2009 Budget

Earlier today the 2009 federal budget was released after the house of commons was suspended six weeks ago. Minister of finance, Jim Flaherty, said many things as to the deficit that the Harper is going to run. In the budget the main things include: $85 billion dollar deficit in the next 5 years, $20 billion in personal tax cuts, Improved financing for Consumers and businesses for support up to $200 billion. Also there will be $12 billion for infrastructure, and 2 billion for "green" infrastructure and clean energy research. $7.8 billion will be spent on a new renovation tax credit and households are eligible for up to $1,350 a year and $2.7 billion spent on short term loans to the auto industry. In this budget there is a bit of everything, but it is the opposite of what the conservatives were thinking of doing before the election. 2009 is going to be in interesting year for the financial side of Canada and it will be interesting to see what will happen.

When I first saw some of these numbers I was in aw on how big they were but after you divide them by 32 million it starts to seem like allot less. There is something for everyone in this Budget but I don't know how both the NDP's and the Liberals will agree to it. It is not what either of them wanted although the liberals did like the Social policies. After 6 months the conservatives could of come up with something way better than this instead of sleeping and watching TV. Over all I don't agree with what the conservatives have done although they do have some good ideas. Well the only way to find out or not if it is or not is to wait a year or so and see if things get better.

Back to Work Bill

As many people know York university has stopped classes for around 2 months now. The striking teaching assistances have been wanting better wages and more notice on what classes they are getting and when. On Saturday the premier Dalton McGuinty called an emergency meeting with the mpp's to pass the back to work bill on Sunday. In that meeting on Sunday the premier needed all of the parties to agree with the idea; 60% did the others from the NDP's did not, the NDP said that York is just stalling the strike until it gets so serious that the government steps in to resolve the issue. The NDP goes on to say that York university refused to negotiate with the Teaching assistances and it is up to the university to get them back to work. The Bill will be passed and classes will resume late this week or early next.

The Premier is right, the striking workers have prevented classes for long enough and if I were a student there I wouldn't be very happy with the university. Although the NDP's do have some good points, the university should of negotiated better instead of waiting for the government to step in. I think that the Teaching assistances demands were to high and that they shouldn’t get exactly what they asked for. Further down in the article it says that the teaching assistances account for over half of the teaching staff and only get 7% of the budget, this is wrong. The bottom line is that the students have been out of school way too long and need to go back to school.

Related Artical:

http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090125/strike_vote_090125/20090125/?hub=TorontoNewHome

Ban on Smoking In Cars With Kids

"Weed less Wednesday" has now started in Ontario. Yesterday the new law that says that you can't smoke in a car with a child present has been enforced. If a person in the car is smoking with a child 16 or younger in the car can face fines up to $250. Many other states and provinces have enforced similar bans in places like New Brunswick and P.E.I., and also places in the states like California and Louisiana. Many people have arguments saying that there will be very few people charged by this law and it might be considered useless. Others have said that the Ban is just another thing that keeps the thought about quitting in the back of smokers minds. This is just another step to a smoke free Ontario that had started in 1977.

I think that this is a great thing that the Ontario government is doing. Although if you do go on to read the whole article I do agree with the NDP's that it would be more logical to make it enforced if there are people that are under the age of 19 in the car, when it is legal to buy cigarettes. I know that the smoking market is huge and the government will never take cigarettes of the shelves and ban them completely because of all the tax money they get off them. We have to give the government some credit though they are trying to influence the general public to cut back on smoking. I don't think that this law will work that well but if the people are caught than they are less $250 and I bet that after that moment it will never happen again.

Related artical

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20090121/smoking_ban_090121/20090121/

Obama Bus

With the upcoming of Obama's Presidential Inauguration Many Canadians especially African Americans are going all the way to Washington to watch this event. Itah Sadu is one of those many people that are commuting all the way from Toronto to Washington on one of the several buses that are going to the event. A typical travel time to Washington from Toronto is about ten hours, This was about to change when they got to the U.S. Border. The ten hours that it took to get to Washington were now spent with U.S. Border officials. Sadu says that they took all the a African Americans off the bus and interviewed, questioned, fingerprinted, and held at the border for ten hours. Sadu said that there was no doubt about it that it was racism and she heard that the officers were concerned that they even asked a few of the people if they were terrorists to kill Obama. This was said even after homeland security had said that there are no terrorist threats against Obama.

When I first heard this on the radio I was astounded that not only that they would even think of interviewing innocent people that were on the bus. I don't agree that the Guards only took the "Black" people from the bus to interview them. I think that this is wrong in every way. The guards have no right to only take the black people, to interview them and question them for 10 hours is a waist of time. These officers disobeyed the advisement of homeland security. I disagree everything that the officers did at the U.S. border on the days before the Obama inauguration to completely innocent people.