sbv

Let’s start with one of the highest-voltage [third rails] in federal politics: Old Age Security.

OAS only begins to be clawed back once a senior’s income exceeds $91,000. And payments aren’t zeroed out until income hits $148,000 – or $154,000 for those 75 and older. Senior couples earning a quarter-million dollars a year, and living mortgage-free, are getting cheques from younger and (much) lower-income taxpayers.

That has to be fixed. The OAS threshold should be lowered – to, say, $60,000 – and the clawback sharpened, with benefits tapping out at $100,000.

...

End the capital-gains exemption for principal residences. It’s even more untouchable than OAS. It’s also more economically harmful and inequitable.

It pumps up housing prices and pushes more and more national wealth into housing. It’s dumb economics, plus the tax break only goes to the two-thirds of families who own a home. And the richer you are, and the more home you own, the bigger the tax break. It adds up to a hyper-regressive policy to make Canada less productive.

...

Let’s restore the two percentage points of Goods and Services Tax the Harper government cut. Our tax system is too tilted to income taxes, and away from taxes on consumption. And the cut to the GST costs Ottawa about $20-billion a year.

If the GST were raised, some of the proceeds could beef up the tax credit for low-income Canadians.

There's some good stuff in there.

https://archive.is/GDzQG

Interesting article on growth in public sector jobs over the past decade. What I got from it: lots of people were hired during the pandemic to handle pandemic-related initiatives; aside from that, lots of people were hired in general; governments appear to hire in times of economic uncertainty (e.g. growth under Harper during 2008+); federal unions argue staffing levels are returning to "normal".

But the killer is the last section where the author tries to figure out if we're getting value for money. The answer is short and sour: Canadians don't think so, and internal targets aren't being met.

Are Canadians getting bang for their taxpayer buck?

... One way to gauge that is through surveys, which doesn’t leave Canada looking good relative to its international peers. The OECD polls residents at its member countries on their satisfaction with public services such as health care and education, and between 2017 and 2022, Canada experienced the largest decline in satisfaction among G7 countries for education (from 73 to 67 per cent) while the drop in health care satisfaction matched that of the United Kingdom, but to the lowest level in the G7 (from 69 to 56 per cent).

... The share of respondents who said their provincial government had done a “good” or “very good” job fell overall from close to half in the first quarter of 2019 to 30 per cent at the end of 2023. Both B.C. and Quebec, two provinces that have seen public-sector job growth rise particularly quickly, registered some of the worst declines.

... the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reviewed four years of results reports to see how the government measured up against nearly 3,000 performance targets it had set for itself. The assessments weren’t promising. For fiscal 2021-22, roughly 25 per cent of targets were not met, up from 20 per cent in 2018-19. But that didn’t capture the full scale of the performance shortfall. One-tenth of performance targets included no information on results, while another one-third stated results would be achieved at some point in the future.

Yeah, that mixes provincial services with federal ones.

https://archive.is/m0qtc

What's the next wave of dystopia in popular culture?

I think the classic CRTs, mirrorshades, and black synthleather look of cyberpunk doesn't really work with our expectations in 2024.

In the 70s and 80s, we expected acid rain, ozone holes, and lawlessness to fill our future, as companies took over from (relatively) responsible governments and civility/civilization collapsed. The outfit fit with that: keep the burning rain and sun off, while protecting against looters and raiders. Meanwhile, writers didn't see how technology would shrink and get better.

In 2024 we expect our dystopia to be hot: the world is heating up, so black synthleather is out. Maybe mirrorshades stick around. Corporations aren't taking over any more, governments are becoming corrupt/evil (e.g. Hunger Games). And technology is tinsy tiny, verging on invisible.

I'm thinking of the Hunger Games and Upload. (And the first five episodes of Fallout)

It's good to see some kinda/sorta/almost direct spending on affordable housing being announced:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the creation of a $1.5-billion rental protection fund that will provide a combination of loans and grants to help non-profits buy affordable rental apartments when they go up for sale.

It's nowhere near enough, but it's better than the neoliberal tHe FrEe MaRkEt WiLl SaVe Us shoveling that both the Liberals and Conservatives have been pushing.

The article explains how the number of homes affordable to people making $30k annually is crashing across the country (but less so in Quebec).

https://archive.is/ocuud

Canada: three oligopolies in a trenchcoat.

Bank service charges and overdraft fees can infuriate consumers, and more choices could lower their temperature.

From the perspective of investors, though, Canada’s cozy network of oligopolies – in which a few players dominate one sector – can look very different. Slim competition can keep upstarts out and profits in, driving strong shareholder returns and attractive dividends over the long term.

“We have a handful of oligopolies that are able to fend off new entrants (whether regional or foreign) without needing to destroy profits for an extended period of time, or where we need a government financed solution,” Ian de Verteuil, head of portfolio strategy at CIBC Capital Markets, said in an e-mail.

https://archive.is/1BPVW

Whenever I hear politicians propose to cut the carbon price, I can’t help but think back to my childhood growing up with divorced parents.

On the rare occasions my dad took me for weekends, he would offer me candy and let me stay up late.

“Why can’t you be more like him?” I’d yell after returning home as my mom made me do my homework, eat vegetables and go to bed on time.

So it is with proponents of Axe the Tax. They offer us candy, when the federal government, like my mom, expects us to live responsibly.

...

But a politician’s promise that pollution can be free is no more realistic than my childish fantasy that I could live on candy alone.

We are all entangled in an energy system that helps and harms our children. While it enables us to taxi our kids around, and keep them warm, it also poisons the air they breathe, evaporates the water they need to drink and burns the forests in which they play.

...

To preserve summers without smoke, winters when our kids can ski, water they can drink and forests and wildlife with which they can live in awe.

That’s why we pay for our pollution.

This dude gets it. We need to do so much more, but walking back the carbon tax is a terrible idea.

https://archive.is/kpZQu

Toronto-based Canadian Health Labs, had inked contracts with health authorities in Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and charged rates that in many cases worked out to more than $300 an hour per nurse. That is roughly six times as much as nurses earn in the public health care system.

We've systemically underpaid nurses for decades. We've failed to train enough nurses. Their real pay has shrunk, while their workload has grown. It isn't surprising nurses have left the public system for less shitty jobs.

Canadaland Commons has a great interview with a nurse who has seen the decline.

It feels like Canadian governments have forgotten how to plan. As the op-ed states, we don't have the sewer/water/road/fire for the 5,800,000 houses we're building by 2030. And politicians aren't budgeting for it's construction.

In the bigger picture, we aren't training enough nurses and doctors to service our current population, let alone what our population is forecast to become. Similarly, we aren't funding post-secondary education beyond overcharging students from abroad.

But I digress. On the housing file:

The politicians who are promising action to build the 5.8 million new homes Canada needs by 2030 seem to be forgetting that, unlike that log cabin, the millions of homes that are needed can’t even begin to be built without connection to the world around them, to roads, bridges, clean water, electricity and waste management. They don’t seem to be factoring in that those houses will have people in them, millions of people, who need access to hospitals and schools, to civic and recreational facilities, to public transit, to emergency services. In other words, it is not possible to build so many new homes across Canada without considering essential housing-enabling infrastructure. Yet no one is even talking about that part of the equation, let alone announcing funding for it.

It is a significant oversight. A report by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities estimates that each new housing unit will require $107,000 in public infrastructure investment. This amounts to a total of $620-billion in new public funding needed to produce workable housing, which far outstrips currently projected investments of $245-billion.

https://archive.is/xEIez

A woman is in critical condition in hospital following a police-involved shooting in Ottawa's Westboro neighbourhood.

Niyondagara, who is Black, said he was shocked with a stun gun, pinned down, struck in the face and handcuffed before police realized their mistake.

...

After some discussion about the name [of an alleged murderer], the police officer left the cruiser and soon returned to explain "that there was a misunderstanding," Niyondagara said.

The cops then drove Niyondagara home.

Yellow Dot studios has been releasing YouTube videos trying to mobilize "populist anger" over the climate crisis.

I'm thinking of running a Cyberpunk RED campaign. My group has played D&D together for about five years now.

Any suggestions or advice on running the game? Are there any game play or mechanics tips that would help people coming from D&D?