The unions must use a template every time a government announces that it will ax one public service and replace it with one that saves labour and money. We see his again with the debate in Vancouver about closing the Kitsilano Coast Guard station in favour of more modern rescue vessels based in another station nearby. The arguments used against the change are exactly the same heard in the 1980s when small fire-fighting ships were introduced to replace a large vessel and again when a driver-less railroad called Sky-train was to replace some public buses.
government spending
June 3, 2012
2:00AM
For anyone who has paid attention to the student protests/riots in Quebec over the past few months and knows anything about the vast sums of money transferred between governments in this country, there has been no shortage of ridiculous demands from the Quebec students who are on strike. Demands include free tuition and an end to functioning free markets. But their sillinessnot shared by most students nor by all Quebecoishas been compounded by mythmaking from Quebec politicians about who ultimately foots the bill for so much of Quebecs existing poor economic policy.
May 30, 2012
9:00AM
May 6, 2012
2:00AM
Pay and pensions are always no-win minefields for politicians but heres the problem when anyone thinks about that issue in isolation: it misses the massive price tag that exists for the entire public sector, of which political compensation, transition allowances and retirement benefits are only one component.
Politicians are part of a much larger public sector and the debate should always focus on this: what governments should or should not do (and from which the size of the public sector then flows); what is affordable for taxpayers; and private and public sector comparisons.
April 15, 2012
2:00AM
All politics is local, said Tip ONeill, the 1980s-era leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.
That may be true, but government budgetsespecially in Albertaare increasingly anything but local. International events and economic developments regularly affect economies and government finances on the other side of the planet.
One century ago, few would have wondered how a sovereign debt default by a Greek government might affect British, American and Canadian economies.
April 5, 2012
2:00AM
Canada's Conservative government deserves praise on a number of fronts. Since coming to power, the Tories have ended the reflexively relativist approach to foreign policy, tackled supposedly politically sensitive immigration issues and understood and promoted the need for private-sector jobs, especially in the energy sector.
Thus, when David From wrote, in his Saturday National Post column, that under Stephen Harper, Canada can fairly claim to be the best-governed country among advanced democracies in the world, he was not far off the mark.
Thus, when David From wrote, in his Saturday National Post column, that under Stephen Harper, Canada can fairly claim to be the best-governed country among advanced democracies in the world, he was not far off the mark.
April 1, 2012
2:00AM
Ever since the last recession, Canadians have been informed by pundits and the political class that stimulus spendingperhaps better labelled as binge spendingwas critical to Canadas economic recovery.
But extra government spending had little to do with Canadas exit out of the recession. The recession ended in mid-2009; it was only about then that federal and provincial governments started spending extra (borrowed) stimulus cash.
March 31, 2012
2:00AM
There it was on the front page of The Globe and Mail: $5.2-billion [in] total spending cuts. The Toronto Star screamed: Tories slash spending in fiscal overhaul, while CTV proclaimed: Budget to cut spending nearly $6-billion.
Perhaps they read a different budget than the one we found on the Department of Finance's website. Here's what the Conservatives' budget actually stated: The results of the government's review of departmental spending amount to roughly $5.2-billion in ongoing savings.
That's savings, folks, not cuts.
March 28, 2012
2:00AM
On Tuesday, Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan had one of those rare opportunities of which politicians can only dream. With his province heading toward a fiscal crisis caused by mounting debt and out-of-control spending, an opposition sympathetic to dealing with the problem, a public that clearly wants his government to address the debt, and news outlets that understand the need for significant fiscal restraint, everything lined up for Duncan.
March 25, 2012
2:00AM
If Albertans employed in the energy sector ever wonder why some people underestimate the vast contributions made by the oil and gas industry to Albertas prosperity, a new ad from the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) provides a clue.