Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- The Star makes the case for Canada's wealthiest citizens to pay their fair share:

Apart from their hefty pay packets, the top-earning CEOs are sitting on $2 billion in stock options that are treated as dividend income, and taxed at half the value. That’s a tax break worth $475 million, the centre calculates. Arguably, for those who need it least.

These numbers aren’t just about whipping up raw envy. They reflect public policy choices at a time when Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is looking to chop federal spending to erase Ottawa’s $31-billion annual deficit in the next few years. It’s hard to make a compelling case that the affluent need tax breaks that ordinary workers will never see when Ottawa is short on cash. And when 3.5 million Canadians live in poverty.
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The question such numbers do raise, however, is one of basic tax fairness, and whether Canada’s personal and corporate tax systems need change to ensure that the burden is shared more progressively and equitably. In the long run, ever-growing inequality undermines prosperity and well-being for everyone – including the super rich. This is not a debate the Conservatives are eager to hold, for ideological reasons. But it will gain urgency as the Harper government rolls out its austerity budget and Ontario, too, faces tough choices.
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As Finance Minister Jim Flaherty draws up the budget, tax reform ought to be up for discussion. If there’s one message the Occupy activists managed to get across, it’s that not all of us are contributing our fair share.

- Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail reports that at least part of the move to place corporate-friendly low-tax branding above all other priorities looks to have been put on hold, as Ontario is taking a second look at the corporate tax slashing pushed by the Harper Cons.

- Barbara Yaffe points out the cost of the Cons' attempts to shut down Insite. But it's worth noting that the financial cost of the court case may pale in comparison to the human and financial costs of refusing to facilitate harm reduction strategies elsewhere.

- Tim Naumetz reports on Paul Dewar's national organization. But the most important variable in assessing Dewar's chances may be this:

Mr. Dewar has been so determined to brush up on his French-language skills that he moved in with his male volunteer language tutor for an entire week before Christmas.
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Mr. Dewar, taking three days with his family skiing in Quebec this week, spent his free time before Christmas with his French instructor.

“In a week of full-time French immersion leading up to Christmas and then Boxing Day, to New Year’s, he stayed in Ottawa, but he moved in with his French teacher and he was allowed two hours of family time a day, but otherwise he was living with his French teacher,” Mr. Cressy said.

Of course, it's a plus for Dewar that he's assembling a strong organization. But Dewar's success in presenting himself in French in the debates to come may well determine whether that organization can convert potential support into actual votes when it counts.

- Finally, time is running short - but anybody interested in getting around the Libs' limitation on blogger certification to live-blog their convention should drop iPolitics a line.