News roundup, 4 Nov 2024

- A new social media trend is calling on people to "cancel" the votes of more rightwing family members by voting for the Democrats. The Harris campaign, and others supporting them such as the Lincoln Project, are getting involved in the trend, with ads like this one that remind women that their husbands will never know who they actually voted for; not surprisingly rightwingers are having a conniption about this representing the "downfall of the American family".

- In response to last year's Supreme Court ruling which says that municipalities can't evict homeless encampments from public land if there's not enough shelter space for the people living there, the mayors of thirteen Ontario municipalities have called on Doug Ford to use the notwithstanding clause to override this decision.

- Even as a bill to limit cities' ability to build bike lanes works its way through the Ontario legislature, the Ford government is not waiting; they're moving forward with a regulation that specifically orders the removal of bike lanes from three major streets in Toronto; these YouTubers suggest that those streets might be the ones used by Doug Ford for his commute to Queen's Park from his home in Etobicoke. It won't actually solve congestion, of course, but at least Ford won't have to watch people on bikes whizz by as he steams in traffic.

- Winnipeg city councillor Vivian Santos, in her role as chair of the community services committee, questioned whether the city can afford the approximately $260,000 a year budgeted for picking up needles and other sharp objects in playgrounds. The fact that this is something they'd consider cutting is a sign of desperation. Talks are on with the province about possibly empowering the city to levy new taxes; certainly something has to be done. The city is studying the impact of some possible new taxes, including on such things as alcohol and online deliveries; curiously there is no mention of an income tax, gas tax, or sales tax among the proposals.

- A welcome sign in the lobby of Montreal's city hall will be removed following criticism of the inclusion of a picture of a woman in a hijab on the sign.

- Someone in Calgary's Bowness neighbourhood thought it would be cool to leave out a bowl of disposable razors for Halloween, with a sign saying that they couldn't afford apples "because of Trudeau".

News roundup, 15 Jan 2024

- A new poll suggests that Joe Biden has a four point lead over Donald Trump in Michigan.

- Historian Ian Lustick comments that Israel has never ended hostilities with the Palestinians on its own, but only when pressured to do so from outside (most often the US), and doesn't expect anything different this time. Unfortunately the prospects for this in the near future are not good, especially now that the Biden administration is preoccupied with the election campaign. This doesn't bode well for Palestinians in the near future, nor even for Israelis - most recently, two of the hostages taken in October have been killed (whether by Hamas or by an Israeli airstrike is being disputed), and terrorist attacks continue as well.

- As mentioned a few days back, placing a tax on soft drinks is effective in reducing the consumption of said drinks. Boulder is going a step further - they are using the revenue to provide low-income folks with coupons to buy more nutritious food. So you have a carrot (literally) in addition to a stick.

- Speaking of taxes, even fiscal conservatives see the need to raise property taxes in Toronto. TVO's Steve Lafleur points out that even with the increase Toronto's property taxes will be among the lowest in the region, and that municipalities tend to run a pretty tight ship anyway, so there's not a lot of "fat" to trim.

- In the US, fishers are required to pay the salary of observers from the National Marine Fisheries Service who ride along on their boats. This is now going to the US Supreme Court; whatever one thinks of that particular rule, rightwing opponents of regulation of any sort are latching onto the case in the hope of getting a decision that will tie the hands of federal regulators.

- A recent study indicates that agriculture is by far the biggest driver of deforestation around the world. Beef alone is responsible for 41% of deforestation in the tropics; oilseeds (including soy as well as palm) are responsible for 18%. Note that much of the soy grown in the tropics is grown as cattle feed; if it were fed to humans directly rather than to cattle a lot less of it would be needed.

- In California, a new law passed by referendum in 2018 has just taken effect, requiring that meat sold in the state (whether raised domestically or imported) must meet minimum standards of care. Pregnant sows, for instance, have typically been kept in crates too small for them to even turn around, but under the new law they must be provided with a minimum of 24 ft² of space. Space requirement are also increased for hens and veal calves. The industry fought it all the way to the Supreme Court and lost; they are now hoping for the feds to intervene. Unfortunately there are a lot of exemptions, notably that it doesn't apply to processed meat like sausages, nor does it apply to meat that is sold outside the state.

- Poland gets about 70% of its electricity from coal-fired plants, but the new government there hopes to change that. 

- A Russian command aircraft was shot down and another heavily damaged over the Sea of Azov. 

- Italy's culture minister is under investigation for possessing, and exhibiting, a stolen 17th century painting.

Montreal introducing car tax based on number of cylinders

Good idea I think:

Resident Montreal motorists can expect to be hit next year with a vehicle tax based on the number of cylinders they have under the hood, and that charge will be capped at an “average maximum” of $50 annually, according to documents tabled at Montreal city hall this week.

From the Gazette. Predictably, a some people are up in arms about this, but one of their objections is interesting:

“It is inequitable and unfair that in 2011 a special $50 tax on (vehicle) registrations be imposed only on residents of the island of Montreal,” Vision Montreal leader Louise Harel said in a communiqué, noting that such a tax ought to be applied to all motorists in the Montreal Metropolitan Community, an affiliation of 82 Montreal-area municipalities extending from Mirabel in the north to Richelieu in the south and including the cities of Longueuil and Laval.

Setting aside the rather obvious point that Montreal doesn't have jurisdiction outside the island, it could be argued too that people on the island have less actual need for cars. The city has excellent public transit, and is reasonably friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.

One quibble, though; it would probably make more sense to base the tax on displacement, rather than cylinders per se. If the tax goes through as described above, a GM pickup truck with a 2.9 litre Vortec four will be cheaper to register than a VW with a 2.5 litre five, which seems rather at odds with the intent of the law.

Wyatt urges vote on city sales tax

Interesting:

Would you be willing to pay an extra penny on a can of Coke if all the cash went toward Winnipeg's crumbling roads, bridges and buildings?

That question -- or a more legalistic version of it -- will be on Winnipeg's civic election ballot next month if Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt has his way.

The quixotic councillor wants city council to add a referendum question to the Oct. 27 ballot, asking Winnipeggers to support a one per cent municipal sales tax that would be dedicated to infrastructure renewal.

From the Free Press. Is a municipal sales tax a good idea? Maybe, maybe not. I'd like to see a municipal income tax, but I don't think municipalities have the legal authority to levy income taxes. Failing that, a sales tax might be a good idea; while sales taxes are somewhat regressive, not having enough revenue to pay for programs is far more regressive.

What's interesting is that Wyatt, as well as Judy Wasylycia-Leis, is willing to put the idea of tax increases on the table. Maybe people are finally noticing that a permanent tax freeze has consequences, and are willing to accept that a small tax increase might be necessary. Then again, it could be that Judy and Russ (and me, for that matter) have fallen into wishful thinking. We'll have to see.

On the Fraser Institute's latest garbage

Yesterday the Fraser Institute, with much fanfare from the media, published a report claiming that taxes for the average Canadian have increased by 1,624%. Sounds bad, eh? Well, this is the Fraser Institute we're talking about, so perhaps it's worth looking closer at their figures. Actually, since I'm lazy, let's just look at what others have already pointed out. Devin Johnson has this to say:

First of all, the Fraser Institute's numbers do not account for inflation. According to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, the price of a basket of goods increased by 624.84% between 1961 and 2009. Using the Fraser Institute's own numbers, this means that we should expect, all else being equal, that the tax bill of the average Canadian family would increase from $1,675 in 1961 to $12,141.08 in 2009. In fact, according to the Fraser Institute, the average Canadian family paid $28,878 in total taxes in 2009. In inflation-adjusted terms, this represents an increase of 237.85% (or, about 5% per year). When accounting for inflation, the Fraser Institute's figure of 1624% is off by about a factor of seven.

Nevertheless, a 237.85% increase in Canadians' real, inflation-adjusted tax bills is still a shocking increase, right? Well, not really. Once again, according to the Fraser Institute's own numbers, the average Canadian family's income roe by 1383.5% between 1961 and 2009. If Canadian families paid the same proportion of their income as taxes in 2009 as they did in 1961, we should expect the average tax bill to be $23,173.63 in 2009. In fact, according to the Fraser Institute, it was $28,878. This means that the actual average tax bill in 2009 was about 24.6% higher than expected. This is still an increase, but not nearly as shocking as the 1624% figure bandied about by the Fraser Institute. This figure is also consistent with the Fraser Institute's finding that tax liabilities rose as a proportion of total income from 33.5% in 1961 to 41.7% in 2009.

Hmm. Not so shocking, is it? Devin goes on to point out quite a few other things as well; meanwhile Curtis at Endless Spin Cycle points out what we're getting for the taxes we're paying:

- Today we're paying for universal health care
- Today we're paying for a school system that's expected to do far more than teach the 3 R's
- Today more people than ever are attending university and college - not just because they have the opportunity to do so, but because it's a necessity for most jobs today
- Today we're building massive bridges and freeways in our cities, not just slapping down some pavement on an old gravel road and calling that our highway system

Hmm. Taxes don't seem so bad, eh?