Stephen Harper has continually disgraced Canada and its citizens throughout his almost 10 year reign as Prime Minister. There are many problems that have risen throughout Harper’s governing; the widening of the wealth gap, the lack of women’s rights and aboriginal rights are just a few. With an election around the corner, it’s time for change.
The Harper government tend to push aside many problems that exist in this nation. The wealth gap is widening tremendously; the rich are getting richer and the poor are still poor. According to Statistics Canada, "The top 20 per cent of Canadian families by income saw their average net worth rise from $721,900 in 1999 to $1.3 million in 2012, adjusted for inflation. Those numbers compares to the bottom
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Harper also pays favouritism to his friends who will undoubtedly vote for him by “preferring policies aimed at giving tax breaks to the rich” (Rochon). Families, who really need an increase in their government cheques, including childcare allowance, have to suffer the avoidable consequences of Harper’s actions.
The Harper government has also been neglecting important basic human rights that are given to women and aboriginals. The Conservative party has cut funding to many women’s groups. "In 2006, the Conservatives cut Status of Women Canada’s budget by 37 percent and closed 12 of its 16 regional offices. They also eliminated funding to women’s groups doing research, advocacy, and lobbying, and opened up funding to religious and
The house of Commons made it very clear that by the year 2000 child poverty will be completely gone. Although they tried very hard for this to become true it didn't, in 2007 the percentage of a family's income going towards their children had decreased only a little bit. One in ten children living in Canada lived in poverty and one in four Aboriginal children in Canada lived in poverty. There was so many different ways to stop child poverty but they could never come up with one and all agree on it. One of the solutions was that parents with lower income should pay lower taxes but others didn't feel that that was very fair to other Canadians. Some other people thought that the government should play a better role in caring for the kids and youth of their
idea of turning Canada back to its original roots. He compares Harper's government system with Pierre Trudeau’s. Arguing about the struggles and failures of
Opposing the belief that a dominating leader is running Canada, Barker brings up several key realities of the Canadian government. He gives examples of several “… instances of other ministers taking action that reveal the limits prime-ministerial power,” (Barker 178). Barker conveys the fact that Canada is not bound by a dictatorial government, “…it seems that the prime minister cannot really control his individual ministers. At times, they will pursue agendas that are inconsistent with the prime minister’s actions,” (Barker 181). Both inside and outside government are a part of Canada and they can remind the prime minister that “…politics is a game of survival for all players,” (Barker 188). Barker refutes the misinterpretation of the Canadian government by acknowledging that a prime-ministerial government existing in Canada is an overstatement.
The issue of economic inequality has ruined the economy of the United States completely. This issue is making its way to Canada, which is causing more of its citizens to go into poverty. When this problem first started to arise, it was strongly ignored by the government because they believed it would not cause a problem. However, over the past twenty years, it has increased rapidly which caused the gap between rich and poor to became enormous. Moreover, the wealth of the rich strongly depends on the disadvantage of the poor. The only way the rich will stay rich is if the poor stay poor. The top one percent of Canadians receive 318,000 dollars on average whereas the bottom ninety percent receive only 28,000 dollars. If the poor start getting high
Since Justin Trudeau has been elected, he has made multiple changes, from Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, to the missing and murdered women and girls inquiry, to the legalization of marijuana.
Trudeau's passion for the issues he believes in is uncanny. He does not lose focus until the job is complete. Therefore, The Prime Minister and the liberal party continually focuses on growing the Canadian economy, supporting small businesses, helping the middle class and the citizens trying to join it. Benefiting the wealthiest 1% allows the negligence of hardworking Canadians and making system fairer for everyone. In a interview with the CBC, Truedeau stated, “ The system as it's set up gives too many benefits to wealthy people and not enough to the people who really need the support.” (CBC 2). To insure the system does not become my unfair to the people who truly need the support. The liberal party and Prime Minister Trudeau have created
Justin Trudeau has both glamour and fresh ideas to the government of Canada, but his political honeymoon with the people of Canada has come to an end. Canadian did not like the fact that Justin Trudeau provided from the eulogy at Fidel Castro’s funeral despite Fidel Castro’s past as a dictator. He also abandoned his promises to fix the electoral system which was one of his main promise during his election campaign. At the G20 summit in 2015 the liberal party said ‘we will fulfill G20 commitment and phase out subsidies for the fossil fuel industry over the medium-term.’, however, there is still no detailed plan of action for this promise. Those Justin’s unfavorable actions made Canadians disappointed and it implies his popularity for the next
The reconciliation of Canada’s broken relationship with its indigenous people has been at the forefront of Prime Minister Trudeau’s political agenda. Trudeau has promised reform on a number of fronts. In a recent speech to the United Nations, Trudeau addressed the ongoing mistreatment of Canada’s 1.4 million indigenous people and expressed a strong Canadian commitment to repairing a long history of Aboriginal injustice.
Now that you are up to date with currents events I will briefly touch on some strong point of the Canadian democratic system. Citizens in Canada indirectly hold power in a free electoral system and are given better representation and more freedoms for their citizens than other systems of government. The freedom of speech, freedom of political expression, and the freedom of the media allow citizens to vote in favour of their own interest. Democracy in Canada is rooted on the grounds of equal rights; this gives people equality before the law, human rights, free and fair elections and so on. In comparison to the Third World, power is in the hands of the “Big Men”, the police and army are the ones who hold control not the people and where corruption is a norm, Canada may look like a utopia. Another strong point in the Canadian political system is everyone no matter race or sex has the right to vote as long as you are a Canadian citizen over the age of eighteen. Until the 60s/70s parties would make up electoral boundaries this was done to increase the number of votes in that location this is called gerrymander, this was unfair because certain parties had an advantage over others. However, now under the Electoral Boundaries Commissions this problem does not occur and no party has the upper hand over another. Interestingly the
Stephen Harper’s nine-year reign as Canada’s Prime Minister presents Mr. Harper as the most controlling and iron fisted leader in Canadian history. Whether it is local, provincial, or federal politics, a government’s abuse of power often leads to a fall from grace. Stephen Harper’s abuse of power lies within the heart of the Conservative Party’s entitlement and lack of transparency. Harper’s
On August 2, 2015, the previous Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, asked for the governor general’s permission to dissolve parliament with the mentality of running a 78-day election campaign. Based on this, understanding the political realm of the government and certain obstacles Harper faced in order to make this decision becomes crucial for candidate leaders belonging to other political parties. Stephen Harper encountered both structural and institutional constraints, considering his goal was to hold a majority government in his next term in office. In doing so, Harper would have had to be aware of the potential changes within the election process and the system of government itself that would best suit to him forming a powerful government
While Prime Minister, Stephen Harper is credited with uniting the Conservative party, there are others who don’t like his authoritative, almost dictatorship manners. While he has scored a few points, Harper has also taken many hits with scandals and dark whispers of public mistrust and wrongdoings. Since change is always the big “C” word that ominously threatens every election, causing surprises and upsets; it is doubtful our election will come close to matching the pernicious back-biting, infighting and nail-biting the amped-up U.S. presidential campaign is already delivering.
The first reason that shows that Canada has become a “just society” is the changes to women’s legal rights. Since the 1970s, many women have stepped up to the work of politics. Several instances include Kim Campbell, the first woman to become the prime minister of Canada,1 Kathleen Wynne, the first premier of Canada to be lesbian,2 Beverley McLachlin, the “first female chief of justice of the Supreme Court of Canada,”3 and Catherine Callbeck, the second female provincial premiere and first woman to win
In Kevin Milligan’s proposal Tax Policy for a New Era: Promoting Economic Growth and Fairness, a dual income tax system has been introduced that would boost economic growth and increase tax fairness. The new system contains a single, low rate on all capital income, coupled with a higher top tax bracket on wages. This essay, however, will focus on analyzing Miligan 's arguments in reforming the tax system. In this report, Milligan mentions two trends that raise concerns for current Canadian tax system. The first one is the increasing income concentration. More and more money was earned by relatively small portion of people. This has triggered some equity issues because the proportional tax that high earners pay does not higher that those
Turning our attention specifically on Canada, we can examine Figure A and see the inequality that has been rising to an unprecedented high of income inequality. Although we are see that through taxation this inequality has been reduced, the problem still remains significant as we can see the household inequality is drastically rising in all the major metropolitans in Canada especially from 2000-2005. This is