I’ll Keep on TOC’n
By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, Canada West Foundation One of the more enjoyable parts of my work routine over the past year has been the opportunity to pull together the weekly blog article for the Let’s TOC website. So, it is with some sadness that I am posting my last entry. The original [...]
The Infrastructure Penny Tax: Can we Talk About the Real Issues Now?
By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, Canada West Foundation The world unfolds in some crazy ways. In January 2011, I addressed Canada’s first national infrastructure summit in Regina. My presentation to delegates was a bit off the cuff. As part of that presentation, I tossed out the idea of a penny tax for infrastructure. [...]
1¢ Solution to a Billion Dollar Problem (Part IV)
By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, Canada West Foundation Solutions to policy problems seldom enjoy unanimous, much less unqualified, support. The “Penny Tax” is no exception. In this final segment, I respond to the critics. Criticism: The infrastructure deficit is fictitious. It compares what “is” spent (observable) with what “ought” to be spent (unobservable). [...]
1¢ Solution to a Billion Dollar Problem (Part III)
By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, Canada West Foundation As a former colony and dominion of the British empire, Canada has inherited a number of practices and traditions that developed and evolved in Great Britain. Canada’s parliament—based on the Westminster system—is but one example. A less well-known but not unimportant “hang-over” from Canada’s colonial [...]
1¢ Solution to a Billion Dollar Problem (Part II)
By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, Canada West Foundation If the size of the municipal infrastructure funding challenge is the daunting bad news, then the encouraging good news is that the tax burden in Canada has eased significantly over the past 20 years. Personal and corporate income taxes have fallen since the mid-1990s, and [...]
1¢ Solution to a Billion Dollar Problem (Part I)
By: Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, Canada West Foundation In April 2011, the Canada West Foundation published and released The Penny Tax: A Timely Tax Innovation to Boost our Civic Investments. This report, which drew considerable attention across Canada, proposed a fresh, creative, and innovative tax reform to help cities with their huge infrastructure [...]
