The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) stated this week that countries don’t have to raise taxes to deal with long-term fiscal issues.
In a recently released long-term scenario, the OECD is warning about incoming fiscal problems in the coming decades impacted by a lack of productivity and demographic changes.
According to projections, governments will have to raise their revenues by 8% of GDP.
“Secular trends such as population aging and the rising relative price of services will keep adding pressure on government budgets. Fiscal pressure from these long-run trends dwarf that associated with servicing COVID-legacy public debt,” paper authors Yvan Guillemette and David Turner write.
“The results of this section do not imply that taxes will, or even should, rise in the future. The fiscal pressure indicator is simply a metric serving to quantify and illustrate the fiscal challenge facing OECD governments. Raising taxes is only one of many possible avenues to meet this challenge. While this strategy appears feasible in some countries where tax levels are relatively low, in other countries it may present a substantial challenge.”
Some of the solutions proposed by the OECD include reforms to increase employment and a hike to the age of retirement. With those measures implemented, the fiscal pressure could be halved by the year 2060 for the median country.
According to OECD figures, Canada has some of the highest taxes in certain areas among fellow member countries. In 2017, Canada had the seventh-highest combined tax rate out of 34 OECD states at 53.3%, slightly behind Sweden which led at 57.12%.
Instead of lowering taxes and following OECD’s advice, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has increased taxes for many Canadians.
Additionally in 2016, instead of increasing the retirement age when faced with an aging population, Trudeau lowered the age from 67 to 65.
In an effort to bolster vaccine uptake, Saskatchewan’s public health agency is saying that age and fitness have no bearing on your COVID risk – only vaccination status. For all the things about COVID we don’t know, we do know that this simply isn’t true, True North’s Andrew Lawton points out.
Also, Saskatoon police have invested 160 hours in tracking down attendees of a PPC election night event last month.
Plus, former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford, the last living premier involved in the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, joins The Andrew Lawton Show to discuss the dismal state of rights and freedoms in Canada.
Many politicians are sleeping at the wheel as gas prices soar across the country. Even worse, some politicians are getting ready to gouge Canadians with even higher gas taxes.
“Gasoline prices shattered all-time records in many parts of the country this week,” according to a story published by Global News.
The pain at the pumps doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. Gas prices could even hit $2 per litre by the end of 2022, according to Dan McTeague who heads up Canadians for Affordable Energy.
Canadian politicians should share the blame for these high prices.
“Whether by omission or commission, governments are leading the charge in raising fuel prices for Canadians,” McTeague told the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).
If politicians want to improve affordability, then they must lower their tax-take at the pumps.
Taxes make up between 31% and 42% of gas prices depending on the province, according to CTF analysis released in May. In Montreal, drivers pay six different taxes every time they fuel up.
The federal government and some provinces also charge a sales tax on top of the other per litre fuel and carbon taxes. That means politicians tax the fuel you need to drive, then they tax those taxes. As fuel prices and taxes rise, this tax-on-tax costs Canadian drivers more.
But instead of offering desperately needed relief, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau intends to massively increase his carbon tax from about 9 cents per litre to about 40 cents per litre by 2030. On top of that, Trudeau is bringing in a second carbon tax through fuel regulations that will add another 16 cents per litre to the price of gas, according to McTeague.
That means that Trudeau’s two carbon taxes will soak a family for $40 every time they fill up their minivan in 2030. That’s just the price of Trudeau’s carbon taxes. Canadians will still need to pay for the fuel, federal and provincial fuel taxes, a transit tax in some cities and the tax-on-tax.
Today’s fuel prices are sky-high. But today’s fuel prices would translate to a total bill of about $160 for a family filling up their minivan in St. John’s, if you include the cost of Trudeau’s future carbon tax hikes coming down the pipe.
Are there any politicians left who will stick up for Canadian drivers and taxpayers?
These soaring gas prices should have given official opposition ample ammunition to push the Trudeau government to provide relief. But instead of outrage, taxpayers haven’t heard a peep from Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole. It seems O’Toole has been too busy tweeting about “#WorldEggDay” and beer.
Then again, given that O’Toole’s plan to address sky-high gas prices is to raise the price of gasoline by 27 cents per litre, maybe it’s understandable that he would rather tweet about beer instead of holding the prime minister accountable on carbon taxes.
Canadians are feeling the pain from high gas prices, and high taxes make the pain much worse. If politicians truly want to improve affordability, then they should provide relief at the pumps by lowering gas taxes and scrapping the carbon tax.
Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The price of certain food items is soaring across the country and surpassing the rate of inflation, new Statistics Canada data reveals.
According to the federal department, meats, produce and dairy items are up 20% to 30% in select provinces.
The increase was reported in Statistics Canada’s Food Prices In The Consumer Price Index report on Monday.
“Movement in these average prices may not be the same as the Consumer Price Index. Products can vary in quality and quantity between outlets or between geographic areas,” wrote Statistics Canada researchers.
“Brands and outlets can also vary from month to month. Therefore average prices may not necessarily be fully comparable from one month to another.”
Currently, the inflation rate sits at 4.1% but prices reported between August 2020 and August 2021 are amounting to a much larger increase.
In Quebec, stewing beef has spiked by 10% while a litre of cream is up 16% over the time period reported. As for produce, the cost of oranges has increased by 17%.
Manitobans are also feeling the hit in their pockets with butter increasing by 10% and ground beef up 16%. Meanwhile, pork ribs shot up a shocking 29%.
Ontario has not been able to avoid the high cost of food either with prices for stewing beef up 6% and wieners increased by 15%. As for bacon, it has increased by 19% since last year.
In Alberta, prices indicate that yogurt is up 6% and bacon is up 15% while the cost of apples has risen by 16%
“Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic food prices have been impacted by factors such as weather, supply disruptions and shifting consumer demand,” Statistics Canada claimed.
“In turn, this affects Canadians’ pocketbooks. Food is the second-largest component of the Consumer Price Index with Canadians directing about 17 percent of their expenditures to food.”
Groups like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation have warned that the cost of goods is being impacted by rising taxes including the federal carbon tax which has significantly contributed to the increased price of gas at the pump.
The widely shared memo that appears to be from Shared Services Canada, dictating that public servants cannot use the phrase “Let’s go Brandon” in their communications is fake, according to the National Post.
The “Let’s Go Brandon” trend started after an NBC Sports reporter interviewing NASCAR driver Brandon Brown at Talladega Superspeedway stated that the crowd was chanting this phrase. In reality, the crowd was chanting “F**k Joe Biden.”
Shared Services said in a statement that they did not issue such a memo.
“We can confirm this message was not issued by Shared Services, and it does not reflect departmental policy,” the department told the National Post.
The president of the Alberta Institute Peter McCaffrey tweeted the fake memo on Sunday and garnered 4,586 retweets, 1,650 quote tweets, and 13,900 likes in a matter of hours.
“Canadian government workers must not say ‘Let’s Go Brandon,’ or any variation thereof, in any communication,” said McCaffrey followed by a smiling and crying emoji.
This fake memo appears to have originated from Halory, a Twitter account based out of Richmond, Va. Halory posted a photo of the memo, asking how it is going in Canada.
“I don’t tweet much,” said Halory. “I don’t have many followers PLEASE RT @JackPosobiec @bennyjohnson.”
The memo said communications are prohibited from containing the phrase “Let’s go Brandon” because it is offensive.
“We have been informed that this will be a zero tolerance issue within the management structure,” said the memo. “This position is fully supported by the leadership of PSAC (Public Service Alliance of Canada).”
Violations of this policy will be grounds for immediate dismissal without recourse or labour union representation, according to the forged memo.
A veteran Toronto radio host has become the latest victim of a politically correct world gone mad and of a legacy media desperate to pander to the “woke”.
True North has learned that 50-year radio professional Peter Shurman, who filled in as a talk show host at 640 Toronto for five years, was told last week he was being cancelled over a bizarre incident that occurred on Sept. 24.
He was apparently given no rationale for the axing.
Shurman was filling in on the drive-time show when lesbian activist Farrah Khan came on to speak about how Smart Serve Ontario’s training program will now include training to recognize sexual violence and drug-induced sexual assault.
Khan is married to far-left councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam.
Prior to the interview, Shurman spoke of a naive young family member who stayed with him a few years back and who he had to caution about being careful when she endeavoured to meet strangers in bars.
He mentioned the potential to “wind up in trouble” when one orders a drink and leaves it sitting on the bar while going to the washroom.
It’s the kind of advice I wish I’d had before I naively allowed in a stranger interested in subletting my apartment while a student in Ottawa in 1978 – a stranger who beat me, tried to strangle me and left me near dead.
Khan, the manager of Ryerson University’s office of sexual violence, barely answered his first question, before proceeding to lambaste Shurman on air.
“The person that is responsible for sexual violence is the person that is committing the sexual violence … this is a kind of naming and shaming,” she said, in an attempt to talk over Shurman.
When Shurman attempted to explain what he meant, Khan hung up, insisting she hadn’t been respected.
The entire segment lasted barely 3.5 minutes.
Immediately after, Khan took to Twitter in what appeared a campaign to shame Shurman:
Shaking with rage after being on an awful radio show where the host thought it was okay to open up the conversation about alcohol facilitated sexual assault by blaming women for the harm they are subjected to. When I called him in, I was spoken down to and talked over. A mess.
The Twitter lynch mob attacked almost immediately – praising Khan for standing up to a misogynist. The responses included this tweet alluding to possible violent retribution from someone who identified as Khan’s uncle:
Let your uncle know the name in DM. We can handle it the old way since he won’t change his old ways. #familyfirst
Khan chimed in repeatedly to followers – seemingly prepared to milk the incident for all it was worth.
The following Friday 640 Toronto morning talk show host Greg Brady had Khan on his show to apologize.
He claimed Shurman reacted in an “adversarial way” to Khan.
“Unfortunately our guest just wasn’t treated with the deference she should have been,” Brady said, choosing not to say that Khan would not allow Shurman to explain himself.
He said the incident moved to social media which “made the matter worse” – choosing not to mention the fact that Khan and her followers allowed things to escalate and that Shurman stayed silent.
Brady alleged that as a result, Khan was subject to “rape threats” and an “outpouring of hate” towards her and her family – not asking her to provide proof.
“We apologize as a station… we’re very sorry that this occurred,” he said.
Immediately following the interview, Khan took to Twitter again:
This morning @am640 publicly apologized for the unprofessional and harmful way host Peter Shurman treated me during an interview about alcohol facilitated sexual assault and the new SmartServe training last Friday. A thread on what happened and the impact. #MeToo
The way I was treated by the host had an impact on my life. My social media inboxes were flooded by men who were emboldened by the host’s on-air actions/tweets. The harassment, including rape threats, was chilling and has been reported. Words and actions matter.
A week later Shurman was cancelled by station management. The Ford government subsequently removed him from the Tarion Warranty Corporation board following a complaint by an NDP MPP.
Contacted for comment, Shurman said that as a lifelong radio pro and champion of sexual equality, he is “devastated.”
He refused to comment further as he’s in the process of looking into legal avenues available to him.
Efforts to get a statement from 640 Toronto were unsuccessful.
Khan, seemingly unfazed by the fallout of her Twitter campaign, indicated that while she was “disappointed” with the first interview, she was “glad” the station offered her the chance to come back to help listeners “shape understandings about sexual violence.”
She said Mr. Shurman’s employment status with AM 640 is a “matter between him and his employer.”
Khan says she never requested that he be fired, only for an “apology” and better training on sexual violence be put in place at the station.
Tonight’s historic election will finally give Albertans the opportunity to decide if equalization payments should be removed from the constitution. On our show tonight, True North’s Candice Malcolm and Andrew Lawton will be welcoming a number of guests to discuss what this election means for Alberta.
A City of Victoria plan on how to make the municipality more welcoming claims that the COVID-19 pandemic increased “white privilege” alongside other uncorroborated and controversial statements.
The 16-page document, titled Dream in Colour: Victoria Welcoming City Strategy, was created in collaboration with The City of Victoria, the Welcoming City Task Force and Neuquinn Consulting.
According to the executive summary, the strategy is a way “to make (Victoria) more welcoming to all newcomers” which are defined as immigrants, refugees, international students, temporary foreign workers and migrants.
Contained throughout the document are several contentious claims meant to smear Canadians as racist and unwelcoming.
“The pandemic magnified inequalities, hostility, racism, discrimination, prejudice, oppression, and white privilege,” the document reads.
Additionally, the Black Lives Matter movement is cited as inspiring “anti-police sentiment” in the city.
“Our proximity to the United States and the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers sparked the Black Lives Matter movement which spread like a wildfire and quickly escalated anti-police sentiment and public calls to Defund the Police and address ‘access without fear,’” claims the report.
Also included in a “what we heard” section of the strategy is an unidentified quote which claims that “Racism is a colour and the colour is white.”
The strategy also goes on to identify the city’s namesake and the name of British Columbia as “burdens of the past.”
“The weight of colonialism is entrenched and continually reaffirmed in the name of our city and our province. As a capital city, the colonial systems of power and authority are more pronounced,” claims the document.
Part of the strategy’s mission statement includes a call to disrupt “entrenched systems” and demanding “decolonization” – a far-left buzzword used as a rallying cry to dismantle institutions they perceive as racist.
True North reached out to the City of Victoria for comment and clarification on the document but did not receive a response by the time this article was published.
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) has barred two Ontario doctors from issuing medical exemptions for COVID-19 vaccines, testing or masks.
Dr. Mark Raymond Trozzi from Harrow and Dr. Rochagne Kilian from Owen Sound can no longer issue any exemptions related to the above matters and are being forced to maintain a detailed log of patients and submit to inspections by the regulatory body.
Both have been known to be critical of mandatory vaccinations.
It is unclear whether the college considers the exemptions issued by the two doctors legitimate or not.
In a statement issued earlier this year, the college stated that physicians should not communicate any statements that go against public health orders.
“(Doctors have) a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and/or (promote) unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19,” the CPSO statement said.
“Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations.”
The two doctors join a growing list of physicians being silenced by their governing bodies for expressing opinions contrary to the accepted narrative.
Other doctors, including the former department head of emergency medicine for Nova Scotia’s eastern zone Dr. Chris Milburn, have faced disciplinary actions for rebuking public health officials. Dr. Milburn was also removed from emergency duties at the time.
In June, Dr. Milburn was sacked from his position after he challenged the province’s school closures and the “de-facto rule” of public health officials.
Similarly, BC physician Dr. Charles Hoffee is being investigated by regulators after speaking out about alleged Moderna vaccine complications after he administered the drug to his patients, who are mostly from Indigenous backgrounds.
“On 29th of April, 2021, the Interior Health Authority suspended my clinical privileges, for the crime of causing “vaccine hesitancy”, for speaking out about my vaccine injured patients. So I am no longer allowed to work in the ER,” Dr. Hoffe told True North in May.
“I am still permitted to see patients in my private practice, which is not under the jurisdiction of the Interior Health authority, but I have effectively lost about 50% of my income. This is the price of advocating for the safety of my patients.”
A new poll reveals that a majority of Albertans will likely vote “yes” in the October 18, 2021 referendum on equalization payments.
The poll, which was conducted by Mainstreet Research for the Western Standard and the Alberta Institute, indicates that 55% of people polled will support removing equalization from the constitution.
Albertans were asked, “Should Section 36(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982 — Parliament and the Government of Canada’s commitment to the principle of making equalization payments — be removed from the Constitution?”
In response, only 29% said they would vote “no,” while 16% indicated they were undecided on the question.
When broken down based on decided voters, 65.5% said they would support removing equalization while 34.5% opposed the idea.
The poll was conducted between October 12, 2021 and October 13,2021 through automated telephone interviews and included a sample of 935 adults. When weighted the results contain a margin of error of +/- 3.2%.
Men were more likely to indicate voting “yes” with 63.8% supporting equalization while young women were the most likely to vote no, reporting at 34.7% of that demographic.
“We’re encouraged to see that, despite everything going on in provincial politics at the moment, a clear majority of Albertans appear to still be determined to get a better deal for Alberta”, said Alberta Institute President Peter McCaffrey.
“This referendum is just the first step on a long journey, but it is a vital one, and should this result bear out on election day, it will send a very clear message to Ottawa that the status quo is no longer acceptable.”
On Monday, Albertans will be heading to the polls for a variety of elections including electing new mayors, a referendum on water fluoridation and general municipal elections.
