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Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse

Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse.

Suing your doctor: Contentious malpractice system in for shakeup as judge’s review nears end

It’s the only way for patients to seek justice when they’ve been harmed by health-care error, but Canada’s medical-malpractice system is itself rife with controversy.

Patients complain of a scorched-earth defence approach by doctors, the number of lawsuits filed has been shrinking and the costs for governments that subsidize physicians’ liability coverage have been rising sharply.

A respected former judge, however, is about to shake up the system, putting the final touches on a largely unheralded, government-commissioned report with the potential to transform what happens when doctors get sued.

Source: Suing your doctor: Contentious malpractice system in for shakeup as judge’s review nears end NATIONAL POST

A look at federal funding for health care and social programs

The Government of Canada provides significant financial support to provincial and territorial governments on an ongoing basis to assist them in the provision of programs and services. There are four main transfer programs: the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), the Canada Social Transfer (CST), Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing (TFF).

The CHT and CST are federal transfers which support specific policy areas such as health care, post-secondary education, social assistance and social services, early childhood development and child care.

The Equalization and TFF programs provide unconditional transfers to the provinces and territories. Equalization enables less prosperous provincial governments to provide their residents with public services that are reasonably comparable to those in other provinces, at reasonably comparable levels of taxation. TFF provides territorial governments with funding to support public services, in recognition of the higher cost of providing programs and services in the North.

Federal Transfers to Provinces and Territories – 2008-09 to 2017-18

(Updated December 2016)

The Canada Health Transfer and the Canada Social Transfer

Equalization and Territorial Formula Financing

Other Transfers

Fiscal Balance

Source: https://www.fin.gc.ca/access/fedprov-eng.asp DEPT OF FINANCE

Canada Revenue Agency’s landlord stashed money in offshore tax havens 

The federal government agency tasked with cracking down on offshore tax avoidance rents its offices from a corporate group that has moved hundreds of millions of dollars into tax havens. Three Canada Revenue Agency offices — in Calgary, Edmonton and Montreal — were sold in 2007 in a controversial sale and leaseback arrangement to Larco Investments Inc., a company privately held by Vancouver’s reclusive Lalji family.

Source: Canada Revenue Agency’s landlord stashed money in offshore tax havens | Toronto Star

‘It may go unnoticed’: Why Canada is ripe for immigration scams 

Imagine that your business name is used as bait to scam foreign workers hoping to come to Canada or that your stolen personal identity is used as the contact for the scheme.It is happening to some of Canada’s best-known companies, including Bell Canada, Via Rail, Scotiabank and Bombardier and to a Montreal businessman, CBC News has learned.Those companies and the Montreal man were unaware that someone had used them as a front to defraud foreign job seekers out of thousands of dollars until CBC News told them.

Source: ‘It may go unnoticed’: Why Canada is ripe for immigration scams – Canada – CBC News

City of Toronto Sick Leave Agreement is What I Need Too

Toronto Silly Hall

Toronto Silly Hall

If you live in Toronto, you must have heard recently that more than half of city workers can get six months of paid sick leave each year.

If you live in Toronto, you must have heard recently that more than half of city workers can get six months of paid sick leave each year.

Say what? Let me repeat that. More than half of the city’s unionized workers are entitled to have 130 days (there are roughly 240 working days in a year) of sick leave each year! For guys that have been with the city for more than 10 years, they get 100% of their pay for those sick days while those with less, get 75% to 100% based on a sliding scale.

Do city workers really need that? Apparently, so. They are so sick and unwell in our land of free health care, that as revealed by the Toronto Sun, city employee absenteeism cost taxpayers $104 million last year, up $3 million more from 2014.

The Sun also reported that there are 1,285 city employees (1 in 20 of all city employees) on the long-term disability (LTD) benefit that comes into effect after those 130 days.

Crikey. What a sweet deal!

There is no need to wonder why the City of Toronto is in financial trouble with financial management like this. They just signed the deals earlier this year.

It makes my stomach turn. Oh, geez, I am feeling sick now myself.

I need a sick day! But I am self-employed and have to go to work otherwise, I can’t feed my family or pay those lovely taxes that support all those workers.

It makes me wonder, though, if I can con – no, poor choice of words – negotiate with the City into paying me somehow – a self-employed health tax benefit, perhaps?

Any entrepreneurs out there willing to support me on this?

Ontario to reduce fees to doctors billing more than $1M a year

Ontario would reduce fees paid to doctors who bill over $1 million a year as part of a new offer to the province’s medical association.

The government’s proposed three-year plan to the Ontario Medical Association — whose members rejected a government contract offer last summer — takes a Robin Hood approach, trimming payout to some doctors and for some procedures that can be conducted faster with new technologies to give lower-paid family doctors an extra $185 million a year.

Source: Ontario to reduce fees to doctors billing more than $1M a year | Toronto Star

‘If you’re not angry about this you’re not paying attention’: Property tax breaks

The regional director of a taxpayer advocacy group is calling for a move to an arm’s-length process for deciding corporate property taxes.Kevin Lacey, the Atlantic Canada director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the government is too involved with these negotiations.”I think we need an arm’s-length process,” said Lacey.Property tax concessions have cost N.B. nearly $380M over 40 years New Brunswick tax breaks: Who gets what Irving Oil’s tank farm and the tax break that keeps on giving”Something that’s similar to the auditor general or an arms-length review that would be independent of the government and the government would be forced to accept the recommendation.”

Source: ‘If you’re not angry about this you’re not paying attention’: Property tax breaks – New Brunswick – CBC News

We can protect the environment without a big new tax

Ask any Canadian what one of the most important policy issues of today is and there’s a good chance they’ll say climate change. Certainly climate change must be discussed and addressed.

Indeed, this is why many politicians and policy leaders around the world have turned their minds to how we can limit our global greenhouse gas emissions

Source: We can protect the environment without a big new tax | Guest Column | Columnists TORONTO SUN

‘Shadow System’ Of Tax Breaks For The Rich Costs Canada Billions: Study

Canada’s income tax deductions are helping make the rich richer, a new study has concluded.

The research paper released Monday by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says breaks on personal income taxes in Canada cost almost as much as the government collects from those taxes, and they disproportionately benefit the rich.

Source: ‘Shadow System’ Of Tax Breaks For The Rich Costs Canada Billions: Study HUFFINGTON POST

Some doctors have tax complaint – but they’re off-base

Physician groups have been lobbying aggressively to have federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau quash a government plan to tighten up the rules that some corporations use to reduce or defer their taxes. Some specialist groups, such as radiologists, have gone so far as to claim that thousands of doctors will flee the country if the tax break is not maintained.

There are two distinct issues here: First, is the tax loophole that doctors want to keep justified? And, second, how should the government deal with the threats?

Source: Some doctors have tax complaint – but they’re off-base GLOBE AND MAIL