2012 Canadian Federal Budget – Lets go Shopping!



PM Harper and Finance Minister Flaherty excited to
release the 2012 Canadian Budget. Afterwards, they plan
to hit New York's 5th Ave. to shop, shop, shop.



In the recent federal budget, Finance Minister Flaherty announced that cross border shopping is a priority for the federal conservatives. They would “do the right thing” and “fix the injustices.” You see, Canadians spend an estimated 14 million dollars a day cross border shopping. This practice enhances the economy of the US, but does the opposite for Canadian society. For every 1 million dollars spent in the US, Canada loses out on at least 2 full time jobs and as many as 5 part time jobs. If we are to leave things the way they have been, we will have lost the opportunity to generate close to 50 billion dollars in economic activity, 10,000 full time jobs, 25,000 part time jobs, 650 million dollars in lost sales tax revenue and 10s of millions more in taxes collected from those working in retail, in shipping, their bosses and their landlords, as well as the cities and towns who collect property taxes from them. The losses are just too enormous for cross border shopping to be left unchecked. Even the “stuff” Canadians bring home from their shopping in the US will be, sooner than not, in our landfills where the tax payer will have to foot the bill to pick up, and deliver that “stuff” to the landfill, which is a huge piece of land the tax payers purchased...for American bought “stuff.”

”Canada is a different country than the US. We do things differently here and because of that we need to respect our own country and her systems of taxation and service delivery,” said Flaherty...NOT!!!!! This is what a responsible finance minister would say. Unfortunately, Canada doesn’t have one of those. In fact, Minister Flaherty did not address cross border shopping losses to Canada. Instead, he sweetened the pot for shoppers by encouraging more cross border shopping, increasing the 24 and 48 hour limits to how much can be purchased duty free. Either this is pandering or it's ignorance to the highest degree. Canadians who really don’t see the destructive nature of cross border shopping should be educated to understand fully the implications of cross border shopping.  Canadians who just don’t care to support Canadian society and want “stuff” cheap no matter what the cost to their own community, well they are the reason for regulation. Either you respect your country or you don’t. Harper clearly is not backing the interests of Canadians with this plank and should be called out for it. Harper told Canadians this budget is about creating jobs and enhancing our economy. How does this do either?

I thought I should mention...

The first part of this article is wishful thinking. The Harper conservatives do not have the intellect or the creativity to “do the right thing” or “fix the injustices.” They would have to build a jail for that and after spending 30 billion dollars on war jets there’s nothing left in the cookie jar. The numbers I used for cross border shopping are readily available on government sites and only reflect current spending. With the new allowable amounts we can deduct with great certainty, those numbers will increase significantly. I thought I should also disclose that I have been in retail for over 25 years and have been affected directly by cross border shopping.

If spending increases by only 25%, here is what we would be giving up:

$6billion in local economic activity

12,500 full time retail jobs

30,000 part time retail jobs

$800million in HST (This has been calculated using the 13% Ontario HST amount. Some provinces are higher and some lower.)

$hundreds of millions of dollars towards income tax, corporate taxes, municipal taxes (I’m sure there is more, but I think you get the picture)

Remembrance Day Poppy Box thieves - Who’s Steeling from our Vets?

The next time you see one of these boxes, read for yourself
what our veterans need donations for. Seems to me the real
crime is how our government treats our own vets.

This year, more than most, we have seen a rash of poppy boxes being stolen off counter tops right across the country. Popular media has jumped on these “unconscionable lower then low thieves”. How can anyone steal from our poor veterans? The populace reaction has been pretty much shared by almost every story written, shown or talked about in the media and of course they all have it totally wrong – or at least, the attention has been given to the wrong story. The real story here is why do our “respected and honoured”  veterans have to rely on donations for things like meals on wheels or for medical aids? This is a disgrace that we as Canadians allow our government to treat the people we collectively put in harm’s way to serve the interests of Canada so poorly that they require good Samaritans to donate so they have access to meals on wheels. Have you ever actually read a poppy box? I did recently and was shocked at what our veterans are obviously not getting from their previous employer. I did a little more research and found over the last 2 decades it’s been getting worse and worse for our veterans. Actually if you go way back in the archives, you will find our veterans have really never been treated respectfully. Below are a few news pieces I was able to find but in speaking with elders and reading what I could find on the subject, it seems this has always been the case. What can we do? Ask your MP – Why do our veterans rely on poppy box donations?

We collectively sent them to war. We collectively should be responsible for their well being...if they survive.

Canada’s treatment of war veterans 'a national embarrassment'

Sheardown, 85, is a former bomber pilot and a Canadian hero who, along with former ambassador Ken Taylor, played a key role in the rescue of six Americans during the Iranian hostage crisis 30 years ago.

Suffering from Alzheimer’s and recovering from a broken hip, the long-time Canadian diplomat is languishing in hospital and faces a wait of up to 18 months for a bed in a veterans’ long-term home in Ottawa, the Star revealed Friday

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/842596--canada-s-treatment-of-war-veterans-described-as-national-shame

Ombudsman blasts government's treatment of veterans

The outgoing veterans' ombudsman, retired colonel Pat Stogran, is going out firing his guns at the Conservative government and federal bureaucrats, expressing his anger at how Ottawa treats its veterans.

"It is beyond my comprehension how the system could knowingly deny so many of our veterans the services and benefits that the people and the government of Canada recognized a long, long time ago as being their obligation to provide," he said.

http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20100817/strogen-veterans-ombudsman-100817/

Veterans protest Canada-wide for change

“We don’t think the veterans are being treated the way they should, the way the Canadian people would want them to be treated,” said Brace, as he stood outside the Daniel J. MacDonald building wearing his uniform decorated with medals and a protest sign reading: ‘Veterans are frustrated and angry’

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2010-11-06/article-1927360/Veterans-protest-Canada-wide-for-change-/1

What is Occupy Toronto all About

If you listen to PM Harper, Canada is not close to being in the dire economic situation the US currently finds itself. He says Canada is in a much different realm that is far brighter than our neighbours to the south. I say don’t be fooled by  what Harper is feeding us. He is a master of deception and our media has been sucked into it time after time. Months ago I wrote the piece below entitled “Corporate Tax Cuts were to Save Canadian Jobs.” That sales job was brilliantly fed to our media,warning that if we didn’t approve  these tax cuts, we would jeopardize  Canadian jobs. Canadians bought into it and hence we now have a Conservative majority. It’s ironic that PM Harper speaks so poorly of the US situation and yet he aspires to emulate the very policies that put them in their ominous state of affairs. Outside of the economy, mandatory minimum sentencing, new mega jails and war jets are Harper’s focus.  Each one of these policies will cost Canadians billions.  Simultaneously, Harper plans to continue with corporate tax cuts.  In the U.S., these irresponsible expenditures and policies have led to over 50 million Americans not having access to healthcare, over 8 million Americans homes going into foreclosure and public sector services being slashed right across the board. Is this what Harper wants for Canada? The reality is that Canada has already unacceptably high poverty rates, dozens of municipalities that have not had clean drinking water for decades, tuitions that keep students slaves to lender years after graduation and a healthcare system on life support. Yet PM Harper believes corporate tax cuts, jails and war jets are a more important priority.

In brief,  the Occupy Toronto movement is about inequalities and government priorities. I hope the article below helps to educate and encourage people  to join the movement or at least be able to understand the cause. I spoke harshly about PM Harper and the Conservatives, but Ontario’s Liberal Premier Dalton Mcguinty is also planning further corporate tax cuts. The Conservatives and Liberals seem to follow the same economic course.  Of course, they will dispute this, but the reality is things were not that different in the Chrétien/Martin days of the 90’s.

Corporate Tax Cuts were to Save Canadian Jobs

Since taking office PM Harper has reduced the GST by 2% resulting in a $13bilion loss of annual revenue and reduced corporate taxes resulting in a further $60bilion in lost federal revenue. Much of these cuts will be paid for by borrowed money adding to our already ballooning debt. How will Harper balance the budget by 2015 as promised in the last election? Our finance minister Flaherty says “by restraining spending.” In other words, public service cuts.

In the period PM Harper was selling Canadians on the idea that lowering corporate taxes will result in more Canadian jobs, he failed to share the second part of the story; less federal revenue due to these tax cuts will result in federal service cuts as well as reduced provincial or municipal transfers that normally would pay for services they deliver, otherwise known as downloading. The “more Canadian jobs” promise was total speculation (lies) as there is no proof at all that lowering corporate taxes increases jobs. If that were the case, Bicks pickles would not have shut down their profitable Canadian operations and head south or Sears Canada would have Canadian customer service representatives rather than Asian. If a corporation relies on Canadians in any way to make a profit, they are stakeholders in Canada and as such should live up the responsibilities and obligations that facilitate their profits – Canadian society. If banks or oil companies had higher taxes would they stop selling us gas or mortgages? Absolutely not! If you are a multinational retailer with stores across our country and your corporate taxes were higher, would you stop selling to Canadians? Of course not. Then why are so many Canadians living pay cheque to pay cheque and losing public services while the most profitable corporations receive tax cuts? Who is PM Harper looking out for, individual Canadians or special interest groups?

The notion that government should be run like a business has been drilled into our brains ever since the “conservative” movement has rooted itself in government and media over the last decade. If government is run like business then I suppose we should be hiring Philippine or Indian nationals as our garbage collectors – hey, we’ll save on labour. Perhaps we should ignore our own laws and mine and sell asbestos to third world countries – oh yeah, we’re already doing that. Perhaps we should lobby ourselves to reduce personal taxes on low and middle income Canadians or improve public services – wait a minute, why isn’t Harper doing this? Hmm, maybe running government like a business is the way to go only when it suits the interest of whoever Harper is looking out for, which clearly is not the majority of Canadians. Fact: According to Toronto research agency Investor Economics, the richest 3.8 per cent of Canadian households controlled 66.6 per cent of all financial wealth (not counting real estate) by 2009, up from 60.6 per cent in 2005 just before the Conservatives came to power. The agency predicts the portion of financial wealth controlled by this richest group of Canadians is headed for 70 per cent by 2018. This polarization of wealth and power is extremely dangerous and in the past has sparked civil unrest, even revolution.  I’m not saying Canada is heading for a revolution; however, staying on Harper’s course of corporate tax and service cuts will create major holes that we and future generations will have to deal with.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was elected on the promise of reducing taxes while maintaining services. Ford does not have the luxury to borrow to cover his shortfalls as PM Harper does. Just one year after Mayor Ford was elected, Torontonians are facing property tax hikes in the order of 2½ to 3½% as well as service cuts and reduced amenities. Ford’s first big move when coming into office was to rid the city of $20 an hour garbage collectors by replacing them with a new labour force making $16 an hour, thus making the poor poorer. He then eliminated the vehicle registration tax, which further reduced city income. The plan now is to tell Torontonians that drastic service cuts are needed in order to balance the budget. Hmm, where did I hear that before?  Oh yeah, our Finance Minister Flaherty.

This Guy is Our Finance Minister?

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is asking a Senate committee to look into the price gap that continues to exist between products purchased in Canada compared to the U.S.. This is a tad scary if our own Finance Minister doesn’t already have the answer to that question. Back in 2009, when the Canadian dollar reached parody with the green back, Minister Flaherty scolded Canadian retailers for “gouging” consumers and urged retailers to “sharpen their pencils.” I was absolutely shocked that the person in charge of our economy made such an absurd comment dealing with his own portfolio. He clearly didn’t understand the inner workings of Canadian commerce then and his actions lately indicate not much has changed. I heard him speak recently on the John Tory show on CFRB 1010 in Toronto. Both he and Tory seemed to lean on retailers as the primary culprits of greed, not passing obvious savings on to the consumer. Here are two highly influential Canadians on the airwaves with hundreds of thousands of Canadians listening and they are spouting out ignorance. Retailers are on the front lines when it comes to consumerism. The best comparison I can make is they are like social workers. They do all the work, get paid poorly and have to put up with a lot of abuse. Minster Flaherty, here is a cost free list of reasons why prices on some products are higher in Canada compared to the US.

Before we start you need to understand the chain of hands consumer goods potentially pass through before they make their way to your home. Retailers buy the goods they sell from wholesalers. Those wholesalers (or distributors) can look a little different and it’s these differences that will determine who may be profiting more since our dollar increased in value. First, there are manufacturers who produce goods themselves. These groups of wholesalers are best represented by the auto manufacturers. GM sells to retailers who in turn sell to consumers. Here is where we should be seeing decreased prices – especially on products manufactured here in Canada. Second, are the “brand marketers” like Nike or Apple who often have third party manufacturers (for the most part overseas) produce their goods, which are sold to them then to retailers (or directly to the public, as in both Nike and Apple’s case). These guys will often import their goods from manufacturing hubs like China. Although we have free trade with the US and Mexico, the free trade only applies to products manufactured in these three countries. For example, Nike shoes imported into Canada from China, have approximately an 18% duty that must be paid out to – you guessed it – Mr. Flaherty.  The US has virtually no tariffs on those same Nike shoes. Here is one very clear reason why Nike shoes have not come down in price in Canada. Third, are the licensed Canadian distributors. These companies buy from the “mother” company, for example Disney. These goods start by being manufactured overseas (in most cases) who then sell to Disney, who sells to the licensee who sells to retailers who ultimately sells to you. There’s the least amount of give in this chain. If there are savings anywhere here, the licensor (Disney in this case) will know it and will swallow up the difference and use the “Canada is a small player” card. Canada is a relatively small player when it comes to buying power, so this too can have an effect on prices and/or the availability of more diverse selection. This excuse is sighted the most by distributors. I personally don’t buy it, but reality is reality and when a retailer buys product, the market (and their fixed expenses) will decide what you and I pay.

So there you go Minister Flaherty, that pretty much gives you your answer – and it was totally free. Now go tell that Senate Committee to do something else and stop the gravy train spending!

http://winnipeg.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110907/jim-flaherty-asks-for-probe-us-canada-price-gap-110907/20110907/?hub=WinnipegHome

Toronto’s War on the Bike

Today Toronto city council voted in favor of spending $440,000.00 to remove existing bike lanes from Toronto city streets. Somehow spending that kind of coin to actually remove progressive infrastructure has become the “conservative” thing to do. While Toronto struggles to balance their budget with looming cuts proposed to everything from child care to other basic services, Council believes this expense to cut bike lanes is justified. This type of thinking falls under the category of wasteful “gravy train” spending. How do you tell a single mother living on a low fixed income that her child care subsidies are being dropped because Rob Ford wants to get rid of bike lanes? This whole mess coined “the war on the car” was created by sensationalist journalists who believed that “the war on the car” made for great headlines. Rather than challenge this divisive, backward thinking, the media repeated this message over and over again until the greater public actually believed there is a war on the car. The simple fact is that these bike lane detractors cannot wrap their brains around the concept that the more cyclists we have, the less cars there will be on the streets, making it easier for cars to travel. That’s just one of many collective benefits of encouraging bike riding as means of transportation. Its mind boggling that we are even debating this point. I would like to know how many councilors who voted in favor of this expense actually consulted with the local communities who will be affected by the removal of these bike lanes.  My guess is none; however Mayor Ford did say he is responding to people “calling into his office.” The reality today is that Toronto, like it or not, has intensified residential properties everywhere downtown. This means more and more people call downtown home and they have a right to have a say on the future of their local communities. What Mr. Ford and his minions at city hall don’t understand is that there are many residents who have no car and rely on public transit or their bike to get around. Rather than rewarding cyclists for making streets more open to cars, they are punishing them by making it more dangerous for bike travel. It seems our current Mayor and council prefers to look backwards instead of looking to the future. Toronto will continue to grow in population – this we know. A forward thinking mayor should realize that one day every street in this city will have bike lanes and streets like Bloor, King and Queen will have no parking. This is what every other large city around the world has already done. Why? Simple, to relieve car traffic congestion (perhaps a little too simple for Mayor Ford’s brain to handle).  To the journalists out there who believe in headlines over sustainability – thank-you for dividing our city. To the people out there who actually believe that bikes are best off the roads – get used to it. As the population continues to grow in Toronto, there will inevitably be more cyclists choosing a bike over a car.  And to the cyclists, keep riding and thank you for setting a positive example to everyone in our city.



 

Thanks to good old Don Cherry, the world has another word to refer to cyclists.



Stupid Is What Stupid Does - Stop the Quarry Now

For many years politicians, urban planners, professors even journalists have condemned urban sprawl. They say the popular model of paving over the landscape indiscriminately into suburban pockets of housing is just not sustainable. This view is widespread among many groups and organizations and yet we continue to allow the ongoing, systematic destruction of valuable land. In places like the GTA (greater Toronto area), urban sprawl is out of control. Municipal leaders who lack vision continue to be bought by land developers. They are convinced that the predicted population growth in southern Ontario needs to be met with more of the same suburbs we’ve condemned for years.  These mayors and councilors have been bought into believing traditional development is the only way and if you don’t build it, they will simply go over to your neighbouring municipality, and they will. It’s time to put a halt to this madness. Municipalities have not recognized past failures and are not willing to change development towards more sustainable approaches. Because of this and how easy it is to buy politicians (by developers), we need to take the powers of appropriating land away from municipalities. We need a provincial plan that looks far into the future and ensures independent, sustainable communities.

It’s extremely concerning that Ontarians import some $4billion worth of food more then we export. Our dependence on other jurisdictions for our food supply has grown to an extremely dangerous level. In the event of a natural disaster, a pandemic, terrorist attack or a blackout (like the 2003 blackout) even the abrupt closing of the US boarder for whatever reason, the city of Toronto would have just 3 days of fresh food supply. We can’t simply ignore these facts; we have been confronted with these alarming stats for some time now but fail to respond.

One could argue that we have protection in place today with the creation of initiatives like the Green Belt protection plan. While the Green Belt does protect valuable farm land, wetlands, forests and watersheds, it says nothing about the massive shortfall of farmland needed to support our own needs let alone this valuable land now being swallowed up by urban sprawl. The point here is to use the land we do develop in a more sustainable manner and build our communities so that we do have access to local food, public transit and amenities.

To meet the needs of developers and their urban sprawl, the Ontario government is proposing to build the second largest quarry in North America.  This open pit limestone quarry will be 1 by 3 kilometers in size and as deep as 200 feet below the water table – that’s the size of about 200 football fields as deep as Niagara Falls! Because it falls at the headwaters for 5 major rivers, the company bidding the proposal will have to pump 600 million liters of groundwater each day – the equivalent of a ¼ of what the entire city of Toronto consumes daily. If built the people of Ontario will be adding 300, 40 tonne trucks along HWY’s 124, 10 and 89 EVERY HOUR. This will inevitably cost us millions in highway upgrades and maintenance and create massive amounts of dust and pollution, which in turn will cost you and I in our health (and the expenses associated with health care) not to mention the unknowns as to water supplies to literally millions of Ontarians. All these issues arise and there has been no environmental assessment.  The Minister of Natural Resources (MNR) can simply say yes or no without the valuable information garnered by an environmental assessment.

Do you want to do your part in helping to stop urban sprawl while protecting valuable land and a precious water supply? Here’s how…

Compliments of Rob Strang, Candidate, Dufferin Caledon, Deputy Leader – Green Party of Ontario

There are four days left to register a comment to MNR in opposition to the quarry via the Environment Registry. Please submit your comment under the Environmental Bill of Rights here before July 11.

You can also write John Wilkinson, Minister of the Environment, asking him to designate this project for a full Environmental Assessment.  A sample letter is available here and may be sent to the address below.

Notes

The comment period on the mega quarry has been extended until July 11, 2011.  To submit formal comments to the MNR’s posting on the Environmental Registry, please visit www.ebr.gov.on.ca and search under posting #011-2864. For information about the posting, please contact Mr. Craig Laing, Aggregate Resources Officer, Midhurst District, Ministry of Natural Resources, at 705-725-7532.

Request that the mega quarry be subject to a full environmental assessment by writing:

Hon. John Wilkinson, Minister

Ministry of Environment

11th Floor Ferguson Block

77 Wellesley St. West

Toronto, ON M7A 2T5

Jwilkinson.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org

416-314-6790

There are various organizations working to fight against this project, including:

http://www.ndact.com/NDACT/Welcome.html

Citizens Alliance for a Sustainable Environment (CAUSE)  www.citizensalliance.ca/

The Council of Canadians http://www.canadians.org/

Avaaz has also launched a petition which can be signed here,

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_quarry/?vl

Canada’s Eroding Democracy

It was no surprise that virtually every mainstream media outlet in our country dismissed the 2011 Harper budget as “the one released before the spring election…but with a couple minor additions”. Once again, they (the Canadian media) blindly disregarded vital electoral changes that will affect every Canadian. The newly added plank of phasing out party funding may not seem like much on the surface, but the ramifications of this decision will make Canada much less democratic. John Tory of CFRB1010 radio in Toronto downplayed this policy and the budget as “not going to affect Canadians.” In fact, Mr. Tory and many other news reports that used a similar tone can’t be any further from the truth.

In 2004, PM Jean Chrétien introduced new election rules around party funding and fund raising. The idea was to make funds available to all ideologies that Canadians deemed to be worthwhile.  With the changes, a party must receive at least 2% of the popular vote to qualify for this funding; two per cent represents approximately 400,000 votes. There was a clear disadvantage to any party who represented the interests of individuals or groups of individuals who may not have the financial means to support a political party. It was recognised that this disadvantage was not democratic, so Parliament voted to allow Canadians themselves to make the decision on who will or will not receive funding. This meant parties that qualify for the funding would receive it according to the way the people of Canada decide through their vote. This policy put the power of funding directly in the hands of the people. This fair and democratic system was scrapped by Harper in the release and implementation of the 2011 federal budget. 

Most troubling about scrapping the right for Canadians themselves to decide who deserves funding is that in the last 5 years Harper has been systematically eliminating funding to organizations who have traditionally represented minorities who haven’t the resources to fund political parties. Organizations including Human Rights Advocacy Organizations, Women’s Rights Advocacy Groups, Immigrant Organizations and others have all lost or dramatically reduced federal funding.   The result of scrapping party funding coupled with organizations losing funding means the interests of all these groups will diminish to a point where progress is impossible – their voice will be lost or dramatically silenced.  Parties representing these interests cannot compete against other parties who back the interests of, for example, the banks, big oil, and corporations in general or the wealthy. These interests have the means to have their message heard while less wealthy interests remain silent.

Silencing parties and organizations that don’t fit the conservative mould isn’t all Harper has done to grasp complete control. He has silenced public service staff or academia who dare to question conservative initiatives. The Ministry of National Resources was this year crowned the Canadian Journalists Code of Silence award for muzzling a leading Canadian Geologist sighting “media lines” must first have minister office approval before speaking to the public or media.

It’s extremely worrisome that no one in the mainstream Canadian media understands the severity of this or at least has the courage to report it. Our democracy has been diminished by Harper in 5 short years and no one in Canadian mainstream media cares and/or has the ability to recognize what has unfolded in such a short time. Prorogation didn’t do it, contempt in parliament didn’t do it, filibustering committees, silencing critics, and now these electoral reforms weren’t enough to capture the attention they deserve. The lack of opposition in parliament has also got me scratching my head. It is so ironic that at a time in history when suppressed nations all around the world rally to improve their countries by moving towards democracy, we are letting ours slip away.

There are measures we can take. When we hear clear political bias on the airwaves, call in and let them know you are on to what they are doing. Write to the papers and email TV stations; be relentless. Let them know what you know and ask them why they are not reporting on these important matters. Hopefully they will cave under public pressure and do the right thing. Our biggest challenge is communicating to unengaged Canadians who have been totally disenfranchised by the whole Canadian political process. In the 2011 federal election there were almost 40% of eligible Canadian voters (9,251,160 people) who choose not to vote at all. If only a fraction of those voters showed up at the polls, the outcome may have been much different.

The lists below were found on the Canadian Center on Policy Alternatives web site. The lists are part of a great article by Maria Gergin posted on April 6^th, 2011.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/commentary/silencing-dissent-conservative-record

List of organizations which have been cancelled or defunded, followed by a list of individuals who have been silenced or removed from their posts.

(2006-2011)

1.       ORGANIZATIONS

Seventy-nine community organizations, agencies, NGOs, research bodies and programs which have been cancelled, or whose funding has been cut or dramatically decreased:

·         Aboriginal Healing Foundation

·         Action travail des femmes

·         Afghan Association of Ontario, Canada Toronto

·         Alberta Network of Immigrant Women

·         Alternatives (Quebec)

·         Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale (AFEAS)

·         Bloor Information and Life Skills Centre

·         Brampton Neighbourhood Services (Ontario)

·         Canadian Arab Federation

·         Canadian Child Care Federation

·         Canadian Council for International Co-operation

·         Canadian Council on Learning

·         Canadian Council on Social Development

·         Canadian Heritage Centre for Research and Information on Canada

·         Canadian Human Rights Commission

·         Canadian International Development Agency, Office of Democratic Governance

·         Canadian Labour Business Centre

·         Canada Policy Research Networks

·         Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women

·         Canada School of Public Service

·         Canadian Teachers' Federation International program

·         Canadian Volunteerism Initiative

·         Centre de documentation sur l’éducation des adultes et la condition feminine

·         Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA)

·         Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples (Toronto)

·         Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada

·         Childcare Resource and Research Unit, SpeciaLink

·         Climate Action Network

·         Community Access Program

·         Community Action Resource Centre (CARC)

·         Conseil d’intervention pour l’accès des femmes au travail  (CIAFT)

·         Court Challenges Program (except language rights cases and legacy cases)

·         Court Commission of Canada

·         Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre Toronto: (Funding cut by CIC in December 2010).

·         Democracy Council

·         Department of Foreign Affairs, Democracy Unit

·         Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women Toronto

·         Eritrean Canadian Community Centre of Metropolitan Toronto

·         Ethiopian Association in the Greater Toronto Area and Surrounding Regions

·         Feminists for Just and Equitable Public Policy (FemJEPP) in Nova Scotia

·         First Nations Child and Family Caring Society

·         First Nations and Inuit Tobacco Control Program

·         Forum of Federations

·         Global Environmental Monitoring System

·         HRD Adult Learning and Literacy programs

·         HRD Youth Employment Programs

·         Hamilton’s Settlement and Integration Services Organization  (Ontario)

·         Immigrant settlement programs

·         Inter-Cultural Neighbourhood Social Services (Peel)

·         International Planned Parenthood Federation

·         KAIROS

·         Law Commission of Canada

·         Mada Al-Carmel Arab Centre

·         Marie Stopes International, a maternal health agency

·         MATCH International

·         National Association of Women and the Law (NAWL)

·         Native Women’s Association of Canada

·         New Brunswick Coalition for Pay Equity

·         Northwood Neighbourhood Services (Toronto: (Funding cut by CIC in December 2010).

·         Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH)

·         Ontario Association of Transitional Housing (OAITH)

·         Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care

·         Ottawa Chinese Community Services Centre

·         Pride Toronto

·         Réseau des Tables régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec

·         Riverdale Women’s Centre in Toronto

·         Royal Canadian Mounted Police External Review Committee

·         Sierra Club of BC

·         Sisters in Spirit

·         Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

·         South Asian Women’s Centre

·         Statistics Canada long-form census

·         Status of Women

·         Tropicana Community Services

·         Womanspace Resource Centre (Lethbridge, Alberta)

·         Women’s Innovative Justice Initiative – Nova Scotia

·         Women’s Legal Action and Education Fund

·         Workplace Equity/Employment Equity Program

·         York South-Weston Community Services Centre Toronto

INDIVIDUALS

Fourteen civil servants, scientists, and organizations/watchdogs whose staff have been fired, publicly silenced, or who have resigned in protest:

·         Rémy Beauregard, President, Rights & Democracy  (International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development)

·         Chief Supt. Marty Cheliak, Director General, Canada Firearms Program

·         Richard Colvin, diplomat, Foreign Affairs

·         Yves Coté, Ombudsman, Department of National Defence and the Canadian Forces

·         Linda Keen, Chair, Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission

·         Paul Kennedy, Chair, RCMP Police Complaints Commission

·         Adran Measner, President and CEO, Canadian Wheat Board

·         Kevin Page, Parliamentary Budget Officer

·         Sheridan Scott, Commissioner, Competition Bureau

·         Munir Sheikh, Deputy Minister, Statistics Canada

·         Col. Pat Stogran, Veterans Ombudsman

·         Steve Sullivan, Ombudsman, Victims of Crime

·         Peter Tinsley, Chair, Military Police Complaints Commission

·         Earl Turcotte, lead negotiator, Mine Action and Small Arms Team, Foreign Affairs