- Lest there be any doubt, the Federal Court of Appeal's decision strongly rejecting the Cons' arguments about rebates isn't any more conclusive of the individual charges against four key Con insiders than the ruling below. But the fact that Elections' Canada's interpretation of the law it's in charge of enforcing has been found to be correct is still a rather important development - particularly since there's no general right of appeal unless the Supreme Court of Canada chooses to grant leave (which is does only in a small fraction of cases).
- Scott Payne's contribution to Aaron Wherry's series on the current state of the House of Commons is well worth a read. But I'd argue that his general metaphor is part of the problem: while politics are too often seen as a matter of merely hooking in votes on a one-time basis, the true measure of success should be to get people to want to be involved more generally.
- Having already duly mocked Lorne Gunter's inane column on the Senate, let's note that Chantal Hebert's more reasonable analysis still looks to be somewhat off base.
Of course, nobody will dispute the point that abolition figures to be a difficult process. But I'd argue (as the NDP seems to be doing) that the experience of Canada's previous failed attempts at constitutional reform should be taken as a signal that there's more chance of success in seeking a popular mandate on specific issues, rather than trying to cobble together a full constitutional package through complex negotiations with ever-changing parties.
And it's also worth noting that Stephen Harper used to agree on abolition as an alternative (with no such criticism from the likes of Hebert) - that is, until he stacked the upper chamber with enough of his cronies to be able to override the will of Canada's elected representatives.
- Finally, let's start working on the backlog of developments in the potash sector with this observation from Erin:
PotashCorp paid zero Potash Production Tax in 2010. In other words, the company is swimming in writeoffs and had no taxable profits according to Saskatchewan’s profit-tax formula.
The company’s entire $77-million royalty payment was the provincial resource surcharge, set at 3% of sales.
...
PotashCorp’s 2010 Canadian income tax expense of $333 million comprises about $200 million to Ottawa and $133 million to provincial governments. Because the company also operates in other provinces, Saskatchewan is probably getting less than $133 million.
Meanwhile, PotashCorp is paying $113 million of corporate income tax in Trinidad, where it has a nitrogen facility. In the previous year, 2009, it actually paid more corporate tax to Trinidad than to all levels of Canadian government!
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