Ontario's Tax Cut For Small Businesses Won't Help Them Create Jobs
Small businesses need immediate tax relief to reduce their payroll costs in order to absorb a rapidly rising minimum wage.
Ontario Has The Solutions To Its Mental-Health Crisis. Let's End It
The Liberal government needs to stop dragging its feet on dealing with mental health and addictions. We clearly have a crisis.
Lower Taxes On Ontario's Real Job Creators — Small Businesses
You don't need an economics degree to realize that helping small businesses and entrepreneurs start up and grow will lead to more jobs.
Ontario Liberals' Pot Monopoly Is Designed To Fail
Monopolizing alcohol sales hasn't worked. Monopolizing marijuana sales won't, either. Why go down that road when we can avoid it in the first place?
Tell Kathleen Wynne That Fracking Isn't Welcome In Ontario
Ontario's Liberal government has opened the door to fracking in our beautiful province. We need to close it.
Canada Must Lead After Trump's Disastrous Decision On Climate
It is irresponsible and unacceptable when the so-called leader of the free world turns his back on climate change -- the biggest and most urgent crisis facing humanity. Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement is a massive failure of leadership.
Ontario Needs To Be Honest About Its Budget Problem
Did you know that the fastest growing line item in the Ontario Liberal budget is interest payments on debt? At $11.5 billion, interest on debt is the fourth biggest spending category in the Liberal budget. This might be good for bankers and bondholders. . But it's not good for you. It's not good for most people in Ontario.
Canada's Real Estate Must Be About People, Not Speculators
When people's incomes are locked into making mortgage payments or rent, small businesses and local economies suffer. High mortgages mean little flexibility, and not much left over for other life purchases. The consequence: big chunks of cash flow to Bay Street instead of Main Street. There is no question that the province needs to take action now to combat speculation, increase supply and decrease demand.
Liberals' Hydro Shell Game Is An Expensive Band-Aid
$1.4 billion per year would pay for 20,000 nurses in Ontario. It could save some of the 11 schools slated to close in Ottawa and dozens more around the province. It would go a long way to improving regional transit links. It could build hospitals, protect our water; the list goes on. This is what happens when politicians mess up the hydro file and become desperate to buy votes. You end up paying big time.
Green Light Road Tolls To Get Toronto Moving Again
Road tolls provide more than just a funding tool to build transit. Road pricing also reduces congestion. It creates incentives to carpool or take transit. Pricing is essential to allocating scarce road resources efficiently and affordably. Instead of being honest with people about the need for funding solutions, however, politicians at Queen's Park have poured cold water on Toronto's plan to pay for transit.
How To Make Fighting Climate Change Good for Your Pocketbook
Imagine this. You open your mailbox this month. Voila! Here is your first carbon dividend cheque from the province. Suddenly, combating climate change with a price on carbon pollution doesn't hurt your pocketbook like conservatives said it would. Ontario could have a climate plan like this. It's called carbon fee and dividend.
Ontario's Liberal Government Must Stop Attacking Official Watchdogs
Ontario's Liberal government's deeply ingrained struggles with honesty and transparency continue to taint their governing legacy. That struggle is most pronounced in the Liberal's ongoing war with Ontario's Independent Officers of the Legislature, who are tasked with holding government and provincial agencies accountable.
Ontario Liberals' Desperate Hydro Subsidy Is Going To Cost You Big Time
The Liberal Party's hydro subsidy smacks of desperation. It's bad policy, and playing politics over rising electricity prices is going to be expensive. Just like with the gas plant scandal, the Liberals are putting their political self-interest ahead of good public policy. They are trying to buy your vote with your money. It is going to cost us big time -- over $1 billion a year to be exact.
Pressure Ontario To Stop Giving Our Water Away To Big Business
Ontario's Liberal government is giving away our water. The ridiculously low water-taking fee in Ontario only covers 1.2 per cent of the province's total water quality management costs. This means the Liberals are using my -- and your -- tax dollars to subsidize companies to take our water.
Ontario Needs To Be Honest To Improve Its Transit Infrastructure
Did you know interest payments on debt are already the third highest expenditure in Ontario's budget? Interest payments cost more than the entire budgets for transportation, college and universities, children and youth services, even slightly more than social services. Only health care and education have higher budgets than interest payments on debt.
Liberals Should Shutter Nuclear Plant Well Past Its Prime
Pickering is already 15 years past its best before date. It's the fourth oldest nuclear station in North America and the seventh oldest nuclear station in the world. Given its age, it is not surprising that Pickering is one of the most unreliable and poorest performing nuclear plants in North America.
Ontario Needs To Take Action And Clean Mercury Poison In Grassy Narrows
Imagine the public outcry if the Ontario government ignored mercury poisoning in the Grand River watershed in southwestern Ontario. The public pressure to clean it up immediately would be overwhelming. The government would rigorously explore every option to clean it up. Yet, the sad truth is that for over 30 years the Ontario government has ignored scientific reports on the need for and ways to clean up the mercury poisoning in the English-Wabigoon River System in northwestern Ontario. The Grassy Narrows First Nation has paid the price with losses to their health, economy and culture.
Pressure Is Needed To Make Sure Climate Action Actually Happens
Climate change is the biggest challenge of our generation. We are running out of time to address it, as the risks and costs of the crisis grow. For far too long Queen's Park has failed to muster the political will to tackle it. The good news is that Ontario finally has a climate action plan. The not-so-good news is that many aspects of the Liberal plan are intentions to develop a plan for future actions -- a bit fuzzy, given the scale and immediacy of the problem. The even worse news is that the plan is weakest in the area that it needs to be the strongest to be effective: its carbon price.
We've Rolled The Dice On Climate Action - Now Let's Get It Right
We anticipate the Ontario Liberal government's long-awaited plan to address climate change will finally roll out soon. Unfortunately, the Liberal's cap-and-trade legislation gives over 100 of Ontario's biggest polluters a free pass. Handing out free pollution permits undermine the effectiveness and integrity of the cap-and-trade system.
We Must Go Further To Get Big Money Out Of Ontario Politics
After being shamed into action by media report and letter writing campaigns, the Ontario Liberals have finally introduced an election financing reform bill. Unfortunately, it doesn't go far enough. The changes move the dial in the right direction -- by banning corporate and union donations, for example. But privileged hands can still find their way into the cookie jar. Quebec may have the solution to this problem.
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