Business
Corporate head offices are fleeing Canada
From the Fraser Institute
Canada is losing corporate head offices. Between 2012 and 2022, one-in-20 head offices closed or merged with other companies, according to Statistics Canada data, which track the number of large and mid-sized Canadian-based companies over time. Head office employment has also dwindled, dropping by around 6 per cent since 2012.
While Canadian corporate headquarters are concentrated in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia, almost all provinces have lost head offices since 2012. In some cases, this can be attributed to energy companies exiting, merging or scaling back their operations in Canada following the plunge in oil prices from 2014 to 2016 and the emergence of an investment-chilling federal regulatory environment. That said, the decline in corporate headquarters and related employment has been broadly-based.
Why should Canadians care?
Head offices serve as “command and control centres” for key decisions about people, products, processes, technologies and strategies for growth. They create local demand for services such as accounting, law, engineering, management consulting, finance and advertising. People who work in these supplier industries, like those employed directly by companies’ headquarters, also earn above-average wages and salaries. A robust head office sector bolsters the tax base to help pay for public services. It also has a positive impact on the extent of private-sector support for education, health care, and arts and charities.
What can be done? Canada has little prospect of “poaching” head offices from elsewhere. Indeed, there is a risk that some Canadian companies in sectors such as energy, forestry, technology, and pipelines could relocate their headquarters to the United States. Instead, policymakers should ensure that Canada has a business environment that helps retain head offices and creates opportunities for more local firms to scale into larger enterprises.
Unfortunately, Canada is hamstrung by a poor policy environment for business growth, including an antiquated tax system that defies understanding even by the most skilled tax accountants, complex and inefficient regulatory processes affecting many industries, internal trade barriers that fragment the domestic market, heavy direct government involvement in multiple sectors of the economy, and a federal government that seemingly lacks interest in doing much to improve the efficiency and productivity of the national economy.
For example, the combined federal-provincial business tax rate doubles or triples if companies grow their net income above a modest level (typically, $500,000). Provincial payroll taxes kick in at thresholds that encourage “micro-businesses” and impose higher tax burdens on mid-sized companies. Research and development tax credits are skewed to benefit very small businesses. Canada also levies high personal tax rates at relatively low income thresholds compared to most other advanced economies, including the U.S. and the United Kingdom. The most skilled employees—managers, professionals, scientists, technologists and so on—are internationally mobile. Many can and will leave Canada for better opportunities in other jurisdictions.
In truth, Canada today is not a particularly attractive location to situate head office jobs, nor to undertake the kind of high-value corporate activities that depend on the presence of senior management and deep pools of professional and technical talent.
Canada cannot afford to see the continued loss of head offices. Governments at all levels should enact policies to support a strong head office sector. And they should avoid taking steps that will spur a further exodus of successful Canadian companies and our most talented people.
Author:
Business
‘Context Of Chemsex’: Biden-Harris Admin Dumps Millions Into Developing Drug-Fueled Gay Sex App
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Owen Klinsky
The Biden-Harris administration is spending millions funding a project to advise homosexual men on how to more safely engage in drug-fueled intercourse.
The University of Connecticut (UCONN) in July announced a five-year, $3.4 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) for Assistant Professor Roman Shrestha to develop his app JomCare — “a smartphone-based just-in-time adaptive intervention aimed at improving access to HIV- and substance use-related harm reduction services for Malaysian GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex,” university news website UCONN Today reported. “Chemsex,” according to Northern Irish LGBTQ+ nonprofit the Rainbow Project, is the involvement of drug use in one’s sex life, and typically involves Methamphetamine (crystal meth), Mephedrone (meth), and GHB and GBL (G).
Examples of the app’s use-cases include providing a user who has reported injecting drugs with prompts about ordering an at-home HIV test kit and employing safe drug injection practices, UCONN Today reported. The app is also slated to provide same-day delivery of HIV prevention drug PrEP, HIV self-testing kits and even a mood tracker.
“In Malaysia, our research has indicated that harm reduction needs of GBMSM [gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men] engaged in chemsex are not being adequately met,” Shrestha told UCONN Today. “Utilizing smartphone apps and other mHealth tools presents a promising and cost-effective approach to expand access to these services.”
Homosexuality is illegal in Malaysia and is punishable by imprisonment, according to digital LGBTQ+ rights publication Equaldex. Drug use, including of cannabis, is illegal in Malaysia, and drug trafficking can be a capital offense.
The Old Border Czar VS The New Border Czar pic.twitter.com/9Ie8JRsroR
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 12, 2024
The NIH disbursed $773,845 to Shrestha in July to conduct a 90-day trial testing the efficacy of JomCare among 482 chemsex-involved Malaysian gays. It also provided Shrestha with $191,417 in 2022 to “facilitate access to gender-affirming health care” for transgender women in the country.
“Gender-affirming care” is a euphemism used to describe a wide range of procedures, including sometimes irreversible hormone treatments that can lead to infertility as well as irreversible surgeries like mastectomies, phalloplasties and vaginoplasties.
Shrestha has a track record of researching mobile health (mHealth) initiatives for foreign homosexuals, co-authoring a 2024 study entitled, “Preferences for mHealth Intervention to Address Mental Health Challenges Among Men Who Have Sex With Men in Nepal.”
The proliferation of LGBT rights has been a “foreign policy priority” under the Biden-Harris administration, a State Department spokesperson previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation, with President Joe Biden instructing federal government department heads to “to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”
“Around the globe, including here at home, brave lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) activists are fighting for equal protection under the law, freedom from violence, and recognition of their fundamental human rights,” a 2021 White House memorandum states. “The United States belongs at the forefront of this struggle — speaking out and standing strong for our most dearly held values.”
President-elect Donald Trump announced on Nov. 12 that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would collaborate to establish a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), with Musk claiming the agency would feature a leaderboard for the “most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars.” Some DOGE cuts could come from LGBTQ+ programs, such as a grant from the United States Agency for International Development to perform sex changes in Guatemala and State Department funding for the showing of a play in North Macedonia entitled, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes.”
“The woke mind virus consists of creating very, very divisive identity politics…[that] amplifies racism; amplifies, frankly, sexism; and all of the -isms while claiming to do the opposite,” Musk said at an event in Italy in December 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal. “It actually divides people and makes them hate each other and hate themselves.”
Shrestha and the NIH did not respond to requests for comment. When reached for comment, a UCONN spokeswoman told the Daily Caller News Foundation that, “specific questions about the grant and the decision to award it to our faculty member should be directed to the NIH, since that’s the funding agency.”
Business
Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces
From the Fraser Institute
By Alex Whalen and Tegan Hill
Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.
In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.
This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.
However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.
Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.
Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.
Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.
Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.
Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.
Authors:
-
ESG2 days ago
Can’t afford Rent? Groceries for your kids? Trudeau says suck it up and pay the tax!
-
Aristotle Foundation2 days ago
Toronto cancels history, again: The irony and injustice of renaming Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square
-
International1 day ago
Euthanasia advocates use deception to affect public’s perception of assisted suicide
-
armed forces1 day ago
Judge dismisses Canadian military personnel’s lawsuit against COVID shot mandate
-
Business10 hours ago
Trump’s government efficiency department plans to cut $500 Billion in unauthorized expenditures, including funding for Planned Parenthood
-
Alberta14 hours ago
Alberta government announces review of Trudeau’s euthanasia regime
-
Addictions2 days ago
BC Addictions Expert Questions Ties Between Safer Supply Advocates and For-Profit Companies
-
Business18 hours ago
CBC’s business model is trapped in a very dark place