Tag Archives: Canada

Ontario deficit to hit $25 billion as tax revenues plunge

map-canada-political
Political Map of Canada

The problem with the left is that they think that the producers will just keep producing in the face of massive tax hikes and government spending. Sorry, but producers curtail their producing when they get to keep less and less of the fruits of their labor. Dalton McGuinty, the Liberal premier of the province of Ontario, is a prime example of this ignorance of incentives.

Consider this story from the National Post. (H/T Joanne from Blue Like You)

Excerpt:

Falling revenues and a burgeoning $24.7-billion deficit will force Ontario’s Liberal government into a new era of fiscal restraint, provincial Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said yesterday.

[…]According to economic figures released yesterday, Ontario is spending $4.8-billion more this year than it predicted just seven months ago. The increased spending includes $4-billion in auto-sector assistance and an additional $650-million to fund the province’s H1N1 response. Program spending has also risen by $812-million.

Tax revenues, meanwhile, are falling dramatically. They now stand at $5.8-billion less than the government predicted in last spring’s budget. Corporate taxes are $2.65-billion — or nearly one-third — lower than projections, while personal income tax is down $2.43-billion, or 10%.

[…]Conservatives, who have watched as the Liberals raised spending by nearly 60% over their first six years in office, were skeptical about the new pledge of austerity.”Dalton McGuinty is hard-wired to increase your taxes and increase spending,” Conservative leader Tim Hudak said. “The reality is, the only way to get spending under control is to change government.”

[…]One analyst said the province’s massive deficit is heightened by the growing size of Ontario’s health-care sector, expected to account for half the budget by 2015.

Earlier this week I blogged about the Federal Conservative Party of Canada, which gained two seats in the 2009 by-elections, bringing them to 145/308 in the House of Commons. They need 155 to have a majority.

States like New York and California are running into the same taxing and spending problems here at home. Even the Democrat Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland is in trouble, and threatening to cancel scheduled tax cuts.

Canadian student union leader says pro-lifers are all potential murderers

Story from Life Site News.

Excerpt:

Lakehead University Life Support (LULS), the Canadian campus pro-life club that recently lost its hard-won club status, is facing harsh opposition from board members of the Student Union (LUSU) – one of whom has compared the group to the murderer of late-term abortionist George Tiller – as the club seeks to regain its status.

The student union voted 7-6 on October 29th in favor of denying the pro-life group club status. The club had only won its status in February after fighting for two years to gain it.

On November 6th, LUSU Vice President of Finance Josh Kolic released a statement in which he called the effort to overturn the union’s decision an attempt to ‘hijack’ the democratic process.  He went on, further, to claim that the pro-life club “represents … the same mentality of those who gunned down Dr. George Tiller.”

[…]In Kolic’s statement, he claimed that denying the pro-life group club status was a “great victory for human rights.”  In his view, “the neutral stance is simply one that allows the individual woman herself to choose,” and, as such, he says this is the position that LUSU itself should take.

He went on to ask the student body for “help [to] restore democracy and the spirit of human rights to the Lakehead University Student Union” by attending their next meeting or emailing “a deputation to the board as to why a woman’s right to choose is important to you.”

How ironic: a pro-abortion person calling pro-lifers murderers. It seems to me that it is pro-abortionists who advocate the actual murder of hundreds of millions of innocent unborn children. And remember the recent murder of a pro-life activist by a pro-abortion zealot. And here’s a recent attempted murder of a pro-lifer. Those are from the last few months alone.

Let me ask you a question. How many pro-abortion people do you suppose have read a book like “Defending-Life-Against-Abortion-Choice” by Dr. Francis J. Beckwith, published by Cambridge University Press, or a book like “Embryo: A Defense of Human Life“, published by Princeton University’s Robert P. George? Are pro-abortionists informed about the case for the pro-life position?

Well, consider how they censor the pro-life clubs on campus. Do you think they are open-minded and tolerant of opposing views? I can probably make a more persuasive case for the pro-abortion view than militant pro-abortionists like Josh Kolic can. I’ve actually heard their arguments presented in debates that I chose to listen to. Josh wants to censor opposing views. That is pure intolerance.

Further reading

Suppression of pro-lifers is quite common in Canada.

Here are some resources on the topic of abortion.

Notice how pro-lifers focus on reason and evidence, while pro-abortionists focus on the use of force, to one degree or another, in order to get their way.

Conservative Party of Canada wins two seats in by-elections

Congratulations to our conservative neighbors to the North!

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives pulled off an amazing political upset in federal by-elections Monday night, stealing a rural Quebec stronghold seat from the Bloc Quebecois.

The Conservatives also reclaimed a traditionally Tory seat in Nova Scotia, ultimately winning two of the four by-elections held Monday.

The results suggest the minority Conservative government’s political fortunes are undimmed by the recession and far stronger than expected in Quebec.

Let’s compare results:

Montmagny – L’Islet – Kamouraska – Rivière-du-Loup (Quebec)

2008:

  • Bloc Quebecois 20,494
  • Conservative 13,640
  • Liberal 6,835
  • New Democrat 2,428

2009:

  • Conservative 12,162
  • Bloc Quebecois 10,737
  • Liberal 3,768
  • New Democrat 1,363

Cumberland – Colchester – Musquodoboit Valley (Nova Scotia)

2008:

  • Independent 27,303
  • New Democrat 4,874
  • Conservative 3,493
  • Liberal 3,344

2009:

  • Conservative 11,167
  • New Democrat 6,267
  • Liberal 5,193

So, now the Conservatives have 145 of 308 ridings. Closer and closer to a majority.

Aside: why is it so freezing these days?

But I also note that October 2009 was our 3rd coldest in 115 years. Canadian readers: please keep the cold up there, we don’t want any of that down here. But if you could have Stephen Harper visit Washington more often, and perhaps give the ACORN lawyer some advice on how to run a country without bankrupting it, that would be OK with us.

Australia: same deal. We want John Howard to visit us. But keep your record cold October to yourself.