A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Good column this morning from TC writer Paul Willcocks , who notes the correlation with income levels in the HST vote. It really is unsettling to see what has happened in B.C. - having grown up on the Island, I too share a memory of young people of my generation having much more of a chance of finding a decent-paying job, buying a house and having a "good" life. I got married for the first time when I was 17, a fact that might signal a life on welfare in this day and age. Happily, my husband had a great job at the Campbell River mill. We had two cars, a cabin that we owned on the beach (!) in Royston, and within a couple of years had moved up to a new house in a nearby subdivision. My two oldest kids have managed to buy into the housing market in the Comox Valley, but they're 37 and 34, so of a previous generation themselves. And it has certainly stretched them to be homeowners regardless. My youngest child, in her mid-20s and living in Victoria, doesn't stand a ch...

This study from the Canadian Centre for Police Alternatives puts some figures to a trend that many of us have already figured out - the tax burden has shifted significantly in B.C. in the last 10 years in ways that leave high earners paying less and the poorest paying more. Not too surprising that voters defeated the HST given that reality. When taxes decrease for people with higher incomes, it also has a disproportionate effect on the tax base. A one or two per cent tax reduction on an income of, say, $300,000 is significantly more of a loss than can ever be made up through a corresponding one or two per cent increase for the province's lowest earners. What does it mean for the rest of us? Less money for government-funded services, the risk of rising social disorder, government spending at the most expensive end of the scale due to the savings of today morphing into the ballooning costs of tomorrow. With reduced investment in preventive services and strategies due to sinking t...

A different take on the issue of human trafficking - which, as this professor points out, is a phrase that tends to bring out emotional prose, gigantic numbers and no real evidence that it really is the major problem everyone says it is. I'd hate to be considered pro-trafficking, because that would be just plain weird, but I do think it's one of those issues we use to justify throwing money into initiatives that sound good until you realize they're not actually helping anyone other than the people paid to do them. Yes, there are vulnerable people out there trapped in horrible situations. But maybe we should be figuring out how to help them instead of chasing ghosts. 

I know everyone's posting this wonderful letter from the late Jack Layton , but what the heck - I want it on my blog, too. It's just a lovely sentiment to keep close. Bye, Jack. 

Be careful what you wish for around gaming grants When the New Democrats first turned aggressive about gambling in the mid-1990s, they knew they had to tread lightly. The public was nervous, as were B.C. charities. With their long history of running bingos, special-event casinos, poker nights and raffles to fund community services, they were worried about government’s plans to turn gambling into a new provincial revenue stream. The charities put up quite a fight in the late 1990s. But despite those valiant efforts, it’s pretty obvious in 2011 who has won this battle. When a group of the charities formed the B.C. Association of Charitable Gambling and signed a memorandum of understanding with the province in 1999, charities were guaranteed a third of the pot for distribution as grants to non-profits doing good community work. That lasted about as long as it took for the government of the day and every government since then to forget that there ever was such an arrangement. Twelve year...

Not too surprised to see the Farewell Foundation lost its first attempt to get Canada's assisted-suicide laws struck down. The group clearly has passion for the issue, but the judge made it clear they'll need more than that if they want to proceed - they'll need someone with a terminal illness willing to be their modern-day Sue Rodriguez. Keep an eye on Joe Arvay's case coming up in November, though. That second assisted-suicide case is much more similar to the Rodriguez one, involving  a B.C. woman dying of ALS trying to do the same thing Rodriguez tried in 1993 - to die with dignity when the time comes. 

Thank you, thank you, Warren Buffet, our go-to guy when we need sane comment from the super-rich.  It hadn't escaped my attention that sacrifice and belt-tightening are words governments direct only at the lower income classes. Sure, the rich will be able to afford bigger compounds and better weapons when it all goes sideways for good, but I can't believe they're any happier than the rest of us at where things are going.