Canada Border Services Agency estimates 48,500 foreigners are in the country illegally. The disclosure came as cabinet proposed to restrict permits issued to international “students” who gain entry to Canada but never attend class: “I don’t quite understand why we would tolerate this”.
An obscure reference in budget documents to electronic jamming devices has analysts puzzled over what cabinet has in mind. Authorities refused comment on the initiative, except to caution that wireless signal blocking is a danger to the public: “It is not really clear what they’re looking at.”
Imperial Oil pays less tax today than it did in 1960. Bus drivers pay more. In this statistic we see the case for Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics.
Editors and contributors from leading universities document the phenomenon with scientific precision. Canada’s rich are definitely richer, the poor are not really much poorer, but recent years have put the middle class in a vise-like squeeze. In response Parliament passed a bill offering tax credits for hot tubs. “This new political landscape has sharp edges,” write editors Prof. Keith Banting of Queen’s University, and Prof. John Myles of the University of Toronto.
Inequality is neither hectoring nor conspiracy-ridden. “There is no smoking gun to be found,” the editors note. However the result is the same: “Canadians in the middle, especially those in the lower middle of the wage distribution, have been struggling in the wake of economic change and have not received their fair share of the benefits of economic growth for a generation.”
No federal cabinet in twenty years has done much to alter the trend lines. It has been a generation of cheese-paring “dominated by the Department of Finance and characterized by cost containment through technical, almost invisible program adjustments”, writes Prof. Susan Phillips of Carleton University’s School of Public Policy.
An example: the 1944 baby bonus introduced as the first truly universal family benefit, and now reduced to a non-refundable tax credit. The mangling of the bonus reads like a round of the telephone game: first they renamed it the “family allowance”, then clawed it back in 1989. It was renamed again as the Child Tax Benefit in 1993, then replaced with a Child Tax Benefit in 1998 that actually cut benefits for low-income families. This was followed by a Universal Child Care Benefit, and finally in 2007 the non-refundable Child Tax Credit.
The effect is “perverse”, writes Prof. David Good of the University of Victoria, a former assistant deputy minister: “Non-poor families receive $300 per child, including the very rich; some low-income families receive a smaller amount; and the poorest get nothing at all because they do not owe income tax.”
Inequality reflects the sunset on Canada’s postwar middle-class. It is a fact now that most people under 50 will never know a time when a high-school education could bring a good wage; or one wage-earner might support a whole family.
It was nice while it lasted.
By Holly Doan
Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, edited by Keith Banting and John Myles; UBC Press; 480 pages; ISBN 9780-7748-26006; $34.95 
Canada Post is being flayed for its rollout of plans to suspend home mail delivery nationwide. MPs and authorities in the first communities to see service cuts complained of a lack of consultation: “It tells me they don’t give a rat’s ass”.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case of stock losses triggered by misleading media reports. The appeal in a Québec class-action lawsuit followed a 2010 incident in which a pharmaceutical firm saw trading suspended based on speculative reports its latest drug was a bust.
A U.S. trade practice blamed for more than $5 billion in Canadian losses is expected to drag into next year without resolution. Exporters expressed irritation with the process that’s already seen six years of protests, hearings and lawsuits: “It is taking much longer than we believe it should”.
Federal regulators have approved payment of cash for news at CBC-TV, calling it a management responsibility. The CRTC dismissed a public complaint over a $97,729 payment from Parks Canada to have CBC cover an exclusive story two years ago: “Broadcasters are responsible for the content they air”.
Cabinet will enact new regulations next Wednesday in a bid to stem the spread of a pig-killing virus confirmed in three provinces to date. The virus is raising fears of the 2003 mad cow outbreak that cost the cattle industry $6.3 billion: “It’s a national event”.
Price swings in the billion-dollar lobster sector will make it very difficult to sell in new markets, says an industry group. The Fisheries Council told a Commons committee lobster marketing remains a problem due to up and down pricing: “The marketplace hates that. Retailers hate it. Food services hate it”.
Spammers, marketers and firms suspected of violating commercial law are targeted under a cybercrime bill, confidential records show. Department of Justice briefing notes disclose the legislation, depicted as targeting child pornographers and drug lords, was also planned to aid Competition Bureau attorneys: “Can we be cynical with reason?”
Parks Canada and other agencies spent millions on a three-week search for 19th century Arctic shipwrecks, confidential accounts show. The expensive mission came amid cuts in national parks budgets and unfunded maintenance for historic sites: “This smacks of public relations to me”.
Police have a constitutional right to conduct random Breathalyzer tests of drivers leaving a liquor store parking lot since it’s “not as if the officer had targeted a daycare or church”, an Ontario court has ruled. The judgment comes as MPs consider legislating random breath testing: “At issue here is only location targeting”.
Transport Canada’s fleet of oil spill surveillance aircraft will remain at three planes to spy three oceans, the Great Lakes and 243,000 km of coastline. However officials promise to spend more time in the air: ‘We feel that any risks can be mitigated’.
Refits of puncture-prone tank cars like those in the Lac-Mégantic disaster will take years to complete, warns a Transport Canada panel. Authorities recommend a feasibility study on getting rid of unsafe cars: “The longer those cars are out there, the longer they will be a danger to the public”.
A 149-year tradition in Government of Canada cheques will end effective in 2016 with the substitution of paper payments with prepaid cards, officials say.
The Receiver General explained anyone receiving a federal cheque for tax refunds, pension or benefits payments will “automatically be switched to prepaid cards unless they qualify for and register as an exception” effective April 1, 2016. Authorities told Blacklock’s that “some exceptions may be required for individuals who live in a remote location or those who do not have a bank account”; “Various solutions are being examined”.
Cabinet earlier set the same April Fool’s deadline for mandating direct electronic deposits as a cost-savings measure. Direct deposits cost 13¢ per transaction compared to 82¢ to cut a paper cheque.
“The question is, are we changing the nature of cash? The answer is yes,” said Ken Whitehurst, executive director of the Consumers Council of Canada. “There are an enormous number of privacy issues that go with that, and it is hard to see how the government could account for them all.”
The Department of Public Works said in a notice it will consult widely on the changeover. It would see banks, credit unions and other institutions issue, activate and load prepaid cards for people expecting a federal payment: “We will engage with Canadians.”
Whitehurst said the Consumers Council is concerned “whether or not there has been much evaluation of the unintended consequences of this.”
“Government cheques today are pretty negotiable, and you do have people for a variety of reasons who will not walk into a bank,” said Whitehurst. “A lot of people will like the convenience, but if the card is the front-end to an account, there are learning curve issues that could be considerable for others. How will they react to it?”
The Receiver General, the federal office that manages all money transactions between Canadians and the treasury, issues more than 300 million payments each year, by official estimate. Some 77 percent are currently made by direct deposit, with other payments handled through wire transfer and paper cheque.
“The use and prevalence of paper cheques will get smaller and smaller,” said Patrick Culhane, president and CEO of the Canadian Payroll Association; “Canada makes more use of technology in payroll than any other country. Where the government is headed is frankly the right move.”
Culhane cited association polling data that found of 2800 employees surveyed, 97 percent are paid electronically; 83 percent “had and liked” online pay statements; and 84 percent “had and liked” receiving electronic T4 statements for tax purposes.
“I made a presentation to Canada Revenue Agency and said, ‘These numbers are real,’” Culhane said.
Canada Revenue has urged taxpayers to file their annual returns electronically, estimating it saves $3.50 on every e-file. Eighty percent of last year’s returns were filed by internet with more than a million T1 e-forms filed on a single day, April 30 – the largest in history.
The tax department earlier closed in-person counter service at 26 offices; levied a $25 “disincentive fee” on tax preparers who file more than 10 paper returns; and in 2012 cancelled its Telefile system that permitted the filing of simple returns by telephone. Some 279,000 taxpayers, mostly seniors, had used the Telefile system.
By Tom Korski
