Hot Takes: 26 March 2024

What did I say on the radio today?

1.     Florida now has most restrictive social media ban for kids. I have two concerns about this. First, how do you prove your age when you’re 14 or 15? You don’t have any government issued ID except a birth certificate or maybe a SIN card. I don’t want my kids uploading anything like that to any online database anywhere. The risk from identity theft and stalking vastly exceeds the intangible harms of seeing some dancing boobies online or feeling compelled to check how many likes your Snapchat post got.

Second, I teach media and communication studies to 18-19 year old university students who want to work in media. Their only source of news and information is their social media feeds. That should probably change, but until it does do we really want to ban them from those?

2.  Ontario 24-25 budget to be “prudent.” The number one issue facing people in Ontario is an unaffordable cost of living, so this budget should focus on that. Period. This means measures to spark a province-wide mobilization to build more homes more quickly are required. Some of those measures are financial, perhaps discounted loans for homebuilders who build affordable homes quickly? These measures will require government to re-align its priorities and funding, so we need to see that front and centre in this budget.

We also need to see some tangible measures from this conservative administration to start reigning in the size and cost of government, including the amount of government debt we are paying for. Every dollar of interest expense is a dollar that must be earned by a taxpayer and that cannot be spent on health care, education, law enforcement, courts, or infrastructure building and maintenance. This is not about how much we pay government employees – it’s about how many government employees we pay. We need fewer of them in many departments. We’re years beyond COVID now, it’s time to begin rationalizing the size of government – and government debt – we pay for.

Finally, all government budgets are PR exercises meant to bamboozle us into thinking the government is doing good things for us. That means programs we like. That means more spending, not less. Announcing a balanced budget – or a surplus that can go to retiring debt – is a vote-loser. Smart governments promise increased spending on popular programs, then simply don’t spend all the money, resulting in a year-end financial result that is better than projected. We should spend more time looking at those year-end financial results to see what this (and any) government is actually doing.

3.     Where’s the automatic tax system we were promised? After the Phoenix pay system and ArriveCan debacles, it’s become abundantly clear the government of Canada is technologically incompetent. We just don’t do tech. Our ministers are responsible for this failure, and should be held accountable – but, it’s clear there is a lack of tech savvy and procurement competency in our civil service.

We all recognize this is a good idea. So good, the government promised to do it. With the explosion of government hiring since 2015, they should have hired people who know how to get it done already.

The competencies required to operate an efficient and effective civil service in 2024 are not the same as those required of current-day deputy ministers when they joined the public service 35 years ago. It’s time for modernization.

Other countries have automatic tax filing systems that work. The UK, German and New Zealand all do this. So, it can work. CRA receives from employers and others all the information it needs to calculate the taxes owed for one third of Canadians. So, why not do this?

Many low income Canadians and Canadians (at all income levels) with mental health issues simply don’t file a return – it’s too much work, too much stress. As a result, they not only miss out on tax credits that could earn them a refund, they also don’t get other government supports. Benefits like the new pharmacare or dental care programs, child care allowances and carbon tax rebates all require you to file a tax return, so they have proof you qualify. No tax return? No benefit for you.

Too often, it seems our tax system is designed to ensure generational employment for thousands of civil servants and accountants who have created a billion dollar industry filing taxes, rather than to provide the government with the funding it needs to give citizens the services they deserve. It’s time to fix this.

4.     Toronto councillor calls on Ford government to create “hate-free safety zones.” Councillor Brad Bradford knows an opportunity to get people talking about him when he sees one. And this is one of them. How big would these “safety zones” be? 20 meters? 100 meters? Why just protect “faith-based” institutions? Don’t we all deserve protection from hate crimes? I’m pretty sure if you drew 100 meter circles around every school, church, mosque, synagogue, temple and community centre in Toronto, there wouldn’t be much of the city left. I’d much rather we enforce freedom of movement and freedom from harassment (and freedom from crime) everywhere – instead of banning standing and shouting in select places here and there.

5.     Pre-construction condo buyers dumping units at a loss. With risk, comes reward. Or loss. I don’t know why anyone would buy a home that isn’t going to be built for years, except to get an unusually good deal, or to guarantee first pick of a choice unit. But with that reward, comes risk. That’s always been the case, but now we’re in a period of economic topsy-turvy where the risk has returned a loss, not a gain. It was always a possibility. These buyers put their own blinders on. This is simply a consequence of rolling the dice and losing.