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From introducing legislation to increase the federal minimum wage, to earmarking funds to improve standards in long-term care, all while defying the deficit doomsayers, the grits have presented a budget that makes meaningful progress on several key files.

The most significant component of the budget (and arguably the most transformational one) is Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s allocation of $30 billion for the implementation of a national child-care program.

Though details remain, and with unavoidable federal-provincial hand-wrangling set to ensue, Freeland’s substantial investment into child-care is nonetheless an immensely positive development; one that if properly executed, will strengthen Canada’s frayed social safety net.

When viewed in its entirety, the government’s 2021 financial plan is undoubtedly a far more activist budget than we are used to seeing from the Trudeau Liberals.  Or from any other federal government for that matter, going back at least 40 years.

However, as resolute as Freeland and Prime Minister Trudeau have been on (finally) forging ahead on child-care, all while continuing to run deficits in spite of the habitual warnings from neo-con naysayers, they have been equally as gutless in challenging the super-rich.

In her budget, Freeland introduced only three new taxes measures (as far as I could read, at 739 pages, the budget was unnecessarily long and could have really used an edit) that the Liberals would be using to help raise revenue and level the economic playing field.  These included new taxes on luxury cars, boats and personal aircraft, a one percent annual tax on vacant property purchased by foreign investors, and a three percent tax on giant multinationals that operate online marketplaces and social media platforms.

While these measures are preferable to no action at all, they really are quite pathetic and entirely insufficient in addressing the extreme wealth inequalities we are contending with today.

For instance, over the next five years, the new taxes on big tech companies are only expected to bring in a measly 3.4 billion.  The new taxes on luxury items will see even less returns: a paltry $604 million over the same period.

This will do squat when you consider vast degree of inequality we are dealing with.

Just consider some of the latest data on the subject, compiled by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

According to the Officer’s 2016 report, the richest one percent in Canada now controls an astounding 25 percent of the country’s wealth.  Some, however, estimate that the number is even higher, at 29 percent, after it was reported that Canada’s billionaires increased their wealth by $78 billion over the past year, at the same time millions of citizens were losing their jobs and struggling to pay their bills and stay out of insolvency.

Freeland is well aware of this.  So too is Trudeau.  Yet still, they chose not to act on the issue with the urgency it requires, preferring instead to continue with the status-quo.

Now, if Freeland had shown the same fortitude she displayed on child-care and overall deficit spending, she would have championed far more robust taxation measures, like say, the implementation of a wealth tax.

Not only would a wealth tax have provided revenue for Freeland and the Liberal government to spend on other, necessary initiatives, (i.e., the creation of a national pharmacare program) but it would have had real influence in shrinking Canada’s unsustainable wealth inequality.

In fact, according to economist Alex Hemingway, a one percent tax alone on fortunes above $20 million would boost revenue in its first year by approximately $10 billion.  That would soon pay for Freeland’s child-care plan, along with much else.

Perhaps what is most frustrating about this all, besides the federal government’s continued underfunding of its social safety net, is that instituting a wealth tax would not have even been politically challenging for the Liberals to do.

According to polling conducted by Abacus Data, a majority of Canadians (79 percent to be precise) support such a tax, including not only Liberals and others to the party’s left, but traditional Conservative Party voters as well.

Of course, effectively addressing income and wealth inequality requires much more government action than just implementing a wealth tax.  Other policy solutions must be pursued in tandem to have a meaningful impact on wealth inequality.  These include a combination of raising corporate, personal, and capital gains taxes, implementing an inheritance tax, and closing the many tax loopholes that exist in our system.

Unfortunately, in her budget, Freeland chose to do the bare minimum and continue to allow the status quo of extreme wealth inequality to persist.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.


Ah, the blame game!

This immediately recognizable term is defined in the Cambridge English Dictionary as a "situation in which people try to blame each other for something bad that has happened."

Those of who have either worked in politics, written and spoken about politics, or both have witnessed the blame game up close and personal.  It knows no race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, income status, geographical location or ideological bent.

The political left blames the political right for just about everything.  The political right blames the political left for just about everything.  Conservatives blame Liberals.  Liberals blame Conservatives.  Conservatives blame Socialists.  Socialists blame Conservatives.  Liberals blame Socialists.  Socialists blame Liberals.

I could go on, but it's easy to figure out.

Are there ever moments where the blame game depicts an accurate situation?  Yes.  There's always an element of truth in the air when fingers are pointed in vastly different directions.  Fact can also trump fiction depending on what you believe is fact and fiction, of course.

Here's an example.

Who's really to blame for Canada's issues with vaccine distribution during COVID-19?  Is the federal government mostly at fault?  Or are provincial and municipal governments primarily at fault?

To be clear, no level of government in this country has been entirely blameless.  All of them have made minor and major mistakes.  When the coronavirus pandemic comes to an end through a combination of mass vaccinations and herd immunity in a few years' time, reports written about government policies, positions and decisions will depict significant errors, omissions, inactions and failures in great detail.  No stone will be left unturned.

Nevertheless, the federal Liberals should clearly receive the lion's share of the blame.  More than any provincial government, no matter the political stripe and the litany of municipal governments that serve our local communities.

Some people will argue this assessment was made for purely partisan reasons and to score political points.  I'm afraid not.

Canada contained the effects of COVID-19 about as well as could be expected in 2020.  The virus didn't spread too rapidly in most provinces.  Lockdown/stay-at-home measures were fairly effective in the first and second waves.  An enormous amount of money was spent in emergency relief funds for individuals and companies, which is why our national deficit currently sits at $354.2 billion, up from $39.4 billion in 2019-20.  Alas, it's not like we didn't know this was going to happen, even if the final figure announced in the federal budget was mind-blowing.

When Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca produced excellent results with research studies and trials related to their vaccines, most of us assumed we would be able to regain some sense of normalcy in 2021.  Until it became clear there was a huge disconnect between euphoric Canadians and Ottawa's political messaging.

What Canadians found out was Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals had quietly established a working relationship with a little-known Chinese vaccine maker, CanSino Biologics, in hopes of creating a COVID-19 vaccine.  That study failed in August, which forced the PM to scramble like mad to make deals with the mainstream vaccine makers.  This threw Canada way back in line, and helps explain why we experienced so many delays with Pfizer, Moderna et al.

It also helps explain why Canada consistently ranked in the mid-to-high 50's, and briefly in the low 60's, in terms of the international vaccine rollout (per capita) during January, February and part of March.  That's according to Our World In Data, which is managed by Oxford University/Oxford Martin School.  We were behind many less developed countries, and almost on par with a few tiny island nations.

Trudeau and the Liberals still refuse to accept one iota of blame for this debacle, even though it turned into a national and international embarrassment.

Hold on.  Aren't the provinces to blame for issues related to vaccine supply and management, storage and COVID-19 policies during lockdowns?

Indeed, the provinces have made plenty of mistakes, from Ontario PC Premier Doug Ford to B.C. NDP Premier John Horgan.  Nevertheless, it was Ottawa who purchased, distributed and delivered the vaccines on a province-by-province basis.  This specifically led to the vaccine shortfall we faced in Canada in early 2021.

Meanwhile, Trudeau's former Principal Secretary Gerald Butts tweeted this on May 1, "I talk to a lot of people in health care.  I don't know one who thinks we could have avoided the third wave with vaccines alone.  Not one.  This is just not true."

Yes, the third wave would have arrived regardless of Canada's vaccine supply.  At the same time, if Trudeau had focused on ordering from major vaccine companies like Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca, and not put all his eggs in one basket with an unknown vaccine maker from Communist China, we would surely be further ahead today instead of having played catch-up for three months.  Many people got sick, and some died, during this period of delay and confusion caused by the Trudeau Liberals.

Will Ottawa accept blame for vaccine distribution issues during COVID-19?  Of course not.  The only blame game the federal Liberals will ever play is the one that involves pointing fingers at everyone else but them.  They have plenty of experience in doing this.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.