Big Business Calls for Tax Increases to Pay for Harper's Budget Deficits

The Globe and Mail Report on Business top story today is about “Balancing the Books” and quotes a recent survey of corporate executives in Canada where most of them say it is time to raise taxes if the federal government is to balance its books.

Conservatives are fond of their ideological mantra that Klein used often. That was “The only way taxes are going is down.” Well Harper’s promise of deficit budgets through to 2015 and using borrowed funds to do it are just tax increases by other means and they are imposed on our children who will have to pay for the deficits in a time of anticipated extended flat or low economic growth. Hardly the stuff of prudent fiscal management that is the myth of conservative governments and the Harper hypocrisy is showing.

Almost 60% of the Canadian senior executives in the Gandalf poll done for the Globe and Mail said it will be necessary for the federal government to get back into fiscal balance of the public purse. Harper has another plan however. He wants to cut government to the point where it is incapable of doing the public service jobs we expect of a progressive, caring, productive and innovative society.

Harper wants a more Libertarian social and fiscal regime where government’s role is shrunk and stifled. He sees the world as best served where individuals are totally personally responsible for their own well being in a Darwinian law of the jungle kind of competition not only for success but for survival. The poor, infirm, elderly and disabled just have to pull up their socks…if they have them.

Harper has a tentative and tepid toe in the policy pool of fiscal prudence going forward and that is not impressing big business. Half of them think Harper is doing a “poor job of reducing the deficit and 2/3 think it is bad policy to continue to run deficits through to 2015 as the recent Budget says.

So our Ayn Rand wanna be Prime Minister will cut and kill social, cultural, education, aid and support programs instead of raising taxes. This is because Harpers governing philosophy is to diminish and demolish the capacity of government to be an enabler and a partner with society and citizens.

Nobody likes taxes but we all know we need services provided as a society that individuals can’t do themselves. That is one of the fundamental roles and responsibilities of progressive governing and public policy. Business now knows that Harpers slash, trash and burn approach to public policy in social and environmental areas is going to harm Canada’s productivity and capacity to grow in the future and stifle and constrain them as well.

The market place is not the total answer nor is government as nanny state but finding the balance between them is the key. We need governments to help build educated, safe, secure, healthy, diverse, inclusive, innovative, adaptive, resilient and respectful societies where a person can achieve their potential for their own benefit and contribute to the common good at the same time.

None of these concepts are in the Harper play book of grinding down government’s role regardless of the toll it takes on vulnerable people. Business leaders get it but Harper and his callous caucus could care less. We need an election in Canada to have an adult conversation about what kind of government we want and then to see who is prepared to provide it.

Citizens can’t presume cynicism will be ok and we will sustain democracy. That is not the obvious democratic default position when we are governed by social libertarians using fiscal foolishness as a trick to destroy our capacity to be caring and compassionate as a society, to grow our capacity and economy and be assiduous in how we must learn to live in and part of the planet.

Liberal Party Scores Big With Canada at 150 Thinkers Conference.

Sayta and I are back from a very successful and effective thinkers conference convened by the Liberal Pary of Canada this weekend in Montreal. There was a very full and frank discussion from the event.  Here is a clip of Satya Das' comments on CTV about the event.

That success of citizen engagement and shaing ideas and comments was reflected further in the social media space set up for Canadians to follow and particpiate in the conference too.  The successful use of social media by the Liberal Party at the Canada at 150 conference showed them that they can reach thoughtful Canadians from all over the country directly and engage them in meaningful conversations. 

Now the challenge is for the Liberals to use this new found insight into social media in a way that delivers a positive political purpose.  There is a chance for authentic (no spin) communications directly with those citizens in all kinds of local communities and communities of interests in personal thoughtful and effective sharing of ideas through the Internet.  This must be one of the central on-going efforts to capitalize on the success of this past weekend.  All parties are behind in understanding how social media works and how to use it effectively.  The Liberal Party of Canada got a taste of it this weekend and are starting to get it.

There is archived presentations being set up at the conference website at http://www.can150.ca/.  I strongly suggest a number of visits and revisits by anyone interested in citizen engagement and looking for "adult conversations" about public policy in Canada. They got that from speaker after speaker at this weekend's conference.

I will be doing a series of blog posts in the next few days on my reactions to the presentations I heard.  Conversations are game changers and my sense is the "game" of politics changed this past weekend and become more of an "adult converstion," the kind that David Dodge called for at Canada at 150 in his presentation.

Canada at 150: Rising to the Challenge

I am attending Canada at 150:Rising to the Challenge this weekend in Montreal where Canadians of all political stripes and backgrounds are meeting in a non-partisan setting to take on big issues and challenges that will shape our nation's direction.


I am attending as part of the discussion and will provide my feedback into the Reboot Alberta community, I encourage us all to post our insights on how we can address the challenges that face our country as we head to our 150th birthday in 2017.

There are lots of ways to get involved. You can RSVP to the live webcast where you will be able to submit questions during the sessions, by attending one the events being hosted or hosting your own. There is a lot of info on how to here: http://can150.ca/participate-online/  You can sign up for the live webcast of the event here as well.

If you can’t participate over March 26-28, you can submit your thoughts on the challenges for Canada that are going to be addressed now at http://can150.ca/about/ by linking on each heading:

• Jobs Today and Tomorrow: the Productive Society of 2017

• Real life issues for Canadian families: How do we care?

• The Creative and Competitive economy

• Energy, Environment, Economy: Growth and Responsibility in 2017

• A strong presence in the world of 2017: Commerce, values, and relationships

If any readers have comments on any of these topics and want to share them now, I welcome the input as comments.  I will be posting from the event on this blog and on Twitter as well. You can follow the event on Twitter at #can150.  I encourage everyone to follow this event.  I'm thinking it will be historic.

BTW my business partner Satya Das and Green Oil author is speaking on panel about Clean Energy and Canada's Potential in the Low Carbon World: What's Missing.

Fraser Institute Report Comparing Schools is Educational Folly

I always dispair at the superficial analysis and misleading inferences from the Fraser Institute when it ranks  schools based on standardized test results.  When you ask a shallow and silly question you are bound to get a useless answer.  As the world gets more complex and informed engaged citizenship becomes more important than ever we need to ensure the skills we teach are those that are essential for this new and emerging world. 

Of course the traditional subjects are still important but not as the only things worth teaching and testing. To compare schools and insist that they compete for credibility when private schools can restrict who they enroll and public schools will and must take all comers and to say this is a quality measure is misleading at best.  This fundamental reality about enrollment and the socio-economic differences in schools make the Fraser Institute comparison reporting such a disservice.  How are students, teachers, parents and the public able to use such selective comparisons when trying to discern if our education system is doing the job it needs to do to prepare the whole student for the changing and emerging reality they will face.

If students and teachers are only ranked and rated on narrow focued standardized test results we only get a bellcurve distribution but no insight as to how well prepared the whole student is for adaptation, resilience, self-sufficiency and survival in a complex interdependent globalized social, environmental, economic and political culture. 

The Fraser Institute reports on public education is as helpful as counting the number of nails in a house and presuming that measures its value to those who live in it.  It is not even worthy of being taken with a grain of salt.  It is beyond useless, it is dangerous

Jon Stewart's Classic Piece of Political Satire on Progressives.

Here is a clip by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show that is destined to be a classic.  As a friend of mine said about this clip "It would be funny if it were not so true."  The sad state of fearmongering and misleading from some of the media in America is also present in Alberta. You just have to scratch the surface a little and you will find it in more than a few places.

This piece of sketch comedy should cause Progressives in Alberta to laugh and reflect but not cry or dispair.  We have to stand up and decrie such prejudice and bigotry. We have to speak out against the kind of screed that get passed off by some as a preferred but uncivil society that would put us back into an unjust and doctraire society.

I think I have said enough.  Go to the link and let Jon Stewart speak for himself. He also speaks for many others of us who are progressives but have been too complacent and too indifferent and for far too long.

http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Displayblog.aspx?bpid=4843e0b6-7dbc-44d7-be1b-615a35ac155f