Sunday Morning Links

You should be outside enjoying the weekend. But if you're not, then here's some reading material to help pass the time.

- While it's dangerous to plan too much based on a single poll result, the news that health care is back as the top issue of importance for Canadians looks to make for some interesting calculations for the federal parties. In particular, the issue seems to have mostly surfaced on its own, as the only major development in the area (Quebec's implementation of user fees) has actually received less discussion than would be expected on the federal scene - meaning that there would seem to be room for the numbers to grow further if anybody decides to put on a full-court press on the issue.

- Toby Sanger points out the latest analysis of the impact of Ontario's HST (this from the NDP using Statistics Canada data), and puts it in context as to how it'll affect the tax system:

If we assume that businesses pass on their savings from the HST to consumers through lower prices, I think it is fair to say that reductions in corporate income taxes would flow through to the owners of the businesses. If only half of of these benefits flow through to households in Ontario, then the picture is quite different. (About 28% of Cdn profits go to Canadian controlled corporations and I assumed that 1/3 of the remaining Ontario profits also flow out to people in other provinces)

Once you take account of the distributional impacts of the corporate tax cuts flowing through, the impact of this tax package is mildly progressive on the bottom end, but regressive in the middle to top end. Families with incomes of less than $30,000 are better off by an average of $20 to $80 a year, those in the middle income range from $40,000 to $100,000 are worse off by about 0.5% of their income level (~-$200 to -$400 a year).

However, those with family incomes of over $100,000 would, on average, be better off by about $365 a year after accounting for the all elements of the tax package since this group receives a disproprotionately (sic) higher level of investment and capital income.

So Ontario’s HST tax reform is not an overall massive tax grab, but it is a major tax shift – and it certainly isn’t all progressive.

- If anybody would care to explain why there's any principled basis to tie the Canadian Wheat Board's streamlined payment for grain to the deliberate disenfranchisement of producers, I'd love to hear it. But it looks entirely likely that the Cons are simply looking to hold the former hostage by insisting on the latter - and it'll take another strong push back simply to avoid having the Cons permanently destroy the underpinnings of the CWB.

- Michael Geist points out why the constant stream of anti-Canadian propaganda on copyright issues deserves to be mocked rather than taken seriously:

Late last month, the IFPI, which represents the global recording industry, released its annual Recording Industry in Numbers report that tracks global record sales. The report targeted two countries — Canada and Spain — for declining sales and linked those declines to copyright law. Not coincidentally, both countries are currently working on legal reforms.

The IFPI release succeeded in generating attention but a closer look reveals that it put the spotlight on the wrong country.

Canadian sales declined 7.4 per cent last year. That was bad news, but nearly identical to the global average of 7.2 per cent. Moreover, the declines were far larger in both the United States (10.7 per cent) and Japan (10.8 per cent), yet neither of those countries was described in similarly negative terms.

The same week the U.S. government chimed in with its annual Special 301 report. Often described as the global piracy list, the U.S. chose to lump Canada together with countries such as China and Russia as allegedly among the world’s worst intellectual property offenders.

Rather than embarrassing Canadians, the list itself is increasingly viewed as the embarrassment. This year’s report ignored a submission from the world’s largest technology and Internet companies (including Microsoft, Google, T-Mobile, Fujitsu, AMD, eBay, Intuit, Oracle and Yahoo), which argued that it is completely inappropriate to place Canada on the list.

Moreover, the data suggest Canada is a leader, not a laggard. According to the software industry’s own piracy numbers, Canada’s piracy rate is declining and is dramatically lower than any other country on the priority watch list. In fact, the Business Software Alliance has characterized Canada as a “low piracy country.”

The news is similar with respect to movie piracy, where the motion picture industry has acknowledged that incidents of illegal camcording have dropped in Canada as the country is one of few in the world with criminal convictions for such activities.

- Finally, for those who haven't yet seen the Citizen's article on the Harper government's steps to suppress information from last weekend, it's worth a read.