Corporate Taxes

The issue of corporate taxes comes down to a single straightforward principle for me:

Remove person status from corporations; then, and only then can you, and should you, remove corporate taxes.

If you do not remove corporate person status, then corporations can pay income tax like the rest of we persons.

Some people argue against corporate taxes on the basis that shareholders already pay income tax.

That argument misses the point. Corporations have been deemed in law to be entities separate from their shareholders. With such status come certain rights and obligations. You can't and shouldn't have it both ways.

I see this as a justice or equity issue. The continuation of person status to corporations together with the simultaneous reduction of their income taxes is a form of corporate welfare and bailout.

Remove person status from corporations. Then I'll wholeheartedly support outright elimination of corporate taxes.

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Local Cowichan Tribes Launches Landmark Adoption Authority

Cowichan Tribes has been dedicated, especially in the past few years, in pushing innovative solutions to address local problems. There's no question that the entire community, native and not, has appreciated and benefited from it.

Here the Cowichan Tribes are again, leading a landmark move to wrest control of their children from the hands of British Columbia authorities.

Cowichan Tribes' Lalum'utul' Smun'eem Child and Family Services department now oversees all adoption services for Cowichan children in care, rather than the provincial government.

"This is an integral part of the shift to return our jurisdictional rights of children and family matters back to Aboriginal communities," Cowichan Tribes Chief Lydia Hwitsum said in a media release.

It's big news for native communities locally, even bigger news for communities throughout this province and across Canada. Cowichan Tribes' move demonstrates that it CAN be done.

Way. To. Go. Cowichan Tribes!!!

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Interest Rate Policy Punishes Most Vulnerable

The Bank of Canada's interest rate policy punishes saving and rewards debt. As does the federal government when it bails out "too big to fail" corporations and industries and rescues banks from the results of their rash decisions.

Such policies punish those people who scrimp and save, who put off buying today so they'll be able to live tomorrow. Many of these people are now in, or about to enter retirement; only to find their savings earning one or two percent or, if they're particularly fortunate, 2.5 percent.

Such people dare not put their savings into the markets, not when their lives are reliant on those savings. We have all seen what happens to the markets.

How did Canada get things so ass backwards?

How did Canada get to rewarding people who buy like there is no tomorrow? Who get mortgages they can't afford? Who purchase more automotive and recreational vehicles, gadgets and gewgaws, vacations and cruises than they could ever use?

Too many seniors today are struggling to make ends meet because their hard-earned savings are earning less than the increases to their living expenses, such increases exceeding the cost of living. (For most seniors, some form of disability is present.)

This situation, the erosion of seniors' and others' savings, is thanks to the interest rate policy of the Bank of Canada.

It's downright criminal. It also costs governments.

For anyone on some form of financial assistance - for example, disability benefits, seniors' Guaranteed Income Supplement - any personal income, including that of interest from savings, must first be taken into account. The lower those earnings or income, the more government pays.

[Cross-posted at economicus ridiculous]

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When Physicians Think They're Gods

What a horrible story! What a terrible ordeal this poor woman has gone through!

Ms DeWaegeneire said in evidence the doctor told her of his intention when she was helpless, about to pass-out from anaesthesia on the operating table.

"His face came close to mine and for my ears only he said 'I'm going to take your clitoris too' with which I slid under the anaesthetic," Ms DeWaegeneire said.

Crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC asked: "Did you have the opportunity to respond?"

"I was gone," Ms DeWaegeneire replied.

Defence attorney's response:

the comments allegedly made before surgery were not correct and ... evidence ... show[s] none of the other four people in the small theatre heard those words.

Of course not. Did you not get that Dr. Neanderthal whispered his intent for the patient's ears only?

There is NO defence for this.

The best verdict for this man is to cut off his balls.

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Stephen Harper Ultimately Responsible for G20 Infringement of Civil Liberties

Having taken my own advice to show my support for Canadian civil liberties, I've begun receiving correspondence back from MPs. Among the respondents has been Mario Silva, a Liberal who represents the Toronto riding of Davenport. He writes in part that

it was the office of the Minister of Public Safety, the Honourable Vic Toews, which coordinated security for the G8 and G20 summits, in close consultation with the Prime Minister’s department, the Privy Council Office.

Now I'm loathe these days to take any politician's word for anything, but this does make sense, given the G20 was the $1.3 billion party ordered up by one Stephen Harper. And we all know how much Harper favours micromanagement - if he's the one doing it.

ETA: And now a response from Rona Ambrose, one of Harper cabinet ministers: "I am pleased to inform you that an independent review of police tactics during the G20 protests will be conducted."

Would that be the independent review to be held by the Toronto Police Services Board, I wonder? If so, then Ambrose's response is an exercise in duplicity; it answers NOTHING with respect to FEDERAL responsibility. (I've responded to her in kind, insisting on an inquiry at the federal level.)

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The damned-if-they-did, damned-if-they-didn't defence

In an interesting article in yesterday's Globe and Mail, reporter John Lorinc asks lawyer Peter Rosenthal, who has defended activists in court, about the following:

Some people say the police were damned-if-they-did and damned if they didn't.

To which my response is: the same could be said, even more so, of the G20 detainees.

Police told people to leave ... but blocked all exits.

Police told people they had the law on their side - to ask whomever they pleased for identification; to fail to identify themselves or give their badge numbers; to search people's possessions and their persons, including their body cavities; to 'deny' people their right to legal representation by means of postponement techniques; to arrest and/or detain citizens without informing them of the crime they have purportedly committed - ... but such a law didn't exist.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't?

The people who were marching for various freedoms last weekend, including the freedom to assemble, were damned no matter what they did.

H/t @impolitical for the link to that article.

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Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow

and wow. Washington, DC agrees to a $13.7M settlement pertaining to mass arrests that occurred during a protest near the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buildings in 2000.

U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said the class-action lawsuit, which has wended its way through the court for about a decade, will benefit "future generations" who want to speak out and air their grievances. He said it sparked a 2004 D.C. law that set out policies for police to follow at demonstrations, including a prohibition against encircling protesters without probable cause to arrest them.

Under the settlement, each person arrested and found eligible for compensation will be awarded $18,000, and the record of that arrest will be expunged. It also requires additional training for police officers.

And a class-action suit is just beginning for the mass arrests during last weekend's G20 in Toronto. Would that US court rulings set precedents in Canada!

ETA: Add your support to the CCLA's G20 action, in defence of those who were arrested or detained.

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Do you care about the erosion of Canadians' civil liberties?

There are four things that you can do, particularly pertaining to the arrests and detentions that took place during last weekend's G20 summit, in support of pulling back Harperian (and now McGuintyan?) authoritarianism and their latest encroachments of our civil liberties:

1. Send an email in support of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association petition. As noted on their website, once in receipt of 5,000 endorsements the CCLA will be submitting the petition to the three levels of government.

2. Fill out this short form, which will send an email to politicians at all three levels of government: Toronto city council, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and the Parliament of Canada.

3. Once you've completed the form in step 2, you'll be redirected to the Facebook group Canadians Demanding a Public Inquiry into Toronto G20. If you haven't already joined, DO IT. (As I write this, the group is closing in on 40,000 members.)

4. Spread the word.

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If you heighten 'security', deny citizens their rights

... the citizens will gather and they will challenge you.

Stephen Harper, you got things backwards; just like your buddies, who hold aggression to be the only road to peace.

You build bombs and bombs will fall. You build walls and people will tear them down. You turn Toronto into an armed camp and people will become fearful.

The mere presence of 20,000 armed personnel was the primary act of intimidation. YOUR decision, Harper, to have such a huge security presence, is the chief cause of the violence that was Toronto this weekend. YOU were the primary agent provacateur.

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He Talketh Out of Both Sides of Mouth

Liberal MP Joe Volpe tweets: "I stand with Israel. Critics would be wise to reserve judgment until all the facts are clear."

Clearly, Volpe considers his own advice to be valueless.

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Treat Welfare System Like Criminal Justice System

Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

The Blackstone ratio guides our criminal justice system. The same theme has appeared in one version or another throughout human history, including in the writings of the 12th century philosopher Maimonides and in the Bible.

Would that poverty were treated like a crime. In that case, the same principle would justify a guaranteed annual income for all. That it doesn't, and the overwhelming reason why it doesn't, is among the ironies.

Certain conservative types fear that a GAIA would discourage people from working. They imagine the default human condition is to do nothing, to contribute nothing and never to strive for a better life.

That's a decidedly un-Christian perspective of the human being, which was purportedly made in a certain deity's image. For Christians, in fact, it's an illogical point of view, one that's inconsistent with other Christian principles.

Charity is another argument used against a GAIA, even against having a public welfare system at all. Charity and charitable institutions are supposed to take care of 'the needy', 'the less fortunate', 'the vulnerable'.

Again, there's an underlying inconsistency.

How might one fill one's charity quota if a public system exists to ensure there are no impoverished unfortunates?

Charity preys on need. Its very existence requires a class system and people who are without.

Those two religiously historical concerns, for 'the work ethic' and 'Christian charity', are why the principle that underlies our welfare system is opposite to the one that guides our criminal system. It's the principle:

Better that ten innocent suffer in poverty than one guilty person escape.

[Cross-posted at economicus ridiculous]

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Media Fail

According to CTV, Canada's "Federal justice minister," Rob Nicholson, "addresses [the] Jaffer case." Or so one would think by the headline.

What Nicholson does instead is declare he's "all for allowing the public to know" stuff, about stuff.

On that, he might consult with his party leader. Stephen Harper prefers the public to know zilch about anything.

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BC Agencies Defraud Government, Don't Help Poor

If you live in BC, you may have followed the story of WCG International HR Solutions based in Tucson Arizona. The company ran the JobWave program which was intended to help people on welfare find regular employment and the Triumph employment program for people with disabilities.

The [Human and Social Development] office in Prince George raised questions about why WCG International HR Solution's office in the city had already billed the ministry for intake for clients it later described as "intake no-shows."

...

The investigators identified $2,800 in overbillings. Also, of the eight intakes they looked at from January and February last year, just one was done within the 21-days allowed under WCG's contract with the government.

The problems went beyond overbilling the government and they aren't restricted to WCG.

I’ve been with Triumph for five months and they have done the sum total of NOTHING. I get one phone call a month where I have to tell the girl I am number ____. It’s always somebody new. The office has always moved. She never knows what’s going on. And her biggest question is: “When’s good for you next month?

That's a quote from the story of Lucy (p76), from the 2005 book Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front. If you click the link, you can listen to her story via podcast.

There are also major issues with Community Futures. When that federal community economic development agency was privatized, it morphed into FutureCorp, which is aptly named. The story of Anna is typical of the experience (p17f, in the book) of people seeking help who are consistently getting caught in a maze not of their own making.

These women were desperate to find work, desperate to forge a new future for themselves and their families. All they met was intransigence or indifference.

Unfortunately, Lucy's and Anna's stories can be duplicated countless times. These agencies that purportedly exist to help the poor seem more to be helping themselves to government money.

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Who the Hell is Blake Richards?

Why is Conservative MP Blake Richards junking up my mailbox with Conservative propaganda, paid for by taxpayers?

How can he claim the Conservative Government "is working" and "delivering tough new action on crime"?

How can Richards sleep at night when he knows that Stephen Harper, in proroguing Parliament, killed the very crime bills that would have addressed the issues listed in his rag sheet?

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Barriers: Tele-communicating

On economicus ridiculous I've published a three-part post on barriers related to tele-communicating with government organizations, non-profits and online and local merchants; in other words, with just about anybody who works in an organizational environment.

From Part 1

With decision made and my new life without a phone, I could have done without unfair restrictions by Canada's telecom giants - aided and abetted by our federal government - on the use of VOIP technologies. And I could have done without certain assumptions and out-dated practices maintained by government and private organizations. Except for these issues, I was sailing quite happily in the unmapped bay of my virtual unmapped island.

I hope you will visit economicus ridiculous to read more.

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Fantastic Video in Support Jan 23 Rally

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132 Political Scientists Call for Reform

Woot! Fair Vote Canada has just released a statement, signed by 132 political scientists. They are calling on the federal government to initiate a process to reform the federal electoral system by the end of five years.

The statement reads, in part:

We call on the Prime Minister and leaders of all parliamentary parties to set aside partisan interests and together support a substantive program to engage Canadians in a national discussion on: 1) fair voting principles – voter equality, proportional results and the formation of governments whose policies reflect the majority of voters, and 2) the various types of fair voting systems based on those principles.

We call on the government to engage experts, consult widely with citizens, and implement a Canadian version of a more proportional and fair voting system within the next five years.

This is not just a electoral issue in my view; it's one of justice. Under the present system, all voters are not accorded the same opportunity to be fairly represented.

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Culture of Disability

I am disturbed by the focus on DISability in our culture, both physical and intellectual, as starkly evident in the 2009 Federal Disability Report.

By definition, few people are going to sit at the top of the bell curve of abled-ness and intellect. Which makes all the rest of us either prone to athleticism and/or genius, or falling-apart dullards.

In civilizations past there would have been a place for every last one of us, with no disability industry standing by, chomping at the bit, ready to label us and rake in the big bucks.

As I suggested in my "Needy Renters" post, in this society the emphasis is always on what's lacking, not on people's untapped talents and capacities. This needs/incapacities approach celebrates victimization. It raises victimhood to an elevated status.

Alternatively, the capacities approach highlights what people can do, not what they can't. It treats all people with respect and dignity. Rather than looking at people in terms of their potential drain on society, it recognizes them for their potential benefit to society.

Too bad the social service sector is more focused on needs than capacities. It doesn't help that the industry is encouraged to do so by our own governments.

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It Just Warms My Heart

... to read such drivel.

Where DOES the Times-Colonist find these people? First it was this privileged whine. Now Lawrie McFarlane blusters forth with his inflated two cents:

Two B.C. courts have now ruled that the City of Victoria was wrong to prevent homeless people setting up tents in downtown parks.

Let's bypass the fact that a good portion of the campers were propagandists who use "homelessness" as a bludgeon. Our courts seem bent on redrawing civic rights in a way that has no foundation in law.

Their first step is to suppose that if a serious issue exists, it must be the duty of government to fix it.

Careful, Mr. McFarlane. Your stereotypes are showing.

Agreed: It is not the business of government to provide housing.

That's where our agreement ends.

It IS the business of government to regulate market conditions such that affordable housing is available to anyone who wants it. This includes half the people living in poverty who work one or more full-time and/or part-time jobs on low wages without benefits, and a considerable number more people living in poverty who worked in similar employment much of their lives and now face the end of their days in meagre retirement.

Among these people are those who serve you at your favourite retail haunts, wait your tables, serve you at theatres, monitor your home security, take your parking fees, wash your cars, book your travel arrangements, and provide your catering, home cleaning and home repair needs.

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Targets Can Target Back

Most readers of this blog know that I am an atheist and have a low tolerance for blind faith. I've even less tolerance for the religion industry.

But not all religious organizations, or organizations founded by 'people of faith', are created equal. Among the stellar ones is KAIROS. Its entire raison d'être is the advancement of social justice.

Now, Jason Kenney & Company have set their sights on that organization, accusing it of antisemitism, an accusation that is so far off the mark as to be laughable; if it were not also so hurtful.

This time, Harper Conservatives have gone too far.

The target of their abuse is not without connections.

I hope KAIROS continues to fight back, emboldened by other progressives, with the light of its own special truth.

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