OTTAWA — The United States could target digital trade if it decides on retaliatory measures against a proposed Canadian digital services tax, U.S. ambassador to Canada David Cohen said.
The Liberal government confirmed this week it plans to go ahead with the tax targeting Big Tech in 2024, despite 138 other countries and jurisdictions agreeing last week to delay similar measures.
A majority of Canadians are bracing for some degree of financial pain stemming from the Bank of Canada’s latest interest rate hike, according to new survey data from the Angus Reid Institute.
The findings published Thursday come a week after the central bank again raised its benchmark interest rate, this time to five per cent – the highest it’s been in 20 years – in a bid to reign in persistently high inflation.
Three-in-five respondents to Angus Reid’s survey, or 59 per cent of people, said they expect the increase will have a negative impact on their personal finances, and a third said they expect “significant challenges” due to the rate hike.
A retired RCMP officer has been charged with foreign interference, the Mounties said in a news release Friday.
William Majcher, 60, “allegedly used his knowledge and his extensive network of contacts in Canada to obtain intelligence or services to benefit the People’s Republic of China,” the RCMP in Montreal said in the news release.
The release alleged that Majcher “contributed to the Chinese government’s efforts to identify and intimidate an individual outside the scope of Canadian law.”
Ontario is the second-worst province when it comes to the “rental wage” – the amount of money you’d have to make per hour based on a 40-hour workweek to afford rent on average. That’s according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released earlier this week. While no province in the country is affordable — that’s right: not one of them — Ontario is particularly bad. The only worse province is British Columbia.
The report’s definition of “affordable” rent is based on the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s guideline that one should spend no more than 30 per cent of one’s income on housing. The authors of the report, David Macdonald and Ricardo Tranjan, contrast each province’s mandated minimum wage with the rental wage to paint a grim picture of our present and growing housing dystopia.
Yet another leftist article on the housing crisis that neglects mention of mass immigration, the authors do favour a sort of nationalized housing stock initiative.
The crisis is real, but the problem must be dealt with honestly.
When the Canadian prime minister shows up at a NATO conference with empty pockets, then criticizes his allies for giving cluster munitions to Ukraine as the wrong kind of help, it’s tempting to tune him out. But just as an alcoholic might be right that you drink too much, you should sometimes read a message even while grimacing at the messenger.
Back when people made some effort to base policy on principle, they gave much thought to waging just war. And it was broadly divided into two heads in Latin because it was so long ago. (In those supposedly dirty, ignorant, vicious Middle Ages, actually.) On the one hand is ius ad bellum, justice in going to war at all. And on the other ius in bello, justice in conducting the war.
When David Cohen talks about Canada’s defence spending, it brings to mind Edmund Burke’s comments about prudence in diplomacy; that diplomats employ “an economy of truth … a sort of temperance by which a man can speak truth with measure that he may speak it longer.”
Washington’s man in Ottawa speaks the truth but clearly considers it counterproductive to tell the whole truth.
My favourite Martin Amis novel was his 1991 book Time’s Arrow. It is a pyrotechnically brilliant work in which all time goes backwards. On publication it was criticised in some quarters because the novel includes a reverse version of the Holocaust and some thought Amis was using the Holocaust as a literary device. As so often, these transient critics didn’t get the point. It is hard to say anything new about the Holocaust or find any new angle on it.
Two in three Canadians think the amount they pay in income taxes is too high and fewer than one in four Canadians believe the federal government spends on the right priorities.
Those are some of the findings from the latest Montreal Economic Institute (MEI)/EI-Ipsos poll, released today. The poll was recently conducted among a sample of 1,020 Canadians aged 18 and over.
Asha Letourneau from Niagara Falls found herself in an unexpected dispute with the leader of the federal Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre. She didn’t appreciate what he had to say about the house she lives in.
“He called it a shack. A shack. That was a little embarrassing also because it’s not.”
Not a good look Pierre.
GOLDSTEIN: The controversial beliefs of Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ suffragettes
With the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada assessing Tommy Douglas’ “controversial beliefs and behaviours” in light of his early support of the racist science of eugenics, we should definitely take a look at Canada’s ‘Famous Five’ suffragettes as well.
The expected rise in Canada’s population is likely to make the country’s limited housing supply worse – and ultimately lead to even higher home prices, a report by Zoocasa forecasted.
The influx of immigration to Canada, alongside internal population growth and a shortage of housing, will drive shelter costs up, the report released on Wednesday said.
“The more people who live in Canada, the more homes are needed, which will exacerbate the already limited supply of homes,” it stated.
The province has ordered the City of Surrey to continue its transition to the Surrey Police Service (SPS), despite the new council’s plan to revert to the RCMP.
Solicitor General Mike Farnworth said in a release Wednesday that the move to the RCMP could have caused a “crisis in policing” as the city failed to prevent an exodus of SPS officers.
Farnworth also said the city failed to demonstrate they could staff the Surrey RCMP without pulling RCMP officers from other communities, noting the organization is already experiencing a critical staffing shortage across the province and the country.
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial suggested Canada should sit at the kiddies table in the NATO alliance instead of with the adults. This is because as a share of GDP our defence spending is seventh lowest among NATO’s 31 member nations. It’s also lowest among the G7, which prompted the Journal to question whether we are still willing to accept our responsibilities as a member of the G7. It concluded that if this country “doesn’t want to play that role, then the G-7 should consider a replacement.”
Trudeau is a little prick.
Muslim parents in Maryland ripped Justin Trudeau saying much of the fear over LGBTQ themes in schools was fueled by American right-wing extremists, with one mother saying Trudeau effectively called her a bigot.
Last week, Trudeau spoke to parents at a mosque in Calgary after hundreds of Muslim parents gathered in Ottawa on June 9 and 13 to protest against LGBTQ education in schools.
Trudeau told the Calgary crowd that ‘people on social media, particularly fueled by the American right wing’ were stirring up the protests and said they were pursuing their own interests.
I for one would welcome a fatwa against Trudeau.
The Liberal-Left is pulling its hair out.
EXCLUSIVE: An elementary teacher in Windsor, Ontario berated Muslim students for skipping LGBTQ pride day, telling them their abstention was “disgusting” and “an incredible show of hatred” that makes her not want to be their educator. Recording obtained by @TrueNorthCentre. pic.twitter.com/T7jhFfLHvN
— Élie Cantin-Nantel (@elie_mcn) July 19, 2023
Porn sites have asked not to be regulated under the federal government’s Online Streaming Act, arguing that they don’t advance the legislation’s aim to enrich and strengthen the cultural fabric of Canada.
In a formal submission to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, MindGeek, which owns a portfolio of explicit adult sites including Pornhub, Brazzers and YouPorn, says the sites should be granted the same exemption as video games.
