Down in Ottawa, the concept of EI reform is heating up.
One reform I would like to see is allowing people to opt out of EI coverage and self insure. As both a farmer and a self employed business person, I strongly object to paying into that fund when it does not provide any insurance coverage to me at all.
A really good reform of Employment Insurance would be to make it subject to the agreement of the individual worker that they want to participate in the program.
Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, like Dalton McGuinty, is fond of blaming Alberta’s oil industry for supposedly hurting manufacturing in Central Canada.
These numbers StatsCan released today show the opposite:
Manufacturing sales increased 1.9% in March to $49.7 billion, the largest advance since September 2011. The gain was led by the petroleum and coal products industry.
As vehicles get more fuel efficient, the old model of using road taxes to pay for road upkeep and construction is breaking down. This article explores how the UK is dealing with the challenge.
I can see the day emerging when both road upkeep fees and insurance are metered by the number of miles or hours driven and the traffic conditions that are encountered in addition to the type of vehicle driven. Both transportation authorities and insurance companies need a good cost accountant to go in and show them where their real cost drivers are.
The new insurance method, if approved by the B.C. Utilities Commission next year, would shift from a vehicle-based claims-rated scale to one that focuses on drivers and their records.
Finally, an insurance company that starts to look at the risk of the drive instead of the vehicle, I am the only drive on my farm and I object to paying again and again for liability insurance when that should only be on me as the driver.
The other change is to get rid of mandatory collision insurance on my own vehicle. In Manitoba, that is a very regressive form of taxation that penalizes operators of older vehicles.
Our petro dollar is causing cold sweats among the Canadian Auto workers Union.
I am not going disagree that the Canadian dollar may be over valued. As a farmer who is dependent on exports, I feel the pressure perhaps even more than the unionized auto workers in Ontario.
However, I disagree with the Canadian Autoworkers and the NDP that the required action is to throttle down production in the energy sector. Instead, what we need to be looking at is using the benefits of the high dollar to invest in more efficient work places and equipment so we can compete more effectively in the global market. On my farm, that process involves looking at opportunity to purchase equipment that reduces labor priced in Canadian dollars and substituting it for equipment that is produced elsewhere.
The Canadian Auto Workers should shift their focus in comparable direction to figure out how to produce a vehicle in Canada using inexpensive imported machinery at a cost that is competitive with anywhere else in the world. To put it bluntly, the CAW has to go all in to drive productivity growth instead of attempting to impede it. That is the path for how they can best represent the long term interests of their members.
An interesting perspective from The Atlantic.
In Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Seattle, and Tampa, one-hour car-sharing reservations are taxed at more than twice the local sales tax rate. One-hour trips are among the most economically inefficient, since you may wind up paying the same one-time transaction fee that you would on an entire week’s car rental. In New Jersey, that’s a $5 fee every time you take out a car. Pennsylvania charges a $2 “security fee” for each reservation. Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, and New Mexico each have $2 per-transaction surcharges as well.
The Atlantic has an interesting article on the subject of citizen involvement in democratic processes.
quote:
“You’re not stuck in traffic,” it said. You aretraffic.” We aren’t stuck in sclerotic government and extractive politics. We are these things.
The Globe and Mail has a fantastic interactive page which gives a fairly comprehensive assessment of our immigration system, and demonstrates why demographics are making immigration more important than ever.
Here is an excellent video that dispells some of the economic myths surrounding immigration. Do immigrants “steal” domestic jobs? No.
The Globe and Mail ran an excellent piece yesterday by David Campbell on the inefficiency of film tax credits. According to Campbell:
“In 2008, this industry generated a negative direct gross domestic product (GDP) in New Brunswick. You didn’t read that wrong. For every dollar of industry output, the GDP created in New Brunswick was a negative $0.16. In other words, as a result of the direct economic activity for each dollar of output, the economy shrank. No other industry in the province generated a negative direct GDP in 2008.”
This is particularly relevant to Saskatchewan, as the provincial government recently axed its film tax credit to the chagrin of the arts community. But given that most of the benefit from film tax credits in provinces that don’t have well established film industries is exported, their opposition is misplaced. The non-economic rational behind subsidies to the film industry is to promote local culture. This is not what the tax credits have done. If we’re going to attempt to promote local culture, direct, transparent subsidies make far more sense than opaque tax credits to the film industry.
This post got me thinking about rural postal services in Canada. Perhaps it is time to step back from the old model and imagine a new one that works for rural communities.
While the issue of rural postal outlets is not on the policy / political agenda, it will come up again in the future.
Personally, I believe that rural communities that attempt to maintain a union-dominated, crown corporation outlet in their community are doomed to failure.
The problem is that for the 80% of the people who live in urban areas, I doubt that even 10% of them have stepped foot inside a post office in the last 5 years. Their mail is delivered to community boxes (or to their home for a privileged few), their sending is mediated through franchise outlets, and parcels come from UPS or Fed Ex.
In my mind, smart rural communities should today be planning for a future of postal services beyond the presence of a Canada Post office. The critical measurement should be the range of services offered instead of who delivers them.
In most rural communities, Canada Post employs mail boxes in their outlet to deliver the mail to the surrounding community. The are no super boxes or home delivery. Everyone has to go the the centre of town to pick up their mail.
That location guarantees nearly daily or bi-daily traffic from ever resident of the community. To me, this is a golden opportunity to set up retail and food service around that outlet and offer a place for people to sit down and sort their mail (mainly to throw away the junk mail that none of us want). With a bit of imagination, this location could become a vibrant community meeting hub and retail presence.
The critical need here is to re-imagine rural postal outlets in the new world. They are not places to get into and out of as quickly as possible. Instead, they should be coffee shops, restaurants, and retail outlets with seating that invite people to linger and socialize. The postal outlet is the driver of traffic and it is up to other lines of business to give them a reason to stay and spend money.
To me, that would be a big improvement on the outdated franchise outlets located in the back of pharmacies in urban centres. Going even further, perhaps it might be possible to move beyond the outdoor community mailboxes and have them moved into retail locations in urban communities. Maybe this is one time where rural trends could drive urban ones.
The UK Conservative Party looks at alternatives to incarceration.
Fiscal pressure is mounting. Overall crime rates are falling. And stubborn reoffending rates suggest that some things are not working.
Maybe that memo has not made it to Ottawa yet.
