Tag: Canada Child Benefit

Child poverty dips but Nova Scotia income picture remains dismal

Child poverty dips but Nova Scotia income picture remains dismal

Posted by | Feb 25, 2020 | , , |

Just in time for the self-congratulatory rhetoric of the provincial budget, Statistics Canada released the results of the Canada Income Survey (CIS) for 2018. The latest personal income numbers show that (what else is new?) Nova Scotia remained at the bottom in terms of both poverty rates and median income levels. Only the new figures on child poverty will require any rewrite of the dreary message track of the past couple of years. On that score, when the CIS came out last February it infamously revealed Nova Scotia as the only province in the country with a jump in...

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2017 Budget— going backwards on social initiatives

2017 Budget— going backwards on social initiatives

Posted by | May 7, 2017 | |

The 2016 Liberal budget was quite a different beast from the 2017 budget on which the Liberals are running for re-election. Sure, it shared with the current version the obsession with achieving balance at the expense of public sector wages. But aside from that, it was leftish, featuring new spending on income assistance, childcare and disability supports. The Liberals seemed proud of those initiatives, too. Childcare was such a big deal the Premier announced it at the Liberal annual general meeting. In 2016 the increase in assistance rates was declared “historic,” and the modest increase in spending on disability...

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Middle Class Tax Cut – not exactly as advertised

Middle Class Tax Cut – not exactly as advertised

Posted by | Dec 12, 2015 | |

The Justin Trudeau government’s Robin Hood mask slipped a bit this week with the discovery that those with high incomes would not co-operate fully in the plan to rob the rich to pay the not quite so rich. During their recent successful campaign the Liberals said they would increase income tax on the reviled 1% to pay for a tax cut for the “middle class”. Polls show that most Canadians – regardless of income – consider themselves middle class or are middle class wannabes. Combining that with the anti-1% vibes remaining from the Occupy Wall Street movement gave the...

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Richard Starr, The man behind the Point

About Richard

RICHARD STARR has had careers as a journalist, public servant, broadcaster, political staffer and freelance policy adviser. He is author of numerous newspaper and magazine articles, a former radio and TV producer and weekly newspaper editor, and the author of three non-fiction books. Starr has lived in Dartmouth for more than 30 years.

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