Once a magnet attracting job-seekers from across Canada, Ontario’s economy continues to sputter even as premier Doug Ford proclaims himself the “jobs protector” in the province’s current election campaign.
Ontario’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage point in January, accord to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, hitting 7.6 per cent. Newfoundland and Labrador was the only province to have a higher unemployment rate and the only other province where the jobless rate rose in January.
The national unemployment rate fell 0.1 points to 6.6 percent, seasonally adjusted.
Except for one month in 2023, Ontario’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate has not been better than the national rate since April 2020, 58 months ago.
Construction jobs weak as housing targets missed
Employment in construction remains below levels of summer 2023 held back by a housing industry recession the took hold after unchecked speculative run-up created a market explosion in spring 2022.
To reach housing goals, Ontario has set a housing starts target at a pace of 12,500 unit starts per month, which has never met. December housing starts were only 44 per cent of target.
Despite poor construction sector jobs performance, several construction unions have endorsed Doug Ford for re-election, many of which have received significant amounts of public money.
Retail jobs down amid affordability crisis
About 40,000 jobs in retail sales have disappeared since the Christmas sales season of 2021 before an affordability crisis became to set up.
Housing asking rents and sales prices peaked in 2022, leaving less income available for retail purchasing.
Though retail sales are at new peaks in the rest of Canada, Ontario retail sales remain below levels of spring 2022.
Auto plant sell-off symbol of industry struggles
Jobs in manufacturing are also below a recent peak as the auto industry, which anchors many other manufacturing businesses, faces new impacts from the 2018 CUSMA renegotiation and the on-going threats from U.S. President Donald Trump.
A counter-strategy funded with up to $52.5 billion in federal and provincial money aimed has leveraged $46.1 billion in private investment to refound the sector around electric vehicle production. But the effectiveness of these investments in now in doubt due to cancellation of EV purchase incentives by the new U.S. Administration.
A stark symbol of the jobs challenge made headlines as Linmar, a Guelph, Ontario-based auto parts company, listed for sale a newly-constructed EV parts plant in Welland before it had built a single part.
Rosie DiManno, TorontoStar columnist decides to call out King Charles III
Rosie DiManno, a Toronto Star columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star has never been one to mince her words.
In a column published online this morning Rosie let it all out – both barells – asking where is the King when he could be useful?
A king outranks a potentate or a mountebank shilling from his Oval Office soapbox.
And we’ve got one of those — a king, I mean.
King Charles III
So where is King Charles III when Canada needs him? Not a peep out of His Majesty since U.S. President Donald Trump has been blathering and bloviating about this country becoming the 51st American state, repeated ad nauseam, any time he can wedge in a dig. Stony silence as well from the useless Governor General. For that matter, where are the 55 other nations in the Commonwealth that was so vitally important to the late Queen? They haven’t said boo in defence of their beleaguered fraternal member. Or … hello, Europe?
In a constitutional monarchy, the king can’t proclaim “off with his head,” nor ruffle any governance feathers. But savvy Queen Elizabeth II knew how to thread that needle, making her position known in times of crisis. For instance she used her influence among Commonwealth leaders to suspend Zimbabwe over its human rights abuses. (President Robert Mugabe, a dyed-in-the-wool Anglophile despite the legacy of colonialism in what was Rhodesia, went into such a fury — his knighthood also stripped — that he later withdrew Zimbabwe from the organization.)
A coronet-ed head does have subtle power. But Canada might as well be on the other side of the moon, rather than merely the other side of the Atlantic, for all the support for sovereign dominion that Charles has expressed these past few weeks. Links between Charles and Canada have been historically strong — he’s made 19 visits, though all as Prince of Wales, last in these parts in 2022. As the Queen spread out her children and grandchildren as nominal figureheads of the Crown across the Commonwealth, establishing particularly close ties, we got Prince Andrew, who attended school here.
Lucky us.
Trump, who has long been in awe of the Royal Family, was especially enthralled by the Queen. Awe for royals but now OW for Canada as the disrupter-in-chief has deep-sixed turned diplomacy, with a slew of whinges about America’s northern neighbour and greatest trading partner. He might not wear a bejewelled headpiece — oh how he wishes — but he’s certainly been wielding his Sharpie like a sword in a frenzy of executive orders.
Charles may not want to be seen as mucking into a partisan spat between Canada and the U.S. But, he’s never had difficulty getting his sentiments across via leaks to the media by assorted confidantes and acolytes. That’s how he effectively demonized Diana as the cuckoo Princess of Wales during the mutually hostile years that threatened the future of the monarchy. And if he doesn’t want to step into this political whirlwind, then send Prince William. Remind Trump that we are part of a much bigger historical empire, millennia old. The USA is, relatively, a pipsqueak and Pax Americana is already in decline. We even once burned down their damn White House. Well, the British did in 1814 during the War of 1812.
Of course, royals need to receive an invitation to step foot in Canada — not including Prince Harry, who went off the protocol grid when he and Meghan landed for a few months in a Vancouver Island mansion after the turncoat Sussexes bolted as “working royals,” before packing up for California. No such invite has been extended. Doubtless “Governor Trudeau,” as Trump disses the prime minister, has more urgent matters on his mind — contending with the unhinged president and staring into the abyss of his protracted resignation with a Liberal leadership race in full throttle. But seriously, in a time of existential upheaval, he really should draft in all the help he can get.
President Donald Trump signing yet another Executive Order
The Beltway Bully obviously delights in provoking Canada, tossing around insults whilst reinventing the presidential wheel. Everyone knows, though, that there’s only one way to deal with a bully and that’s to sock him back twice as hard. While at first, when the coveting-Canada postulation was viewed as just a lame joke, it was easy to let the jibe slide. “Never going to happen,’’ said Trudeau last month of the U.S. annexing Canada. Just Trump being Trump, laying the foundation for future negotiations, arm-twisting an ally like no other over tariffs disastrous for both countries, triggering a trade war and force-marching Ottawa into stiffening its borders against illegal migrants and fentanyl.
Except Trump wasn’t just blowing smoke. He did unilaterally rename the Gulf of Mexico, he did wrangle concessions out of Panama over the canal, he did turn his rapacious eye for territorial expansion toward Greenland. At least Denmark countered by threatening to impose a 500 per cent tariff on Ozempic and Wegovy, the weight loss drugs trademarked by a Danish pharmaceutical company. And Trump did — still does apparently — intend to plant the U.S. flag in Gaza, exiling some 2 million Palestinians.
So no, not laughing at Trump’s witless cheek anymore. Just last week, Trudeau told an economic summit in Toronto that he believes Trump’s fixation on Canada is “a real thing” and that the president hankers for this country’s abundance of critical minerals. Trudeau may have once taken Patrick Brazeau to the mat in a charity boxing match but his jabs at Trump have scarcely amounted to rabbit punches. It’s been embarrassing from many angles, even as Trump’s craven hunger for us has galvanized a nation so often at regional knives drawn.
It was actually former Prime Minister Stephen Harper who came out swinging. At the recent launch of his new book, Harper told a private audience: If I was still prime minister, I would be prepared to impoverish the country and not be annexed, if that was the option we’re facing. Now, because I do think if Trump were determined, he could really do wide structural and economic damage, but I wouldn’t accept that. I would accept any level of damage to preserve the independence of the country.’’
Put some more lead in your pencil, Justin, and go out with a bang-bang.
And Your Highness? The real one, not the pretender Prince Trudeau — get your royal purple arse over here.
Ron Dennis, an ink stained wretch, who has edited a lot of copy in his years as a respected journalist.
He now lives in Ottawa, originally home town for him; posted his response to remarks Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre made during a speech in Ottawa.
Dennis was moved to publish the following on his Facebook page.
Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency and trade war with Canada are triggering a policy shift not seen in decades – one that will spill over into the public service, which many fear isn’t equipped to handle it without major reform.
Trump’s trade shocks have dampened Quebec sovereignty, ignited a wave of national unity and now business and political leaders are racing to recalibrate Canada’s relationship with an increasingly combative and isolationist Trump administration.
Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien PC OM CC KC AdE, is a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 20th prime minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003.
This push for a more autonomous and resilient Canada could reshape the way government is organized and managed on a scale not seen since the Chrétien government’s 1995 Program Review, driven by a fiscal crisis so severe the Wall Street Journal called Canada the “banana republic of the north.”
The government cut more than 50,000 jobs in that overhaul. Back then, Canada was embracing free trade, globalization, and deepening U.S. ties. Now, as Trump upends that order, Canada is being forced to adapt once again.
At the same time, Trump’s ruthlessreduction of the U.S. bureaucracy has Canadian public servants on edge, but experts say his scorched-earth tactics won’t play out in Canada.
“(Trump’s) going to undo a lot of things the public sector has been doing for years, and I don’t think Canada can ignore it,” says Donald Savoie, a leading public administration academic, who has long called for public-service reform. “I don’t think there’s an appetite to go as far as Trump, but we’ll have to move in that direction.”
American politics have always influenced Canada, says Alasdair Roberts, a professor at the University of the University of Massachusetts Amherst’s School of Public Policy. What Trump and Elon Musk are doing will create an “echo effect,” especially if the Conservatives take power, but with a more “modulated approach.”
More in depth detail on the federal civil service can be found at https://www.canada.ca/en/treasury-board-secretariat/services/innovation/human-resources-statistics/demographic-snapshot-federal-public-service-2018.html
The crisis has become a catalyst to tackle Canada’s productivity, infrastructure, and pipeline problems. But aside from a handful of academics, no one is asking whether the “creaky, bloated public service”— built for another era — has the capacity to handle the shift, says former clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick.
“You can’t be resilient, agile, and effective in the 2020s with a public service built for the 2000s,” says Wernick, the Jarislowsky chair of public administration at the University of Ottawa.
So far, the only focus is on cutting the size of the public service. No one is talking about reforming it.
Beware the early trophies
Wernick doesn’t expect Canada will experience “Musk mayhem” or Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s chainsaw approach to cutting red tape and bureaucracy.
But the next prime minister will “be looking for early trophies.” That will likely mean across-the-board spending cuts and attrition, two of the most common tools governments use to cut spending. It’s the “most foolish and short-sighted way,” he says.
Wernick is in the growing camp calling for a strategic review, as in 1995, so the government can take stock of what government should be doing, what actually works, and stop what doesn’t. It takes political courage to make choices, he says.
That review would help government decide whether it needs to reorganize, merge, close or create departments better suited to today’s world.
The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) was formed in 1972. It is one of the most trusted and influential think tanks in Canada. They seek to improve public policy in Canada by generating research, providing insight and influencing debate on current and emerging policy issues facing Canadians and their governments.
Perry Bowker loves that Canada is a Constitutional Monarchy and he wants the country to give King Charles III, the respect he deserves.
In a note he sent the federal government, he asked:
Overweight dork.
Scrambled eggs all over his chest
Dear Canada Ministry of Culture/Canadian Identity/Monarchy and the Crown:
Could we please have a proper official portrait of the King?
The current “official” portrait makes him look like an overweight dork! This official one in the UK is not bad. But all the scrambled eggs regalia is so 19th Century. We are a modern, diverse country!
King Charles III – a relatable human being.
King Charles III – Head of the Commonwealth
I prefer one that makes him look like a relatable human being, Head of the Commonwealth.
Please save our country from further embarrassment and change the official portrait.
Perry Bowker is an active member of the Lions service group; he lives in Burlington.
The last chapter of the most recent journey Burlington’s Natalie Pierre has taken has started.
Natalie Pierre speaking in the Legislature
Doug Ford got Lt.-Gov. Edith Dumont to issue a writ of election. The Legislature came to a close at 4:00 pm Tuesday afternoon and the election began.
Should Natalie Pierre be re-elected she will begin a second term as an MPP – a job she didn’t want and didn’t do all that well at during the several years she has represented the city at Queen’s Park.
Why is Doug Ford forcing Ontario into an unnecessary early election? We can understand that he fears the release of the RCMP investigation into misconduct over the Greenbelt fiasco. Withdrawing publicly protected lands from the Greenbelt in order for developer friends to enrich themselves has got to be some kind of corruption by anyone’s definition.
Can you read the body language?
Ford is in the best position to know whether he actually committed a crime. But calling this unnecessary election is a pretty good sign that he is worried. One could imagine that campaigning for re-election next year would be harder in the unlikely event that some judge actually put him behind bars.
Instead of panicking about Trump’s promised 25% tariff wall which he is building on his northern and southern borders, we should embrace it. We should congratulate Mr. Trump on what he is doing rather than threaten him. We should join him in implementing similar measures here.
Trump wants to reduce income taxes in his country but still needs the revenue. So his idea is to take America back to the day before income taxation constituted the bulk of government revenue. And import tariffs are the instrument he has chosen. Trump may well be signalling history. After all the British refusal to allow the 13 colonies to impose tariffs to protect their emerging local industries was one of the causes of the Revolutionary War.
President Trump said he would levy 25% tariffs on Day 1 of his presidency. Moved that date back to February 1st.
Progressive income taxes are the most equitable of revenue-raising options for an economy. But the wealthy have always resented paying more than what they consider their fair share. So, many Western nations during the right-wing revitalization of the 1980’s, including the UK, New Zealand, and Canada, were able to lower or restrain income taxation by introducing a general sales tax, the value added (VAT), or in Canada, the GST. But Americans have always rejected a national sales tax, and instead have relied on debt financing as an alternative to deal with budgetary shortfalls.
We are told that the Mayor’s Office is telling people that the BRAG numbers are wrong.
This information came to us from a reliable source, but it was secondhand. Tracking what comes out of the Office of the Mayor is difficult when there is next to nothing in terms of their communicating with the Gazette.
A taxpayer did his version of what the taxes were over a number of years as well as calculating the cumulative tax rate.
Here is what a resident sent us.
The numbers displayed in this article are basically the same as those BRAG produced.
Taxes are a fact of life. They tend to go up – they can be reduced but in reality, not that much.
The challenge for Burlington has two parts: A city hall that will be honest and direct with the taxpayers; and taxpayers that accept what the city is up against.
Burlington has been told that it must grow its population. More people means more in the way of services and those services cost money. Both sides need to grow up and accept the realities.
The hard part is dealing with a pay rate within city hall that is much higher than that paid in the private sector. That is where the problem is and coming to terms with that is close to an impossible task. Civil servants at the municipal level are paid much more than that paid in the private sector. Add to that benefits that are just plain very good.
It would take decades to bring about a change and it would probably have to be done at the provincial level.
The upside? Encourage your children to find work at the municipal level.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column reflecting the observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 12th year as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
No one is talking about “Garbage into oil” technology. Not even the Canadian Liberal Party, who added major funding to the world’s largest facility now under construction just outside of Montreal – built by Enerkem (https://enerkem.com/).
From 360 000 tonnes of waste To 285 000 000 liters of clean fuels
Mapping out the year we are now into. What can the citizens of the City expect during 2025?
Chaos? Prosperity?
2025 is the year before the current Council has to seek re-election. The 2026 budget will be a lot different than what we saw in 2025. Both staff and Council are fully aware of BRAG and the impact they had on the 2025.
Eric Stern, spokes person for BRAG with a copy of the Proposed 2025 budget.
What were those impacts? There will be a budget book much earlier in the year and the words “budget impact” may be forgotten.
The Bateman Community Centre is expected to open in 2025 – nothing is ever certain with this site – when it does open expect a significant change in how the City and Brock University make use of the site.
“In 2022, Indigenous individuals made up 17% of firearm-related homicide victims in Canada, with higher rates for rifles and shotguns (40%) compared to handguns (7.6%). This percentage is over three times their representation in the general population (5%).
Additionally, women represent close to 9 in 10 victims of firearm-related violent crimes committed by an intimate partner. At the same time, men aged 18 to 24 are most likely to be victims of firearm-related violent crimes.
Measures to reduce access to firearms are expected to have a higher impact in rural areas, and western provinces, which experience firearm-related crimes at a higher rate compared to the rest of Canada.” (The Canada Gazette)
The federal government has finally introduced regulations prohibiting assault weapons – essentially automatic and semi-automatic firearms. These weapons are designed for war – only for killing people en mass. They have no other purpose. And no respectable hunter would lower themselves to using an automatic weapon to bring down their prey. Among other things these weapons were not designed for accuracy, but rather to kill the enemy with a barrage of bullet projectiles.
In 2020 the manufacture and importation of over 1500 assault rifles was banned but that didn’t apply to those weapons already in circulation in Canada. So that is now the subject of the new regulations prohibiting the use or transport of over 2000 models and variants.
Guns that have been deactivated.
Current owners have been given an amnesty period, until October 2025, to come into compliance. Owners, including gun shop operators may send these weapons back or export them out of the country. They could surrender them to the government for fair compensation, or have them deactivated at a government-approved gun shop at government expense.
During the amnesty these weapons are not to be fired, the lone exception being indigenous and others who can demonstrate that they hunt for sustenance. They may still continue to use the weapons for that purpose until October 2025. The federal government has been in consultation with Ukrainian officials about forwarding surrendered weapons, to assist them in the defence of their country against the Russian invasion.
The government is treading very carefully in this initiative after a false start on gun control last year and, of course, the long gun registry which became a politicized hot potato for the Chretien Liberals. Although police forces everywhere applauded that registry, it’s tough minded implementation, including a hefty registration fee and potential prison sentences for those out of compliance, turned the registry into just another east-west political football.
Typical rife found in thousands of barns across the country.
Police noted that the registry was extremely helpful when approaching a domestic dispute since long guns were a primary vehicle for domestic homicide. The Quebec government tried to retain the data collected in that province, even after Mr. Harper had shut down the registry. But Harper won the right in court to destroy all the information that had been collected.
We can expect the western red-necks to once again yell and scream that this is just another ideological move by a ‘woke’ government. They will complain that such a regulation violates their freedom and human rights. Indigenous hunters will complain that they will need to trade up/down for single shot magazine rifles. And gun shop owners will once again bellyache that they’ve been caught off guard by another draconian action of an anti-hunting government.
Mr. Poilievre has unsurprisingly jumped into the fray promising to reverse this as well as everything else the Liberals have done. The NDP, with much of their support in the western provinces, are between a rock and hard place. They know this is the right step for public safety in a civilized modern nation, but their western base is dead opposed to any more gun control.
Mikhail Kalashnikov and the gun he invented.
Perhaps it all comes down to what kind of society we want and what we expect of government. Should we allow military grade weapons in the public domain? Are we prepared to tolerate the kinds of consequences we see in the US where assault firearms are everywhere and mass shootings the order of the day? Or is public safety more important than someone’s trophy M16 or AK47. Also known as the Kalashnikov, the 47 today ranks as the deadliest, most prevalent and most game-changing individually wielded weapon in the history of military armament.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
The annual Climate Change Congress of the Parties (COP 29) held this year in Azerbaijan has concluded in uncertainty, discontent and pessimism. Pessimism is what every single one of those delegates should be feeling about the future of the planet we are leaving for our offspring. The global community has completely failed to halt the advance of global climate warming and with it the ravages of climate change.
Climate Change Congress of the Parties (COP 29)
It’s the fossil fuels and, like an addict on heroin, we are unable to put down the syringe. And the rush from this drug, fossil fuels, will continue for almost a millennium. The worlds largest producer of oil, the USA, emits just over 10% of global annual GHG emissions but accounts historically for the majority of all that stuff still up there. That unfortunate record is due to be broken one day soon by the world’s second largest economy and its most significant polluter.
China is still using coal
China, currently at 30% of global GHG annual emissions, is still building coal burning plants. In fact it had initiated 95% of all global coal plant construction in 2023. Ironically, it is also the leader in renewable technologies and electric vehicles. The country is claiming it’ll be carbon neutral by 2060. But only a blind optimist would buy that given its GHG emissions increased almost 5% last year, 15% faster than the rest of the world.
There is discontent among the smaller nations, including those island states which will eventually disappear into the ever rising oceans. Many of these less developed countries (LDC) are relatively small contributors to global emissions, certainly compared to China the US and Europe. But they are at the table, though it seems more like a trough. If money is for the taking, they want in – the only reason they used all those carbon credits getting there.
The COP process used to be about reducing emission reductions with a little cash on the side to help those LDCs in need. But it has morphed into an income redistribution exercise and a money grab. $100 billion was promised in 2009 and this year the ante was upped to $300 billion. Still the ask was for two or three trillion big ones. Delegates from less developed nations are calling it a paltry sum, but nobody is leaving money on the table. And how does India, with the fifth largest global economy and fourth largest military have the nerve to claim access to that COP money?
COP has lost its way. The 1990’s Kyoto protocol was the best chance to get global cooperation and action on reductions.
COP has lost its way. The 1990’s Kyoto protocol was the best chance to get global cooperation and action on reductions. But then GW Bush, the oil president, pulled the rug out and it was drill baby drill. Obama helped create the voluntary Paris Agreement in a faint hope to limit the earth’s temperature increase to below 1.5 degrees. But then the 2016 Donald took his baseball and went home. Though he is coming back and now threatening to take the ball diamond as well.
In any case it is probably too late for incremental emissions reductions, emission targets and all that bureaucratic stuff. Many have already decided we’re at the 10th stage of grief – acceptance. The oil companies may have lost the battle to discredit climate scientists since their predictions are ringing in close to home. But big oil appears to have won the war anyway. That 1.5 degree tipping point is now within sight – possibly as early as next year. And so the Paris Agreement will also have failed.
The demographic that is going to have to live with the results of COP29
So the discussion at these annual mega-groupies has turned to something else – welfare for those less developed nations in their struggle to adapt. COP is not really about emissions reductions for LDCs since if they can afford fossil energy they can easily afford the less costly renewable energy option. And these less developed nations typically are not the heavy polluters anyway. Even Canada, which has the tenth largest global economy and is the fourth largest oil producer, still only contributes less than 2% to the problem.
Russia has decided to ignore the world and fall back to it’s nasty environmentally dirty old imperial ways. The holy land has become one big carbon emitting battlefield. And China, already the world’s dirtiest polluter will continue to pollute, as we in North America continue to buy their manufactured goods, thus making ourselves complicit. The USA will once again face a neoconservative ideological agenda promising “drill baby drill” and an end to new renewables. Canada is almost certainly to follow if the opinion polls are right – Ontario already has.
Humble beggar
40% of India’s installed electrical power capacity came from non-fossil fuel sources in 2021. It already has among the lowest emissions per capita in the world. And perhaps that alone, reducing its carbon footprint when wealthier nations are floundering, is a good enough reason to reward India by letting it dine at the beggar’s banquet. And, no humble beggar, the Indian delegation was one of the loudest voices demanding more money at this COP.
It was symbolic that the last two annual COP meetings were hosted by nations heavily dependant on oil revenues for their GDP. This year the host was the autocratic and highly repressive former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan which obtains 90% of its foreign income from the black gold. That country’s president kicked off the COP by setting the tone. He lectured that oil was a gift from God.
The head of France’s delegation went home after the Azerbaijani president insulted France and Holland over their colonial policies. The Argentine president brought his entire delegation home after only three days, probably as a symbol to please his new pal the American president-elect. It was chaos and there were also reports of others leaving in droves like rats abandoning a sinking ship. And no one should wonder why.
Ray Rivers has worked on the climate change challenge since 1992. In addition to private consulting and heading the international emissions trading company Clean Air Canada, Rivers also assisted the federal and provincial governments in developing emissions trading and reduction programs. He attended COP 4 in Buenos Aires and COP 9 in Milan.
Lynn Crosby delegated at City Council yesterday. What she said is at the bottom of this article.
Lynn Crosby
How Council responded is set out below. Rarely does Council engage with a citizen. Crosby is more than a butterfly that flits about. She was heavily involved in the Meed Ward 2018 election campaign and at one point was being considered as part of the Mayor’s staff.
The discussion after the delegation went as follows:
Councillor Nisan:
With respect, this is all about engagement. You mentioned that that there wasn’t enough time for council members or the public to review. The strong mayor power says we only have 30 days between presentation of the budget and passing a resolution to amend that budget. It was the budget report put up October 25 and we have special council meeting to provide any Council amendments on November 25. Do you have any recommendations for how we would work within the strictures of the strong mayor legislation that only gives us 30 days?
Crosby: I think that you should release a draft budget that is very similar to the proposed one far sooner, because as far as I know, the legislation doesn’t say anything about draft budgets. The information we received prior was way too limited. There was as missing data and numbers. It was just very vague. We don’t even have till the 25th of November, because nobody thinks it’s going to change drastically the last week of November or the day of that meeting; more has to be released that’s very similar to the proposed budget much earlier.
Nisan: My second question it, does the strong mayor powers do mention that if the head of council does not propose the budget by February 1, Council must prepare and adopt the budget. Do you have a position about that?
We’re not allowed to do Q and A,
Crosby: I might be wrong the way I’m interpreting that. But does that not mean that, if a mayor does not, if February 1 comes and goes, and the mayor has not presented a budget, a proposed budget, then Council does that. Is that what that says? And they also have to do it on February 1.
We’re not allowed to do Q and A, but functionally, that appears to be the case. Some, mayors have taken that route. I thought it was sort of if the mayor doesn’t do it, then Council has to do it.
Chair Sharman cuts in – “ This is not a debate, please.
Councilor Stolte: My question is a little bit more generalized. I hugely appreciate that you’ve come to talk about engagement, because you are 100% right. There are a lot of ways that we could continue to improve. Do you have some good suggestions about perhaps we should be making sure we have all the information that is common sense. Good, solid, common sense. My question to you, as I said, is kind of generalized, and that’s when it comes to public engagement.
Would you agree that there needs to be a balance in our public engagement, especially when it comes to something like the budget? The budget is detailed. The budget is specific. The budget is very hardcore numbers, literally, and you, particularly yourself as Lynn Crosby represent.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say one of maybe 200 people in the city of Burlington that dives into it to the detail of what you do, and therefore your comments are valid and respected because you take the time to educate yourself, but 200 people in the city of Burlington, of almost 200,000 that represents 0.001% of the population who takes the time and effort to educate themselves to then be able to engage effectively. Would you agree that there’s a responsibility on both sides of the ledger, as far as the city providing opportunities for engagement, but the public also taking the time and energy to educate themselves. So the engagement they’re giving is really effective,
Crosby: Sure, but the problem is – how are they supposed to do that with a 615, page document, you hardly have any time. This is the problem. And so the people that are looking at this, they have all kinds of questions clarifications they’d like to make. It’s unreasonable to think that a massive amount of people in Burlington could do that. I think you need to give them what they need. And I think people have different ways of engaging. Nobody has to come here and stand here. People who are working can’t be here. And no people should not have to take a day off work to come here. People have other ways of engaging, and one of those valid ways is sending emails to council members. You heard Jim’s experience on how that went. You know, we often send, send in emails and you don’t get anything back, or you get a response back, which you don’t really believe quite answered you, and then it says the file is now closed. Well, it’s not closed for me.
I feel like you need to come to where people can engage and even if that’s if they’re replying on City’s Facebook page or this, councilors ones, look at that like that’s still engagement too.
Councillor Kearns: I want to understand a little bit more around what your group or yourself took back from what were considered sort of the height of the engagement opportunities, which would have been the mayor’s individual Ward presentations.
How the information that you saw there and the feedback received be reflected, in your opinion, in the budget that we have before us today?
As far as I could see, none of them chimed in and said that they knew the answer.
Crosby: I attended several of the meetings in person and almost all the rest virtually. I did not see any sort of agreement with people who were asking for reductions. I felt like it was too soon – having the meeting before the budget was released. The mayor can’t help it if she doesn’t have the information. Then, why are we doing this right now?
There, were a number of staff in the room – none of them ever spoke. As far as I could see, none of them chimed in and said that they knew the answer. I felt like a lot of the theme of the meeting was people politely giving suggestions on how the you know, cuts could happen, and how they wanted things to be reduced. Even small things – this idea that if it’s not a giant thing like transit it won’t make a significant enough dent in the tax rate. So we won’t go there.
The whole theme was, that you need to spend responsibly, and in times of difficulty like now and when the rate is over 8%
Do a whole bunch of little things – they add up. That’s what we did not see.
On the 25th no one really got the point, which was cut all the things that aren’t absolutely necessary – rein in your spending. We did not get that. Those of us who were at the meetings felt was that it was rather a waste of time.
Kearns: My second question is on the release of a draft budget. I had nothing to present at my own September 18 Ward two community update.
We then had two days of committee. Around the end of October, we did have the the line by line 615 page proposed budget. I was able to pull together a community meeting for the Wednesday, well attended, very rich dialog. I like sort of the theme being brought forward around releasing a proper draft budget with all the lines. I felt like community members wanted to be involved, but the timeline put pressure on sort of disengagement case. Might that be the case?
Crosby: Yes, absolutely. I think that’s important, and I think it’s rather unfortunate that you didn’t get the information you needed when you needed it.
Councillor Sharman: I have a couple of questions. Lynn, the first thing about the 600 page document, there was a summary that was, I believe, quite thorough and full of a lot of information for most people who don’t understand the accounting logic. Do you feel that that was inadequate the first 30 page the summary document in the binder?
Crosby: I think in general, it’s best to look at the actual meat and not just the summary. So, and I think oftentimes the summaries just are too vague.
Sharman: My second question is about the when you refer to as the tax increase of the city at 8.5 and I have to use an analogy to clarify my question. If you go into a grocery store and you buy a piece of steak and vegetables and butter and salt and sugar, each item has a lit has its own price, and at the bottom, there is a price for the total bill, which is what you’re paying, not necessarily an individual item by itself.
Isn’t it true that the tax increase is actually the sum of the bill of all the items, not each individual one, where the blend of the price is actually the bottom one, not the individual one, and therefore, clarity purposes, the tax increase is actually the bottom line, not the top line. Could you comment on that?
Crosby: You’ve completely lost me there.
Crosby: You’ve completely lost me there. I’m not a numbers person, though, so But to me, that’s complicated, and my point stands. I think that Burlington Council is responsible for the Burlington costs. You’re spending our money as you see fit. At the end of the day, you are spending 8.3% more. You’re asking people to give feedback on the budget by telling them that it’s going to go up 4.9 it is certainly reasonable to think that people’s answers on what they should how what you should be doing or not doing, would be different if they thought it was 4% something or eight.
Sharman: Did you not see in the summary document that we declared the 8.5
Crosby: Yes and No – it wasn’t clear, because at the at the meetings before that, the mayor did, I saw different slides at each meeting, sometimes the 8.3 was there. It was not there very prominently. Yes, it is in the summary, and it is in the other budget document to if you find it. But that does not change the fact that the media releases, the social media, posts, the interviews, – everything – we’re hearing, 4.97 4.97 and that is wrong, in my opinion.
The Crosby delegation:
November 18, 2024 – Budget Committee Meeting
During the budget process
Councillor Nisan:
With respect, this is all about engagement. You mentioned that that there wasn’t enough time for council members or the public to review. The strong mayor power says we only have 30 days between presentation of the budget and passing a resolution to amend that budget. It was the budget report put up October 25 and we have special council meeting to provide any Council amendments on November 25. Do you have any recommendations for how we would work within the strictures of the strong mayor legislation that only gives us 30 days?
Crosby: I think that you should release a draft budget that is very similar to the proposed one far sooner, because as far as I know, the legislation doesn’t say anything about draft budgets. The information we received prior was way too limited. There was as missing data and numbers. It was just very vague. We don’t even have till the 25th of November, because nobody thinks it’s going to change drastically the last week of November or the day of that meeting; more has to be released that’s very similar to the proposed budget much earlier.
Nisan: My second question it, does the strong mayor powers do mention that if the head of council does not propose the budget by February 1, Council must prepare and adopt the budget. Do you have a position about that?
Crosby: I might be wrong the way I’m interpreting that. But does that not mean that, if a mayor does not, if February 1 comes and goes, and the mayor has not presented a budget, a proposed budget, then Council does that. Is that what that says? And they also have to do it on February 1.
We’re not allowed to do Q and A, but functionally, that appears to be the case. Some, mayors have taken that route. I thought it was sort of if the mayor doesn’t do it, then Council has to do it.
Chair Sharman cuts in – “ This is not a debate, please.
Councilor Stolte: My question is a little bit more generalized. I hugely appreciate that you’ve come to talk about engagement, because you are 100% right. There are a lot of ways that we could continue to improve. Do you have some good suggestions about perhaps we should be making sure we have all the information that is common sense. Good, solid, common sense. My question to you, as I said, is kind of generalized, and that’s when it comes to public engagement.
Would you agree that there needs to be a balance in our public engagement, especially when it comes to something like the budget? The budget is detailed. The budget is specific. The budget is very hardcore numbers, literally, and you, particularly yourself as Lynn Crosby represent.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say one of maybe 200 people in the city of Burlington that dives into it to the detail of what you do, and therefore your comments are valid and respected because you take the time to educate yourself, but 200 people in the city of Burlington, of almost 200,000 that represents 0.001% of the population who takes the time and effort to educate themselves to then be able to engage effectively. Would you agree that there’s a responsibility on both sides of the ledger, as far as the city providing opportunities for engagement, but the public also taking the time and energy to educate themselves. So the engagement they’re giving is really effective,
Crosby: Sure, but the problem is – how are they supposed to do that with a 615, page document, you hardly have any time. This is the problem.
And so the people that are looking at this, they have all kinds of questions clarifications they’d like to make. It’s unreasonable to think that a massive amount of people in Burlington could do that. I think you need to give them what they need. And I think people have different ways of engaging. Nobody has to come here and stand here. People who are working can’t be here. And no people should not have to take a day off work to come here. People have other ways of engaging, and one of those valid ways is sending emails to council members. You heard Jim’s experience on how that went. You know, we often send, send in emails and you don’t get anything back, or you get a response back, which you don’t really believe quite answered you, and then it says the file is now closed. Well, it’s not closed for me. I feel like you need to come to where people can engage and even if that’s if they’re replying on City’s Facebook page or this, councilors ones, look at that like that’s still engagement too. It is absolutely thank you.
Councillor Kearns: I want to understand a little bit more around what your group or yourself took back from what were considered sort of the height of the engagement opportunities, which would have been the mayor’s individual Ward presentations.
How the information that you saw there and the feedback received be reflected, in your opinion, in the budget that we have before us today?
Crosby: I attended several of the meetings in person and almost all the rest virtually. I did not see any sort of agreement with people who were asking for reductions. I felt like it was too soon – having the meeting before the budget was released. The mayor can’t help it if she doesn’t have the information. Then, why are we doing this right now?
There, were a number of staff in the room – none of them ever spoke. As far as I could see, none of them chimed in and said that they knew the answer. I felt like a lot of the theme of the meeting was people politely giving suggestions on how the you know, cuts could happen, and how they wanted things to be reduced. Even small things – this idea that if it’s not a giant thing like transit it won’t make a significant enough dent in the tax rate. So we won’t go there.
The whole theme was, you need to spend responsibly, and in times of difficulty like now and when the rate is over 8%
Do a whole bunch of little things – they add up. That’s what we did not see.
On the 25th no one really got the point, which was cut all the things that aren’t absolutely necessary – rein in your spending. We did not get that. Those of us who were at the meetings felt was that it was rather a waste of time.
Kearns: My second question is on the release of a draft budget. I had nothing to present at my own September 18 Ward two community update.
We then had two days of committee. Around the end of October, we did have the the line by line 615 page proposed budget. I was able to pull together a community meeting for the Wednesday, well attended, very rich dialog. I like sort of the theme being brought forward around releasing a proper draft budget with all the lines. I felt like community members wanted to be involved, but the timeline put pressure on sort of disengagement case. Might that be the case?
Crosby: Yes, absolutely. I think that’s important, and I think it’s rather unfortunate that you didn’t get the information you needed when you needed it.
Councillor Sharman: I have a couple of questions. Lynn, the first thing about the 600 page document, there was a summary that was, I believe, quite thorough and full of a lot of information for most people who don’t understand the accounting logic. Do you feel that that was inadequate the first 30 page the summary document in the binder?
Crosby: I think in general, it’s best to look at the actual meat and not just the summary. So, and I think oftentimes the summaries just are too vague.
Sharman: My second question is about the when you refer to as the tax increase of the city at 8.5 and I have to use an analogy to clarify my question. If you go into a grocery store and you buy a piece of steak and vegetables and butter and salt and sugar, each item has a lit has its own price, and at the bottom, there is a price for the total bill, which is what you’re paying, not necessarily an individual item by itself.
Isn’t it true that the tax increase is actually the sum of the bill of all the items, not each individual one, where the blend of the price is actually the bottom one, not the individual one, and therefore, clarity purposes, the tax increase is actually the bottom line, not the top line. Could you comment on that?
Crosby: You’ve completely lost me there. I’m not a numbers person, though, so But to me, that’s complicated, and my point stands. I think that Burlington Council is responsible for the Burlington costs. You’re spending our money as you see fit. At the end of the day, you are spending 8.3% more. You’re asking people to give feedback on the budget by telling them that it’s going to go up 4.9 it is certainly reasonable to think that people’s answers on what they should how what you should be doing or not doing, would be different if they thought it was 4% something or eight.
Sharman: Did you not see in the summary document that we declared the 8.5
Crosby: Yes and No – it wasn’t clear, because at the at the meetings before that, the mayor did, I saw different slides at each meeting, sometimes the 8.3 was there. It was not there very prominently. Yes, it is in the summary, and it is in the other budget document to if you find it. But that does not change the fact that the media releases, the social media, posts, the interviews, – everything – we’re hearing, 4.97 4.97 and that wrong, in my opinion.
and elsewhere, we keep hearing the word “engagement” from staff, the mayor and city councillors. They say they want to engage with residents and seem to believe that their engagement is real and effective. In the opinion of many of those residents, however, it is not.
What exactly IS engagement? Looking at definitions and the purpose of engagement put forth by numerous experts, one finds common criteria. This from Citizen Lab puts it well: “The idea behind community engagement is that community members should have some power over the decisions that affect their lives. Community engagement requires an active, intentional dialogue between residents and public decision-makers. Its nature is formal: cities provide citizens with the necessary tools to get involved in decision-making. Its main challenges are identifying what is important for citizens, convincing them to engage, and offering them all the necessary information to make well-founded decisions.”
Today’s meeting focuses on the budget, so I will speak to the engagement surrounding that. It is indicative of the problems which I believe continue to repeat themselves in Burlington with respect to all engagement with citizens.
The City released their proposed 2025 budget on Friday, October 25. Residents pay the property taxes and have a right to clear explanations of where that money goes. Getting a 615-page document a few short weeks before the budget is voted on does not allow for true engagement. This is an issue both for residents and council members. The councillors got the budget when we did, how can they effectively represent us with such a short time to review it and get our feedback? This does not “provide us with the necessary tools to get involved in decision-making” when it is almost impossible to do so in such a short time-frame.
Speaking of not having the necessary tools: how can any reliable feedback be given in any manner including the much-touted (and, in the opinion of many, deeply skewed) city surveys, when we are not given the accurate numbers of what the proposed spending increase and tax increases even are? We also are missing the Flood Report and the post-2024 Transit Master Plan, which won’t be issued until after the budget is passed.
Fact: City spending will increase by 8.3%; Burlington property taxes will increase by 7.5%. And yet, the number we hear over and over again from the city and the mayor is 4.97%. The city has calculated this number by blending in the education and regional taxes. I suspect that if blending in other entities’ tax rates caused the Burlington rate to be higher, no such blending would occur. Asking residents if they agree with a 4.97% increase and to base their comments on that when the true increase is 8.3% completely skews any feedback.
If I went to the grocery store and filled my cart, adding up the costs of my purchases as I went, and then discovered at check-out that in fact the total is much higher because the price tags were labelled too low, I would realize that I would have made different choices along the way had I known. I would then be removing several things from my cart.
Additionally, since the Halton Region Police Service is looking for a 13.8% budget increase, which will “impact” the Halton Region increase by about 2%, this makes the continued presentation of the 4.97% number to council and the public, including at the November 4 Committee of the Whole meeting, even more misrepresentative. Your blended number, which you repeatedly reference as the “impact,” will be inaccurate and too low if this is approved at Halton Region.
It would be more prudent and transparent to time the Burlington budget process to occur after the Halton Region tax rate has been set and after all reports and data necessary for budget planning have been released. Under the Strong Mayor Powers legislation, the proposed budget doesn’t have to be released until February 1.
What else skews the feedback? Being asked to provide most of it before we even had access to the proposed budget, and therefore, zero idea how much any of our responses would actually cost in real terms, both in dollars and in changes to other services or items.
To ask citizens to give feedback at the Food for Feedback Event without us having any context of what the implications would be if we “voted” with stickers for increases or decreases on various broadly-worded items is quite simply a flawed and cynical approach. To do so with no numbers attached is pointless. I’m shocked that anyone thinks putting stickers on a poster in this manner counts as anything. You have no idea who even attended: surely not everyone who dropped by for “free” food even lives in Burlington. Some sticker-happy souls were children. You have no idea how many people stuck all their stickers on one box. And regardless, they certainly didn’t have “all the necessary information to make well-founded decisions.” And yet we are to believe that the mayor and staff used this at least partly as a basis for preparing the proposed budget.
Lastly, we had the mayor’s budget meetings held in each ward, again, before the proposed budget was released. Therefore, the necessary tools — the needed data and the context — were missing. And time and again when residents did try to engage – to give suggestions and opinions on asking for cuts and reductions, this feedback was met with excuses about why these would not be heeded. Stephen White and Jim Barnett spoke at the November 4 Committee of the Whole meeting about the lack of true engagement at those sessions.
I urge council and staff to look at Sherry Arnstein’s “Ladder of Citizen Participation”. Arnstein wrote in 1969 in the U.S. about citizen involvement and described this ladder. It has been described since as: “a guide to seeing who has power when important decisions are being made. It has survived for so long because people continue to confront processes that refuse to consider anything beyond the bottom rungs.”
The bottom two rungs of the ladder are labeled as examples of “Non-Participation;” the middle three as “Tokenism” and the top two as “Citizen Control.” I would like to quote from descriptions made by David Wilcox in describing the rungs for a UK publication (www.partnerships.org.uk/part/arn.htm:). These are the rungs of the ladder that I believe we are stuck on in Burlington:
Bottom two rungs:
1 Manipulation and 2 Therapy. The aim is to cure or educate the participants. The proposed plan is best and the job of participation is to achieve public support through public relations.
The middle three “Tokenism” rungs:
3Informing. Too frequently the emphasis is on a one way flow of information.
4 Consultation. A legitimate step … but Arnstein still feels this is just a window dressing ritual.
5Placation. For example, co-option of hand-picked ‘worthies’ onto committees. It allows citizens to advise or plan ad infinitum but retains for powerholders the right to judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the advice.
I’d like to end by repeating the idea of engagement which I cited at the beginning: “that community members should have some power over the decisions that affect their lives.”
I speak for friends and neighbours, for members of the Burlington Residents’ Action Group as well as numerous other residents who have delegated or commented on various forums when I say that we do not feel that we have any power over the decisions being made with respect to the budget on how OUR money is being spent. This is NOT a community budget. True engagement must go beyond the sheer number of events termed to be “engagement”; the type and worthiness of the engagement is what matters. Let’s try to get to the top of the ladder on engagement, not stay on the Manipulation and Tokenism rungs.
So many Ontario economic indicators are pointing down, and the failure to build housing could be the key to understanding why
Month after month the Ontario PC ‘s approach has absolutely failed to spur housing construction, and October was no different, according to data released by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation this morning.
There were under 5,500 Ontario housing starts last month.
There were under 5,500 Ontario housing starts last month. That’s only 44 per cent of the 12,500 per month pace needed to meet to hit the target of 1.5 million units by 2031 set by the Housing Affordability Task Force and accepted by the Ford PC government.
Housing data can bounce around month to month. But this isn’t statistical noise. Mark up a big F for fail because in four of the last five months Ontario housing starts have been less than 50 per cent of target. This government hasn’t hit a single target since they adopted them in June, 2022.
Twenty-nine months later, 211,980 new units have been started, 150,520 homes less than needed. The shortage that has been added by this government is enough to housing perhaps 300,000 to 500,000 people — a significant-sized city.
Broader economic impacts going unexamined
Housing scarcity increases renting and buying prices. It costs jobs in the residential construction industry. In May, Data Shows research showed BC’s big housing push was paying off with jobs and paycheques while Ontario slumped.
But there seems to be almost zero media attention on how this self-inflicted housing crisis hurts Ontario’s broader economy.
There is occasional acknowledgement that while Ford’s policies aren’t building much housing, they are spurring the growth of tent cities. Workers who can’t pay for a home become homeless. And for those unable to work because of disability, living on under $16,500 a year on Ontario Disability Support Program, the housing crisis is a complete catastrophe.
But with the asking price of a Toronto one bedroom apartment now at almost $2,400 a month or nearly $30,000 a year, it’s not just those relying on social assistance who can’t make ends meet. A worker earning $25 an hour and working 40 hours a week takes home just over $40,000 a year after source deductions.
Rising costs means an increasing number of people have nothing left after paying for food and rent. The rising housing crisis has combined with food inflation to become a general affordability crisis for many. And when fewer people have money to spend, it’s a problem for everyone, not just a few.
Consumer spending drives the economy, particularly the services sector. In most developed economies, consumer spending generates about two-thirds of GDP.
Ontario’s affordability crisis goes a long way to explaining why August retail sales in Ontario were lower than May 2022 though, outside Ontario, they are at a new peak.
Low consumer spending drags down everything else. Ontario’s unemployment rate is worse than the national rate. Ontario’s average wage is falling while rising elsewhere. Unionization is in decline.
There’s only so much housing failure an economy can survive. There’s only so much economic failure a good society can survive.
Fixing Ontario’s economic challenges not the priority
Added to the retail sales problem, the province’s manufacturing is declining, affecting jobs and reducing income from export sales (Data Shows will take a closer look at sales data tomorrow).
But despite these overlapping challenges, the top priority of a premier elected to “get it done” on housing and jobs is ripping up bicycle lanes in downtown Toronto.
Tom Parkin is a social democratic commentator and the publisher of the Data Shows newsletter.
A once great newspaper gets sold to a wealthy businessman who keeps the presses running.
That is until his financial interests are threatened.
Jeff Bezos bought the Post for $250 million in 2013.
To Jeff Bezos, the Post was a toy, it gave him some entrance, not that he needed it.
For the most part, he kept his hands off the day-to-day operations, and kept an eye on how much he had to inject into the newspaper to keep it alive.
To Jeff Bezos, the Post was a toy, it gave him some entrance, not that he needed it.
Besides owning Amazon he had a number of high-tech interests, the biggest being Blue Origin, a private aerospace company that provides sub-orbital spaceflight services.
This is where the big, really big dollars were.
There is hardly a household on the continent that isn’t impacted by his financial interests.
It is reported that sometime this year, when Bezos was discussing Blue Origin contracts with federal-level bureaucrats, mention was made of a problem. ‘You have a Washington Post problem’ was the way it is reported to have been put to Bezos.
Traditionally American newspapers have endorsed candidates. The Post had an endorsement they intended to publish last week.
Bezos instructed senior editorial management not to publish an endorsement.
Executives from his aerospace company met with Donald Trump on the same day the newspaper prevented its editorial team from publishing an endorsement of his opponent in the US presidential election.
More than 250,000 readers cancelled their subscriptions; reported to be 20% of their circulation.
Peanuts to Bezos; another death knell to the newspaper publishing industry and another hammering of newspaper credibility.
Democracy dies in Darkness
The reports, editors and columnists all huffed and puffed but most were at their desks the next day.
What if the people who write the news and those who operate the presses banded together and published the newspaper? Make it a 16-page edition with nothing but the masthead on the front page. The rest would be blank – except for the advertising. Circulation for that day would have soared.
What a statement.
Jeff Bezos
Would Bezos have shut the paper down – would it have mattered if he did?
The Washington Post is dead – the credibility it had is gone – and in the process, they took another chunk out of the industry’s hide.
What will Jeff Bezos do should Kamala Harris become the next President of the United States?
The Post has a motto: Democracy dies in Darkness; indeed it does.
Salt with Pepper is an opinion column reflecting the observations and musings of the publisher of the Gazette, an on-line newspaper that is in its 12th year as a news source in Burlington and is a member of the National Newsmedia Council.
Yesterday I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post. In this, I’m joining many other journalists upset at the decision of the Post’s owner Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to ignore the advice of his editorial staff and make a political statement by pulling the plug on the decade’s long established practice of endorsing a candidate for presidency of the United States of America.
There is an argument, with which I agree in principle, that the news media should remain neutral and not be picking horses. But that stable burned down decades ago when former president Ronald Reagan scrapped the ‘fairness doctrine’ requiring broadcasters to be somewhat balanced in their reporting.
That opened the door and unleashed talk-radio for hate mongering rants, and Fox and MSNBC to promote their respective partisan sides; and eventually paved the way for the various social media to broadcast ‘alternate facts’ and repeat them as if they were true. And all this has made partisan politics in America as nasty and solidified as it is today.
Bezos claiming he is reverting to neutrality is a thin excuse. And the timing of the 11th hour decision to override and shut down the editorial folks at the Post, who had already sculpted their endorsement, stinks to high heaven. The Post’s announcement comes on the heel of a similar policy change at the Los Angeles Times prompting their editorial chief to resign in protest.
Were these decisions, at this late date, made because the race has become a coin toss with Trump now gaining the momentum? Was fear of recrimination should he win the real reason why these American publishing giants chickened out? Both of these papers have been very critical of the Trump candidacy in their coverage – primarily because of his incessant lies, the nasty, crude personal attacks and because he was outed as a fascist.
After all, Trump had ranted about revoking the broadcasting license of CBS just because he didn’t like the 60 minutes episode featuring VP Harris. So what would he do to the Post and its owner if he wins? Recall that Trump has been given carte blanch immunity by his Supreme Court for whatever he chooses to do once elected president. And journalists feature high on his enemies list.
Trump is the candidate of the rich and famous, promising further tax cuts as he clings to the false promises of Ronald Reagan’s trickle down economic theory. Isn’t that why Elon Musk has come to his side, bringing his wealth and the weight of his X social media platform with him? Trump demands and rewards personal loyalty.
Harris is a law and order, rules based, candidate who has talked about breaking up the large corporations and conglomerates and further taxing the wealthy. She argues that good fences make better neighbours and good regulations are good for the economy and us all. In essence, she has promised to steal from the rich and give to the (working) poor, the middle class, a modern day Robin Hood. That is a noble mission but it is easy to understand why Bezos’s, like Musk could be having second thoughts.
History informs us of what happened to the free press when Hitler took power in Germany. Would an American fascist with unlimited power want to do the same thing? I guess American voters will have to make that call. And this time without the endorsement of a candidate by the Washington Post. As is the Post’s motto, Democracy dies in darkness.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
“It is A time of massive anxiety.” Justin Trudeau was talking about Canadians’ economic outlook, pitching the durability of his liberal project to a gathering of global progressives in Montreal last month. “People notice the hike in their mortgages much more than they notice the savings in their child care,” he offered, perhaps implying that in doing so people failed to appreciate all he did for them.
A diagnosis of anxiety fits his own government, too. Mr Trudeau and his party have traversed an arc from heroic to hapless during nine years in office, and today are despised by many in Canada. Less than a quarter of the electorate plans to vote for him. With less than a year to go until a general election, Liberal-party members fear no plan exists to increase that share. They have lost two by-electionsin quick succession, as well as the support of their governing partner, the New Democratic Party. As this story was published, a letter was circulating among Liberal MPs calling on Mr Trudeau to stand down. Massive anxiety indeed.
Mr Trudeau became a beacon of morality after he swept to power in 2015, welcoming refugees from war-torn Syria that Christmas. He legalised marijuana, rewarding the record number of young people who had voted for him. He faced down a truculent President Donald Trump to salvage the North American trade pact that is foundational to Canadian prosperity. His government’s annual payment to families of up to C$7,787 ($5,660) per child under six is hailed for lifting 435,000 children out of poverty. After promising child-care subsidies to help more women into work, working-class and younger voters gave him renewed minority mandates in 2019 and 2021.
Three years later those groups have turned on Mr Trudeau. Today both tend to support the opposition, Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives. What went wrong?
Chart: The Economist
The high cost of housing is central. The cost of owning a home in Canada has increased by 66% since he took office in 2015, with prices rising faster in this century than in any other sizeable OECD country bar Australia. Lack of supply is a problem in many, but is especially acute in Canada. In 2022 the average OECD country had 468 dwellings per 1,000 inhabitants. Canada had 426, a number that has hardly moved in a decade (see chart 1). Mike Moffatt, a housing economist, says a “wartime effort” is needed to triple the current building rate and throw up 5.8m houses in the next ten years. No such luck. In August, Canadian housing starts dropped to an annualised rate of 217,000.
Demand for housing from the large number of immigrants during Mr Trudeau’s decade in power has worsened the crunch. The number of temporary foreign workers jumped from 109,000 in 2018 to just under 240,000 in 2023. The number of non-permanent residents—including temporary foreign workers, students and asylum-seekers—has more than doubled from 1.3m in 2021 to over 3m on July 1st, according to Statistics Canada, representing 7.3% of Canada’s total population of 41m.
The education and health-care systems have also felt the pinch. Universities are bursting with foreign students, often lured by unscrupulous overseas middlemen offering “sham” degrees, according to Mr Trudeau’s immigration minister, Marc Miller. There were 560,000 student visas handed out in Canada last year. Mr Miller is cutting that number to 364,000. “It’s a bit of a mess, and it’s time to rein it in,” he said earlier this year. Some elementary-school teachers flounder, as they grapple with the children of recent arrivals who often speak neither of Canada’s official languages, English and French.
The pain of high housing costs has been compounded by a mediocre economy. Canada suffers from laggardly productivity growth, which has weighed on wages. Investment has been strong in oil- and gas-fields, and in extractive industries more generally, but has been overshadowed by other parts of the economy. Investment in tech, R&D and education taken together as a share of investment is lower in Canada than anywhere else in the G7 club of rich countries.
Canada’s economic ties with the United States have created problems since the end of the pandemic. American spending switched disproportionately to domestic services after lockdowns ended. This left Canadian manufacturers, whose goods had been flying off the shelves, in the lurch. More of the job of powering Canada’s economy, therefore, fell to its services sector, which relies on demand from Canadian households and the government.
Chart: The Economist
But demand has been throttled by higher interest rates. Monetary policy has had more “traction” in Canada than in the United States, according to Tiff Macklem, the central-bank governor. In the United States, most mortgages are fixed for 30 years, compared with, typically, five in Canada. A greater share of Canadians than of Americans have already seen their mortgage payments rise, although Canadian households bear more debt, relative to income, than anywhere in the G7. They now fork out an average 15% of their disposable income to service debt, up by 1.5 percentage points since 2021, compared with 11% for Americans. And unlike Uncle Sam, Canada’s government has not tried to soften the blow by loosening the purse strings. It ran a budget deficit of just 1.1% of GDP in 2023, compared with 6.3% in the United States (see chart 2).
Climate change offered Mr Trudeau perhaps his clearest opportunity to blend moral leadership with pragmatism. But he ignored polling showing that while Canadians were concerned about the climate crisis, they were also loth to pay taxes equivalent to a Netflix subscription to fight it. His carbon tax, introduced in 2019, imposed a levy on greenhouse-gas emissions, currently running at C$50 per tonne, scheduled to rise by C$15 annually to reach C$170 per tonne in 2030. Canada’s parliamentary budget watchdog said last week that most households were worse off when indirect costs of the tax were factored in. Mr Trudeau’s failure to find a way to compensate groups who lost out as a result of the tax left it and him vulnerable to attacks from Mr Poilievre; he says the tax will lead to “nuclear winter”, trigger “mass hunger and malnutrition” and compel poor, older people to freeze. Support for the carbon levy has crumbled.
Chart: The Economist
Mr Trudeau’s standing is not helped by the waning under his Liberal government of Canada’s influence in global affairs. When it last tried to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2020, it finished behind Norway and Ireland. It spends just 1.3% of its GDP on defence, far below the 2% required of NATO members, and the pace set by rearming European members facing an expansionist Russia (see chart 3). Mr Trudeau has promised Canada will hit the 2% level in 2032. Meanwhile, its relations with Asia’s two most populous countries, China and India, remain ice-bound. On October 14th India withdrew six diplomats from Canada, the latest move in an ongoing spat between the countries over the murder of a Sikh separatist in British Columbia last year. In the Middle East, Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, does not return Mr Trudeau’s calls.
Instead of adapting to or confronting challenges thrown up by his policies, Mr Trudeau has preferred to attack his critics. He seemed inert as the erosion of his party’s support has accelerated. Some Liberals privately suggest the breakdown of his marriage last year distracted him. In a shuffle aimed at energising his front bench last year more than half his cabinet changed portfolios, but the economic message remained the same: we will continue to deliver “good things” to Canadians. Only recently has Mr Trudeau begun to acknowledge that this fell short. “Doing good things isn’t enough to deal with the kind of anxiety that is out there,” he told the Montreal conference. He still describes his voters’ problems in psychological rather than practical terms.
Boxed out
Mr Poilievre identified that economic anxiety early. This lent him credibility with the sectors of the Canadian electorate who felt abandoned. He has boiled his platform down to a series of simple three-word slogans. He says his first piece of legislation will be to “axe the tax”, ditching the carbon levy. He has yet to outline what his government would do to fight climate change, but polls make it clear that Canadians care far less than they used to. All too many have forsaken Mr Trudeau, and the causes he stood for. ■
Editor’s note (October 15th 2024): This story has been updated to include India’s withdrawal of diplomats.
Correction(October 16th 2024):An earlier version of this article cited a figure of C$50 per tonne as the current level of Canada’s carbon levy. In fact, it is currently C$80 per tonne. Sorry.
“…..Pierre Poilievre’s recent remarks that the tax, when fully implemented, would lead to a “nuclear winter” of “mass hunger and malnutrition,” a dystopian nightmare in which seniors are forced to turn their thermostats down to 13 C and people are left unable “to leave their homes or drive anywhere,” could have been reported straight-up, and not as lunatic hyperbole, wholly unworthy of a supposed prime-minister-in-waiting.” (Andrew Coyne, Globe and Mail – Sept 20,2024)
By Ray Rivers
September 29th, 2024
BURLINGTON, ON
For over a year now Mr. Poilievre has been ranting on and outright lying about carbon pricing. Ignoring the economic benefit of the climate rebate is not an accidental omission; dare I say, it’s a Trump-like strategy. Poilievre, like the US former president, clearly believes that if your repeat a lie often enough and loud enough people will believe it. And looking at the polls it seems to be doing just that.
I had a phone call earlier in the week from a Tory campaigner whose first utterance was that I should support Mr. Poilievre because as prime minister he will axe the tax. I politely pointed out that I drive an electric car and that carbon credit deposit the government sends to my bank account each quarter helps to pay it off. That is why we have carbon pricing right?
Mr. Coyne states it clearly. ”….not only is the carbon tax more efficient than alternatives, but it is also more fair. Indeed, if we are so foolish as to scrap it, having already gone to the trouble and expense of implementing it, most households will be made worse off, since they lose more by eliminating the rebate than they gain from eliminating the tax”.
Pierre Poilievre Graphic taken from the Walrus magazine
This is not the first time Mr. Poilievre (PP) has got simple economics wrong. He swore up and down that the real reason for the spike in prices immediately following the pandemic had to do with the size of the federal deficit and debt, rather than supply issues, price gouging or pent-up demand. In fact both the deficit and the debt have continued their path since then, but inflation has dramatically dropped from a high of 8% to a near normal 2% today. Had PP been PM and cut program spending as he demanded Trudeau to do, that would have just led to higher unemployment and lower growth.
Carbon pricing is one of the tools which Canada is hoping will help us meet our legally binding emissions reduction targets that we agreed to in the Paris Climate Agreement. And, yes Mr. Poilievre, there are opportunities to cut federal spending which would also help us meet those Paris carbon targets. Ottawa could once and for all stop subsidizing the oil and gas companies responsible for global warming.
Renewable energy –
Of course that would not please the significant base of anti-Liberal voters in petroleum rich Alberta and Saskatchewan. But it would be the right move, even for them, from a longer term perspective. And on the provincial front, one has to wonder why Ontario’s Mr. Ford is pushing pricey natural gas powered electricity production when the lowest cost sources of electricity anywhere today, according to a recent UN report, is renewable energy.
Speaking of Mr. Ford, it’s worth noting that not all Tories have the same passion we hear from PP when it comes to controlling the budget. The normally Tory friendly Fraser Institute has continued it’s ongoing criticism of Mr. Ford’s government, calling out Mr. Ford’s as one of the highest spending governments in the province’s history. “At every turn the Ford government has demonstrated that it’s an irresponsible steward of Ontario’s finances. The official 2023/24 spending numbers are simply the latest example.”
There is good reason why Ford has ticked off the Fraser stalwarts. Mr Ford is consumed by costly, almost psychedelic, pipe dreams. Needlessly tearing down and then rebuilding the Science Centre is an example. Another is the construction of his 413 superhighway, which is not yet even costed and promises to benefit only a handful of commuters and some friendly land developers. The latest brain burp takes the icing on the cake, however – a 50 km tunnel under the busiest highway in Canada – the 401.
Premier Doug Ford and his Minister of Finance strutting into the Legislature with the budget document in hand
Oh, then there is the economically reckless and self-serving corner store beer-gate. The opposition parties estimate it might end up costing a billion dollars to break the contract with the Beer Store just so Ford can say he’s put booze in corner stores before an expected provincial election this coming spring.
That contract would have expired next year anyway – and without penalty. Besides, it is difficult to understand why Ford, a non-drinker, would be so anxious to expand alcohol consumption given what we know about alcohol use and cancer.
I briefly made an appearance at the Ontario Liberal annual meeting in London last weekend where over a thousand people came together to discuss policy.
Former federal health minster Jane Philpott who presented her vision of primary health reform for Ontario was a keynote speaker. I also attended the session on economics and was impressed with Liberal finance critic Stephanie Bowman, a former accountant and banker, who chaired a session with some very talented panelists.
Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie
It’s clear that the provincial Liberals will be focusing their next campaign on economic growth and tax policy, with the middle class most clearly in their sights. But let’s not fool ourselves. That is no guarantee that the provincial Liberals won’t also be called out by the Fraser folks should they form the next government and run deficits.
Still, should they win, we can hope that Premier Crombie would be less consumed by the kind of pie-in-the-sky fantasies that has Mr. Ford frothing at the mouth.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
By Tom Parkin
