Is This The Best We Can Do?

This income trust fiasco is very disheartening. There was no good reason for the Tories to reneg on the promise to leave income trust alone. Income trusts are a very significant part of a lot of retirees income and to start taxing them really burdens senior citizens who have earned the right to enjoy a decent retirement. And as for cutting the GST another 1% to placate the critics I say "Screw You". How the hell does another $1 off every $100 I spend help me towards retirement vs. a 1% cut on my tax rate. And don't blame Jim Flaherty for this, he's just the messenger. Though I admit he's really not great with the press. If he had more personality he'd be the Premier of Ontario right now.

Here's a very quick math lesson for those in favour of boosting the minimum wage. Let's say I own a small independent business and need to keep my prices low to remain competitive. I can afford to pay 5 employees $8/hr (which the minimum wage will jump to on Feb 1) for a total of $40/hr. If the wage rate jumps to $10/hr I can still only afford $40/hr. That means I will have to let go 1 employee to keep my wage structure constant. In other words I now only employ 4 of those 5 people and 1 is out of a job. Why is basic grade 3 math so damned hard to understand?

Stockwell Day figure it will cost about $1 Billion over the next 10 years to arm and train border guards. Given the security threats facing North Americans I say $100 million a year is very reasonable and tax dollars well spent.

I'm quite happy Toronto's Expo 2015 bid got shit canned. While I think it would go a long way to revitalizing the waterfront, the city needs to stop spending money chasing things like this. Find other ways to get money into Toronto Island and the waterfront. It's prime real estate and really shouldn;t be that difficult. Anothe reason I'm happy about it is it shows how useless David Miller is. You know you're bad when I'd happily vote for Steven LeDrew over you.