Alberta Young Liberals

Shorter Paul Jackson

2007-06-26T11:42:00.001-07:00

As part of a new feature on this blog, I present Shorter Paul Jackson:highlights from Paul Jackson's rants for those smart enough not to read his column. Today's entry:

Dawkins is the author of The God Delusion, which has allegedly sold one-million copies, a pretty insignificant number considering how many copies of the Bible, Talmad, and Qur'an are sold each year.

Quite obviously Dawkins has no knowledge whatsoever of Day's political acumen.

Friends, I fully believe when I die -- if I keep to the straight and narrow -- I will meet my grandparents, parents, sisters and Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu friends in Heaven.
My pet Shih-Tzu puppies, Muffin and Dolly, too.

For sure, though, I will not meet Richard Dawkins there.

Strange piece of Liberal Trivia No.362

2007-06-23T16:03:00.001-07:00

I was watching the deleted scenes from The 40 Year Old Virgin and Canadian actor Seth Rogen (star of Knocked Up) makes a reference to Pierre Trudeau. I'm too lazy to go back and transcribe exactly what he says but he basically explains that because he's Canadian he wouldn't care if Bill Clinton watched the movie, he would care more if Pierre Trudeau watched it. Now I'm not sure if he would care more because Trudeau is Canadian or if it would be impressive because he was watching from beyond the grave...

Anyway, just a little random piece of Liberal trivia that I enjoyed and thought you might too.

Highlights from the Drumheller By Election Blitz

2007-06-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

How Sweet it is

2007-06-13T15:45:00.001-07:00

Quebec speaks

2007-03-26T20:10:00.001-07:00

I was disappointed to see that the people of Quebec have elected a minority Liberal government, not because I don't like the Quebec Liberal Party (at least they can get elected) but because for the next few years there will be a minority government. Looking at the results, which are not finalized, the Liberals have a 3 vote margin between them and the ADQ. Now this is a huge hit for the PQ, those separatist bastards we all love to hate. The CBC has speculated that in voting for the ADQ and Liberals, the people voted for a united Canada, but lets remember back to 1995 when the ADQ supported the Oui side with the PQ. Also remembering back to the past couple Quebec elections, the ADQ said that, if elected, they would simply wait ten years between being elected and calling a referendum. That doesn't sound like a united Canada to me.

Thinking about this scares me. I'm certainly glad to see the PQ get a thrashing, (I can still remember the things that I did to René Lesveque's bust in Montreal), but is shifting from Leftist separatists to right wing separatists a good thing? Since separation is never a viable option, and we all know what right wing parties in Canada do, I will say no.

As Jean Charest almost lost his seat tonight, I am hoping that he will soon resign as Prime Minister of Quebec so that the Liberal party can replace him with someone more youthful, someone who can deliver a Liberal majority government in the next election, which may not be that far off. Let's just hope that Dumont does not embrace separatism as quickly this time as he did in 1995.

Tax and Spend Tories

2007-03-10T19:24:00.000-08:00

Well the Tories are now showing their true face. In the last week alone the Tories have pledged 12 billion dollars in spending. That is double the budget surplus.

Dion summed it up quite well:

We have a government that is spending like crazy in order to try to seduce the Canadian people,"

Mr. Flaherty, what happened to Fiscal Responsibility?

Alberta No Longer Debt Free!

2007-03-06T18:23:00.000-08:00

A few months before the last Alberta General Election; former Alberta Premier, Ralph Klein, announced Alberta was debt free.

Well that sure did not last long. The province recently announced, it is taking out a 300 million dollar loan to pay for infastructure projects. Yes the same projects, which the Tories cut, to get the province's debt free status.

Well so much for fiscal responsibility.

Stephane Dion in Edmonton

2007-02-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Hope you can all make it out for drinks with
Stephane Dion this Saturday!

Time: 5:00 - 6:00pm

Location:
Lion's Head Pub
Coast Terrace Inn - Edmonton South,
4440 Gateway Blvd.,
780-437-6010

Ed Stelmach

2007-02-22T09:59:00.000-08:00

Ed Stelmach

Ed Stelmach

Conservatives wish to do away with retail sales tax

2006-06-06T21:48:00.000-07:00

The federal government has decided that while the fiscal imbalance is important to discuss, tax harmonization is a very important area of future discussion. Harper will reach for the goal partially accomplished by the previous liberal government: elimination of retail sales tax.

"provincial retail sales taxes continue to be collected in five provinces. These taxes result in inefficient and uncompetitive forms of taxation—notably the taxation of business inputs and exports—as well as increased administration and compliance costs for both business and government" - Restoring Fiscal Balance Department of Finance Paper Page 60

Agreements were reached with Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, on operating a combined value added tax, or VAT. In Quebec this is knows as QST & GST, while in other provinces it is known as the HST (Harmonized sales tax).

All other provinces with the exception being Alberta (which collects no retail or value added tax) collect PST (provincial sales tax) which is a form of retail sales tax (RST).

Move VAT and RST are forms of ad valorem tax, a tax with a rate given as a proportion of the price. Ad valorem taxes, have a measure of tax incidence that is determined by the elasticities of supply and demand. Sales taxes are borne by the consumer in proportion to consumption expenditures.

The GST, HST, QST are a VAT which has a broad base of goods and services, while the PST is a RST which usually exempts many goods and services. The one problem with RST's is the problem of double taxation. Some goods that could be seen as consumer goods are bought to be resold. These goods, which the business person has already paid RST on, is then resold with RST being applied once again. (If a good was $100, purchased for $110 with RST, then resold at $110, the final price would be $121, with a tax total of $121) This leads to the difficulty in administration of having breaucrats deciding what is a consumer product, and what is a industrial products. It also distorts the market for services, inducing extra demands, as it is cheaper to higher services, than to purchase a labour saving device (which has RST). RST's can be a major drag on productivity. The RST system has a few advantages, being that it is easier to understand than the VAT, and has fewer points of collection.

A VAT has the advantages of avoiding tax cascading, and the taxation of goods used as imputs in the production of other goods.

Explaining the GST, HST, QST:

The tax is a 7% charge on the sale of all goods and services, except certain essentials such as food, residential rent, and medical services, and certain services such as financial services. The tax is levied on each sale. Businesses that purchase goods and services as inputs can claim "input tax credits", i.e., in general terms, they deduct from the amount of GST they have collected the amount of GST that they have paid. This avoids "cascading", i.e., the application of the GST on the same good or service several times as it passes from business to business on its way to the final consumer. In this way, the tax is effectively borne by the final consumer. Exported goods are exempt, while individuals with low incomes can receive a GST rebate calculated in conjunction with their income tax.

Untaxed items

The tax is a 7% charge on all goods and services except certain items that are either "exempt" or "zero-rated":

* For tax-free — i.e., "zero-rated" — sales, vendors do not charge GST. However, they are still able to recover any GST paid on purchases used in making the tax-free good or service. This effectively remove all tax from these goods and services.
o Tax-free items include basic groceries, prescription drugs and medical devices. Exports are also zero-rated.

* For tax-exempt sales, vendors do not charge tax on their sales. By the same token, however, they are not entitled to credits for the GST paid on inputs bought for the purposes of making the exempt good or service. Tax-exempt items include residential rents, health and dental care, educational services, day-care services, legal aid services and financial services.

*

What the government is doing:

"The Government is also proposing to discuss ideas for further
harmonization of sales taxes in Canada. Harmonized value-added taxes
are already in place in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and
New Brunswick—and Quebec administers a provincial value-added tax,
as well as collecting the GST on behalf of the federal government.
But separate provincial retail sales taxes continue to be collected in five
provinces. These taxes result in inefficient and uncompetitive forms of
taxation—notably the taxation of business inputs and exports—as
well as increased administration and compliance costs for both business
and government."

I believe this can only result in gains for Canadians. with the GST being reduced to 5% and administrative cost savings, the Ontario rate of 15% could soon be 11 or 12%. Exports will benifit, and productivity will hopefully begin to play catch up after being a laygard on Canada's financial record for many years.

Peacekeeping & Darfur

2006-05-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

Why the term needs to be mostly scrapped in the modern context.

Peacekeeping by definition requires in place ceasefires and the consent of all the parties in conflict to be implemented. This works very well in conflicts which are between states, such as Israel/Syria in the Golan Heights, and the conflict in Cyprus.

In many cases where individuals wish peacekeepers to be deployed, there is no peace to keep.
Darfur for example would not be conventional peacekeeping. Some of the rebel groups on each side on the conflict have refused to sign the peaceagreement.

Arguments for Deploying a UN force to Darfur

* UN Troops will be able to stop attacks against Refugees - Wrong, as Peacekeeping forces are not deployed with rules of engagement that include responsibility to protect (example: Rwanda)
* UN Troops will be able to force peace among remaining factions - Wrong, as force is imposed by an outside power, the only effect will be to unite the factions in opposition to UN Forces (example: Somalia)
* UN Mission will be less risky than Afghanistan - Dubious, two rebel groups have rejected the agreement, and Sudan's ability to reign in the Janjaweed is unproven. Protesters in refugee Camps recently attacked UN's top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, his interpreter, and killed an interpreter deployed with the African Union. Osama bin Laden has called for the formation of a Muslim Liberation Army or Mujahaden to remove infidels from Sudan
* We have a responsibility to protect, to prevent genocide - This is problably the best argument for going. However, this argument can be attacked for perpetuating a paternalistic ideal of colonialism's "white man's burden", citing the UN Charter's call for a global village and adoption of notions employed by the west as tactics to justify intervention throughout the globe for the purpose of "keeping the peace".
* Darfur requires just a handful of UN Troops (Western Troops) which are up to a standard to actually do something about the conflict - This argument seems to be a good one, but lacks substance. African Union Troops with helicopters and armoured personell carriers have been unable to prevents continued conflict. Darfur is the size of France, is sparsely populated, and lacks available supplies of water. The amount of troops to cover such an area would be enormous. United Nations Troops would be contained by rules of engagement stricter than African Union Troops. This is because UN Troops would be peace keepers.

The NDP's position in Darfur is simplistic (deploy troops, stop killing). It seems logical. A mission of the size and scope needed in Darfur would likely be similar to the Somalia deployment. I remember that didn't go well. I will have to search Hansard to try to find the call by the NDP to pull Canadian forces out, and the similar call to put forces in a year or two before.

The Darfur conflict is reflected in multiple prisms. The most commonly cited is Arab and Black. Another is Muslim and Christian. I would say the most fundamental difference inbetween the two groups fighting(this is not to say there are only one group on each side), is that one side is nomadic herders, and one side is subsistent farmers.

These two groups (farmers vs herders) will always have a fundamental conflict unless agreements are made to share land, or divide land.

The best way to solve this problem is to actively support refugees leaving the conflict zone, along with "strong and effective measures" diplomatic language for sanctions. a United Nations force will be no more effective than an African Union force if it is to be deployed under the same circumstances.

As an internal matter for Sudan, the most appropriate action to take are actions which pressure the Sudanese government to solve the problem in a way acceptable to the international community. When there is a peace to keep, it will be appropriate to deploy a peace monitoring mission, much like the United Nations Mission in the Sudan (where a force has been deployed after a peace agreement).

Columnists has said that the NDP has a large pacifist contingent. http://www.ottawasun.com/News/Co...20/ 1590373.html
The deflection of the Afghanistan mission by the smokescreen of darfur is just a deception by the isolationist NDP which packs up when the going gets tough.

The Darfur conflict has been going on since 2003. If the NDP really cared, where were they calling for sanctions after resolutions passed in 2004. This issue is just popular at the moment, and they are using it as a distraction. Darfur may be an issue, but true problem in Africa is the Great Lakes War surrounding Zaire/DR Congo. Six million hgave died in that conflict. Where is the NDP on that issue.

High-priced hydro imports soaring .. I wonder why?

2005-07-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

People wonder why Ontario is in such a hydro fix. It is years of mismanagement in addition to the abandoning of free market principles.

Ontario's deregulation plan was going somewhat smoothly, until there was public outrage over OPG's (Ontario Power Generation) chief executive officers pay. Her salary made her the most compensated civil servant (well, I guess technically not civil servant, since she was working for a crown corporation) in Ontario. People were mad at this, presumably because they don't understand that for the size of company, she was likely underpaid. For this and a couple other stupid reasons, Mr. Eves pulled the plug on Ontario deregulation.

But wait, there is more, he didn't reverse the initial phases of his plan, he just stopped it in its tracks. One large power plant had been built assuming the deregulation model would be completed (Transcanada Pipelines Plant near the Nova Chemicals Plant in Sarnia, which was not allowed to be a cogenerator, due to stupid regulations [this would have been more efficient and saved money] but that's another post).

Plants are forced to sell power at below the cost of production (when you include long term capital costs). This is fine when you are using public debt to finance the capital costs of power plants (such as the nuclear plants) that you can expect prices to just pay for day to day operations, and not cover a small profit margin and debt repayment.

This creates a situation, that if instead of building the plant in Sarnia, if TCPL had built the plant just across the river, they could make much more money on it, since they could sell power at a market rate to Ontario. This is what happened. 8000 megawatts of installed capacity have been built in New England since the late nineties, mostly in the form as peak power natural gas fired plants. The power from these plants is atrociously expensive, because they need to make a profit while operating only for hours a day during peak demand. This however, makes economic sense, because natural gas power plants are reasonably inexpensive compared to coal and nuclear, and can be started and stopped reasonably quickly.

Ontario play's in a deregulated market in the interprovincial/state power pool, while disadvantaging itself by not deregulation the local market. This leads me to my next point:

Importing power is not a bad thing, as long as consumers bear the economic cost of the more expensive power. This infact saves the capital cost of building extra powerplants.

If power rates above the board were allowed to jump, people would either decide to

a) consume less power
or
b) pay for it
or
c) build own peak power storage or generating capacity (such as solar panels, batteries, fuel cell/hydrolysis unit
If the Ontario government lacks the political will to force people to own up to over consumption, then the situation will continue. I have one question to ask supporters of the current subsidies on consumer electricity in Ontario: Do you support getting rid of the gasoline tax and then adding a rebate on top of the reduction paid out of public funds?

If you don't support both energy subsidies, your a hypocrite.

End prohibition, legalize marijuana: Libs’youth

2005-03-21T21:39:00.000-08:00

Page 38 THE HILL TIMES, MONDAY, MARCH21 – MARCH27, 2005 GUEST COLUMN By DAN ARNOLD and ROBBIE SCHUETT

Over the past number of days, Canadians and the national media have started to take a sober second look at Canada’s policy on illegal drugs—particularly marijuana. Earlier this month, on behalf of the Liberal Party’s Alberta wing, we presented a policy in support of legalizing marijuana at the Liberal Party’s national convention in Ottawa. It was our belief that this is a long overdue measure that the Government of Canada must act upon.

The recent tragic events in our home province have only reinforced our opinion.

We are fully aware that there was a lot more to the Mayerthorpe murders than a marijuana grow-op. However, the incident has propelled the debate over Canadian drug laws to the kitchen tables, coffee shops and front pages of Canada.

While we fully support stricter penalties for those who run grow-ops in the short-term, the only way to eliminate illegal grow-ops in the long-term is to legalize marijuana. When alcohol prohibition was lifted, the rum-runners and bootleggers lost a market. The same thing will happen to today’s drug dealers and grow operators once marijuana is legalized. Our national Young Liberal President Richard Diamond drew this connection when he observed, “We need serious regulations on marijuana so that this kind of violence and this kind of black market will cease. By lifting marijuana prohibition, the government has a chance to deliver a body blow to organized crime in Canada.”

Those who oppose the legalization of marijuana call it a gateway drug, claiming that pot smokers move on to more dangerous drugs. But let’s look at why this might be true. When people, especially young people, buy marijuana from a dealer, it isn’t long before they get gently nudged on to harder stuff. If the government is handling the distribution of marijuana, it’s a fairly safe bet that they’re not going to be running “buy 20 joints, get a gram of cocaine free!” promotions.

By ending marijuana prohibition, we would be closing this gate and we would see a reduction in hard drug use in Canada. In 2002,a Senate committee concluded that legalized marijuana would lead to a reduction in use, because the government could regulate supply, price and sales. A lot has been accomplished in the last decade to cut smoking rates among minors. By employing a similar strategy with marijuana we would gradually see a decline in the rate of underage pot use.

There are also financial benefits to be had. The marijuana industry is, at the very least, a $7-billion to $10-billion-a-year business in Canada. The Fraser Institute estimates that legalizing marijuana would generate at least $2-billion a year in tax revenue for the government.

The government should take a second look at this lucrative source of revenue— as grassroots Liberal Party members have. In addition to supporting priorities such as health care, education and tax reduction, these revenues could be used for drug awareness and other law enforcement priorities.

There is nothing radical about this proposal. Senate and House of Commons committees have advocated for a loosening of marijuana laws. Canada has already legalized compassionate use. A recent SES poll found 53 per cent of Canadians support marijuana legalization while only 37 per cent oppose it. Canada’s current decriminalization effort is a step in the right direction but the industry will still be in the hands of organized crime rather than the far more capable hands of regulators and legitimate business.

Last week, Treasury Board President Reg Alcock came out in support of legalized marijuana, adding that: “If we actually wanted to break the back of organized crime, we would be better off to control it. When you have these things underground, what you end up fuelling is organized crime.”

The war on drugs isn’t working. Police officers in cities across Canada are being put in harm’s way each day to stamp out weeds. They admit they will never be able to keep up and the risks to their health and safety are increasing.

Our choices are clear. We can continue to pour more money into this losing battle or adopt a new made-in-Canada strategy that reduces the harm associated with current drug use and production. Ending marijuana prohibition was the right thing to do a decade ago, it was the right thing to do a month ago, and, more than ever, it remains the right thing to do today.

Dan Arnold is the policy chair of the Alberta Young Liberals and Robbie Schuett is the President of the University of Calgary Liberal Association (UCLA). They cowrote and presented a policy to legalize marijuana at the Liberal Party Biennial Convention. This policy was passed by a large percentage of the delegates.
The Hill Times