canadians are not seen that way anymore. I want that legacy back so that I can pass it on to future generations.
Military spending is one way in which we define ourselves as a country. I just want everyone to have a say in how those choices are made. I would love to hear your views, either publicly or in private. Let’s open up the discussion!!
Thank you to all who read my previous post and participated in the survey. I will leave the poll up for a few more days but there are already some clear trends. If you had $6 billion to spend your top priority was clearly focusing on reducing poverty while others liked green jobs, increased broadband access and more child care.
But the truth is that if we had that $6 billion to spend we could actually take action on all of the priorities in the survey. As you will see we would not only be spending money we would really be making investments in people, jobs and the economy that would increase employment and save money in the long run.
Here’s how we could do it.
Implement the First Phase of a National Anti-Poverty Strategy $1.7 Billion
Let’s start with Housing. Last year the Alternative Federal Budget proposed a New Affordable Housing Supply at a cost of $1.7 billion. This starts to address the fact that a record 1.5 million Canadian households (more than four million women, men, and children) are in core housing need — they spend more than 50% of their income on housing. This funding will be used both to enhance existing federal initiatives that are not adequately funded (doubling the federal homelessness initiative, doubling Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program), and also to provide funding for new homes, repairs, and housing services for the diverse housing needs of Canadians who are not currently getting support. This includes a dedicated portion for Aboriginal people living off-reserve through a new national Aboriginal housing strategy that ensures that Aboriginal. The impact will be to reduce the share of Canadians facing “core housing need” by half by 2015.
Establish a Green Jobs Fund $550 million
The Green Budget Coalition calls for expanded funded to renew Canada’s support for renewable energy, to attract investment and create jobs. In 2009 they called for an investment of $551million per year (average) for four years, and $100 million a year for the subsequent 6 years. The benefits would include 8000 new jobs in manufacturing, installation and maintenance, leveraging $22 billion of private sector investment; $24 million in annual lease payments to rural landowners across Canada, and opportunities for Canadians to invest in the development of clean power projects.
Improve Public Access to Broadband Services $2 Billion
The Conservatives have been inching along the broadband highway for years. This is one road that really needs to be paved if all of Canada is to benefit from the Internet age. This expenditure will help to make world-class broadband a reality for most Canadians. This has been a longstanding budget request by many groups including the Interim Consensus Submission to the federal government consultation on a Digital Economy Strategy for Canada.
Create More Subsidized Child Care Spaces $1.25 Billion
In 2009 the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada called for incremental increases of federal transfers starting with $1.25 billion in 2009. This would reach the target by 2013–14 of providing all children aged three to five with access to a quality child care space in their community. Child Care is not just a drain on the public purse. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives notes that child care creates jobs and that every $1 million invested in the child care sector generates almost 40 jobs — at least 40% higher than the next closest industry, and four times the jobs generated by investing $1 million in construction activity.
Create a New Fund to Train and Hire Young Workers $300 Million
Canada has a chronic high rate of unemployment among people from 18 to 25. This has remained constantly high through recession, depression and economic recoveries. We need to help support people to get a higher education but we also need to help them get jobs. This modest proposal is a start. Half of the Young Workers Training and Employment Fund will provide free books and tuition to any person under 25 who has been out of school and out of work for a year. The other half will be given to employers who hire them and agree to keep them hired for a year and to train them for existing or up-coming jobs within their enterprise. It will also provide a $1,000.00 incentive for any employer who creates a full-time job for young people within their company or business. A special sub-fund of $100 million would also be created to focus specifically on opportunities for youth in aboriginal communities.
Fund More Prevention Programs and Build More Addiction Facilities for Youth $150 Million
No it’s not nearly enough but we have to start somewhere. All over the country teenagers and young people are desperate to get off drugs and re-start their lives. They need to get off the streets, or their friend’s couches and into a residential program that cannot just help them with their substance abuse issues but to give them the skills and confidence to have useful and productive lives. There is an extreme shortage of youth residential treatment centres all over the country. Most large urban centres have only space for 20-30 clients at a time and the waiting lists are endless. In rural areas and the North there are hardly any facilities at all.
Let’s say that it could cost up to $2 million dollars to refurbish a space to make it suitable as a treatment facility, assuming that provinces and municipalities would provide free space or rent and that it costs roughly a million dollars a year to operate a treatment facility. That would mean that 50 new treatment centres for youth could be opened in just one year alone. These could be allocated to ensure that every major centre and region would get at least one new centre. These are investments that will pay off for years in years in productive and healthy individuals and a direct correlation in the reduction of crime, poverty and additional health and social costs.
Restore the Court Challenges Program $50 Million
Why not? This program actually costs very little but is an important one in ensuring access to justice in language and equality rights constitutional test cases. As the Disabled Women’s Network Ontario rightly points out we may have equality rights under the Canadian Constitution but “these rights are only paper guarantees unless the individuals and groups they are designed to protect have the means to access the courts in order to enforce their rights. Without financial assistance many individuals and groups cannot access the courts and application of constitutional rights will only be available to those with deep pockets. Unequal access to constitutional rights adjudication must be a concern for all. In a constitutional democracy like Canada, constitutional rights litigation is an essential part of democratic dialogue and the exercise of citizenship.”
Sorry for the long post but thought it was important to give you some background. It was an interesting exercise for me and I hope it was fun for you. That’s what we could do differently with just a small portion of the Federal Budget. Imagine what we could if we cancelled the $9.5 billion dollar prison building spree (when we have fewer prisoners) and another $9 billion for new fighter jets (when we have no one to fight).
Budgets are about choices. Thanks for letting yours be known.
Well I’d certainly be rich. But if you had six billion dollars to spare like Jim Flaherty apparently does then how would you spend it? That’s the amount that the latest round of corporate tax cuts are expected to cost, and Jim Flaherty doesn’t actually have that money. First of all it’s our money, taxpayer dollars going to the banks and big corporations, money that we have to borrow to pay to them. But let’s not get too political about it.
Imagine, six billion dollars. I tried to imagine one billion dollars but I can barely count the stars at night so here’s one way to do it. In his book “Innumeracy” John Allen Paulos says that if you count to one million it would take you twelve days. If you were to count to one billion it would take almost thirty-two years. Now multiple by 6. Don’t try this at home!!
Suffice it to say it’s a whole lotta moolah or Kraft Dinner. So if you were Finance Minister for a day, let’s say March 22, the rumoured date of the Federal Budget how would you utilize this newly found wealth. I am going to ask you, despite your strong inclination to do so, to ignore your venal and carnal desires and focus on the common good. Focus, people!!
You could of course cancel the corporate tax cuts and save us the trouble of having to borrow the money and then pay it back. But that would ruin the whole point of the survey below. So if you want to spoil all the fun, cancel the $6 billion you miserly miser.
If however you would like a shot at being Jim Flaherty (taller, better looking and certainly less conservative) think about the other possibilities. I’ve listed a few suggestions that you can vote for or you can make your own suggestion.
I will report back to soon on the results of this scientific survey. Thanks for participating.
A Conservative Enclave
Judging by his recent remarks the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism would like to drop the “multiculturalism” part of his portfolio. It would also appear that he is unaware of the efforts of newcomers and their families to integrate fully into Canadian society. Finally, for someone who professes that he would like to see ethnic “enclaves” dissipate, his Department’s recent and on-going funding cuts to settlement agencies are taking away one of the main measures that newcomers can utilize to fully integrate.
I am really struggling with what exactly the Minister means by “enclaves”. Is he talking about the various Chinatowns that have existed for years in most Canadian cities? Probably not, he has been working hard for the last five years at trying to bring the Chinese over to the Conservative party. Is he talking about the fact that some immigrants choose to live in the Greek, Italian, Jewish or Polish part of a particular city. No, those are also targets for his small “c” conservative audience that he hopes to convert.
No the truth is that he is probably talking about the areas where “they” live. You know the Africans, the Somalis, the Arabs, the Muslims. Those are the people that he wants us to consider as the “other” They are the ones who in his view are not pulling their weight and hiding behind their language, religion, customs, even head scarves.
The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of immigrants who come to Canada try very hard to adapt to their new language, culture and customs. They often arrive with only their personal belongings and it is natural that would initially seek out family, friends and communities from their own culture to get over the first wave of integration. After that they start looking for services and agencies that can help them become more proficient in one of Canada’s official languages, how to find work, and get their children into the education system. To get these services and aid in their integration they turn to the various settlement agencies which have been established for this purpose in every major centre in Canada.
With this support they can learn to navigate the Canadian “system” and many quickly make the transition from newcomer to productive member of society. Without these services some immigrants can easily be dismayed and that is when they run the risk in being trapped in Mr. Kenney’s ethnic “enclaves”. So it is very surprising to see Mr. Kenney cut funding from the very sector that would accomplish his stated goal. One would hope that this is not a self-fulfilling prophesy on behalf of the Minister but like his references to a “big push” for private immigration sponsorship it is hard not to believe exactly that.
Canada is a country built and populated by immigrants. In each successive wave newcomers have battled and won against ignorance and discrimination. We hope that the Minister is not planning to erect new barriers to their full inclusion into the Canadian family. They may need a little more support when they first arrive but if the past is any experience they soon become valued and positive contributors to our social, economic and political life.
We must strongly resist the bait that Jason Kenney is offering to both those of us who have been fortunate to have been born here or have been part of an earlier migration and to those newcomers who happen to share some of his conservative or religious views. We cannot let them make a division between “them and us”. We have survived and prospered as a country because we asked people to leave their conflicts behind. We will only do the same in the future if we reject the Conservatives vision of who deserves to be a Canadian.
New Call for Guaranteed Annual Income
The idea of a guaranteed annual income for Canadians has been around for a long time but it has received new winds in its sails thanks to a November 2010 Parliamentary report that called for the Feds to produce an action plan to reduce poverty and to back it up with a new federal transfer (a poverty reduction fund) supporting initiatives at the provincial and territorial level.
It also has a very and surprising Conservative champion. Well, maybe not so surprising. Senator Hugh Segal, Brian Mulroney’s former chief of staff and one of the remaining “Red Tories” has made the guaranteed annual income his latest crusade. His view is that the system we have for supporting poor and low income Canadians is badly broken and in need of a major renovation, not just tinkering around the edges. He also sees the idea as one that could not just help people survive but could actually save money for the Canadian taxpayer.
Anti-poverty activists and progressive politicians have been making the case for a guaranteed annual income in Canada since the 1960’s but their calls have fallen on uncaring ears in provincial and federal power circles. The main argument against the concept is that it would provide a disincentive for people to go out and look for work. But that is simply a thinly disguised version of “why don’t those lazy bums get a job?” The other knock on a guaranteed annual income in that it would cost more money.
Senator Segal can’t do much about the first argument. His side of the party never really believed in bashing the poor; they just wanted to make sure they stayed that way. But he blows the second out of the water. In his columns and public addresses he notes that Statistics Canada reports that Ottawa and the provinces have, since 2007, spent $150-billion annually on transfers in a range of income security programs unrelated to education and health care. And really have nothing, except more poor people, especially children to show for it.
The sad reality is that the number of Canadians living below the poverty line has continued to hover around the same numbers for the last decade or so and while seniors are marginally better off due to tax-based income supplements there has been almost no progress in Canada or any of the provinces in dealing with this issue. The equality gap between extremely rich and very poor is growing and it is having an impact on almost fabric of our society, from education to crime to addiction and mental health related problems. All of us, especially the middle class and working people pay more in real, tangible costs to maintain this inequitable system.
Senator Segal makes a business case for a guaranteed annual income that at least re-starts a discussion on one of the most important issues that we have before us. Let’s be sure that at least some of us are engaged as well.
Proceed With Caution
The recent and tragic death of a 64 year old pedestrian in the core of the downtown raises a number of serious safety concerns. It appears that the combination of heavy construction vehicles and pedestrians is a particularly dangerous mix and there needs to be a special investigation into the circumstances of this horrible event, with recommendations to prevent other tragedies in the future.
But even without construction, the combination of hurried pedestrians, aggressive drivers, distracted cyclists and twelve ton buses is still a potential and daily hazard for all concerned. As a recent convert to the car-less community I am suffering from acute steering wheel deprivation. I am also getting used to life on this side of the street, or rather the sidewalk. What I’ve discovered is that it is not only not easy being green, it can be downright dangerous.
The only imminent move to alleviate the situation at least for cyclists is a plan for a bicycle only lane on Laurier Avenue but unless they practice extreme caution, especially while trying to execute turns, their spirits and their bikes may soon be crushed. As for the rest of us we will have to wait until the proposed transit tunnel gets underway, if that is actually going to happen, before we get some relief by pushing buses underground. Even then our urban landscape will remain a battleground as all of us try to safely negotiate our way to work,
First some facts to sober our current car-focused thinking. Approximately 70% of all traffic fatalities and 95% of all injuries occur in urban locations and on average one person a day is killed in a motor vehicle accident every day in Canada. Not all of these are pedestrians of course but it does give you a sense about how high the risk is, as well as the tolerance we have built up for the death and dismemberment of people as a direct result of our obsession with driving.
Bringing it closer to home, Ottawa’s latest road safety report from 2009 shows that there were 26 deaths from collisions last year including 6 pedestrians and there were 4,000 people injured that included 346 pedestrians. Despite a pedestrian and driver campaign called “Walk Like Your Life Depends On It” the numbers are eerily similar to the previous year. And just judging by media reports this year isn’t going to get any better.
Unless we are prepared to continue to “run like our lives depend on it” while crossing intersections in the downtown core, something has to change. So what can be done? Actually, lots.
We could look at reducing the speed limits in the downtown core. If you get hit by a car at 50 kph you are most likely going to die. At 40 kph your chances of dying are improved to 85% and at 30 kph your odds increase dramatically and you actually have a real chance, 55% of living. Certainly an option to consider if your goal is harm reduction.
We could look at shutting down the downtown core to vehicular traffic, except for buses and taxis, during peak pedestrian periods. This would probably cause major angst amongst drivers and exemptions would have to be made for multi-car vehicles, and anyone who simply cannot walk the extra four or five blocks. We would also need to find swaths of parking locations for people to park away from the core. As much as this would be an enviable option for a pedestrian like me it is not really workable for almost everyone else.
Another option that has worked in many other locations to make intersections safer is to look at stopping right turns on red lights and moving to a system where all traffic is stopped both ways to allow pedestrians to cross. After they have safely crossed then the lights turn green to go north-south, followed by a green light for east-west traffic. This is a system that is in effect in many other cities in the world, including San Francisco. A friend of mine recently visited there and remarked that although it looks clumsy it actually works very well and you don’t have to run across the street or dodge right-turning traffic who are trying to negotiate around you. It means that everyone has to wait their turn, but it also means that there’s a greater chance that we all get to work alive.
We need some immediate action to change course in Ottawa while we are waiting for the bigger fixes. This might be one solution that maybe nobody likes, but everyone can live with. At the same time we need to continue our public education of all those who share the roadways and sidewalks in Ottawa and pedestrians in particular should never let their guard down when approaching an intersection. And of course everyone, especially drivers need to learn to relax and take a deep breath. Our lives are a little more important than drivers getting to work on time.
Hard on the heels of several self-congratulating interviews over the fact that Canada welcomed a record 280,000 new immigrants in 2010 Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is in full throttle backspin over the leaked information that his Department intends to slash immigration this year. The numbers in different reports vary but it appears that the so-called ‘economic class’ immigrant numbers will be reduced by 7% and the federal skilled workers class by 20%. There will some minor increases in the provincial allocations but the overall immigration levels are scheduled for a sharp nosedive.
Almost anyone who knows anything about immigration is reacting with astonishment and puzzled questions as to the rationale of these moves by Kenney and the Conservatives. On almost level they just don’t make sense and as usual with the Tories the truth is buried beneath a veil of secrecy. So what is the Tory motive?
One theory is that they want to reduce the number of immigrants bringing their families with them to Canada and the impact of these latest cuts will certainly slow this process down. According to immigration lawyer Richard Kurland it will mean that new Canadians will have to wait up to 13 years to get a visa to have their parents or grandparents join them in their new home. In real numbers it is expected that the targets for family reunifications will be lowered from 15, 300 in 2010 to 11,000 in 2011.
A second and more popular theory is that the Conservatives want to narrow down the number of immigrants so that only those who agree with them will be allowed to enter our country. Their clear bias for the last number of years has been to actively discourage Muslims and people from Arab countries from coming to Canada. A few examples of this behaviour stand out. They include the funding cuts to a prominent Canadian Arab association, a Conservative MP’s private member bill to ban “veiled voting”, and the Bev Oda/Harper decision to cut $7 million dollars in CIDA money from KAIROS, for supposedly pro Palestinian support.
The Tories are trying to use immigration as a wedge issue that plays one group of Canadians against the other. We are supposed to resent the Tamil refugees who tried to come to Canada to avoid being persecuted or killed at home because they somehow ‘jumped the queue’. We are supposed to favour people who settle in British Columbia (read Asian) over people who settle in Toronto or Ottawa. (read Arab, African or Muslim) And to show our displeasure we are going to support them when they cut funding from settlement agencies in these centres to provide more support to the West coast.
Immigration should not be a political football. These are real people with real lives we are talking about here. The good news as reported in a previous post (see We are not Conservatives…) is that Canadians don’t buy the Tories feeble rationale and more and more people are realizing that they are just blowing smoke while they try and light a conservative fire under us.
Canada either needs immigrants or we don’t. And all data and statistics show that Canada with an aging population and a massive geographical base will continue to need immigrants for a long, long time. Not that the Conservatives have any interest in science or statistics. They have an ideological position and that will drive their immigration and every other policy. And statistics be damned!!
Canada is a country of immigrants and with the exception of our aboriginal peoples all of us or our ancestors came here from another land. We have a treasury of riches and resources that is not just ours to hoard and profit from. We have an obligation to share our bounty with the other 6 or 7 billion people in the world. The Conservatives, despite their professed Christian beliefs just don’t get it and likely never will.
So Why Are We Having This Election Anyway?
If you listen to Stephen Harper it is all about the other political parties and their evil desire to destroy our fragile recovery for partisan political gain. Pleeeeeeeeeeeease! Give me a break.
If we have another federal election, and it looks like we will be going to the polls in May then there is only one person to blame for that. Mr. Stephen Harper himself. For the last five years there has only been one party in power in Canada, the Conservatives. They have been running the show, turning on the Christmas lights on Parliament Hill and unveiling huge chunks of our money from coast to coast as evidence of first the New Government and now just the plain old Harper Government. They have been in power, not some dreamed up Coalition, not the Toronto “elites” and certainly not the bogeymen trio of unions, socialists and separatists.
Unfortunately for Emperor Harper (that’s what he will be called if he wins a majority) some of us remember what he promised Canadians five years ago. Improved transparency- nope, Increased accountability-nope, Scandal-free government-not so much and finally Fixed Term Elections. On November 6, 2006 the Parliament of Canada passed Bill C-16 that requires a general election to take place in the fourth calendar year after the previous poll. Now maybe Mr. Harper is confused and may he has forgotten but in May, 2006 he said that his government’s fixed-election-date legislation would prevent future governments from calling snap elections for “short-term advantage.” And further that “Fixed dates stop leaders from trying to manipulate the calendar”.
The reason that we are having a federal election this year, despite his comments and his grand legislation is that Stephen (would be Emperor) Harper has manipulated the calendar so that we will have one. He has done that because quite frankly he continues to refuse to accept that Canadians want a minority government and that we want him to make it work, for us, and not for his ego.
Since he has first been elected Mr. Harper has refused to cooperate with the other political parties, has ignored the will of Parliament, and developed and delivered a plan to neuter the Parliamentary Committee system. In other words he has been a bully. And he is mad because he still can’t get his own way. That’s why we’re having another election.
But if Mr. Harper (soon to be I hope, back at the National Citizens Coalition where bullying is encouraged) is in for another big disappointment if he thinks that Canadians will give him the power that he craves. Canadians want a government that listens to them, follows their general direction, and speaks on behalf of all Canadians and not just their own political views. That is our history and our tradition. Those like Mr. Harper who ignore history might just find that it bites them in the ass.