Posted May 25, 2018
The Cost and Value of Universities
In 2018 Nova Scotian taxpayers will spend more than $400 million dollars in support of universities, and another $26 million in student scholarships and bursaries.
The students themselves spend more than that amount on their share of tuition and fees. In addition, most of them study away from home and pay for food and accommodations in the city or town where they study.
Posted May 18, 2018
The government and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union are doing a disservice to taxpayers and today’s teachers, who are paying for the inadequacy of past contributions by and for the teachers that retired long ago.
In contrast, the public-sector pension plans for civil service and health care workers are well-funded and can be expected to keep their promises to pensioners over the long term.
Posted May 11, 2018
The city planned to pay for the convention centre with property taxes on the other buildings in the Nova Centre. It didn’t work, and it was always a bad plan.
In late 2010, Halifax City Council voted to commit $56.4 million, matched by both the province and federal government, toward the cost of the convention centre portion of the Nova Centre project. Part of the proposal was that that some or all of the city’s funding could be financed by the property taxes on the commercial part of the project.
Posted April 27, 2018
Justin Trudeau spoke to the Liberal faithful for just under 30 minutes on April 21st. He loves to talk about “sunny days.” The list of topics he didn’t discuss was as revealing as the ones he did.
Posted April 13, 2018
One of the attributes that propelled Justin Trudeau to power in the 2015 election was his propensity to be pleasant in his words and demeanour. This was in sharp contrast to Stephen Harper’s dour persona.
On the other hand, Harper was careful to say what he believed, even if the message was unpopular in some quarters. Trudeau wants all of his messages to be popular, whether or not they reflect what his government actually does.