We’re paying the bills, why shouldn’t we have a say?

Shaping Government Spending Choices to Reflect Taxpayer Preferences

Technically, the word “democracy” means “rule of the people”. But we all know that the ability to throw the bums out every few years is a poor substitute for “rule”. And as I’ve already demonstrated, the last set of bums you sent to Ottawa are 19 times more likely than not to simply vote along party lines. So who they are as individuals barely even matters.

This story isn’t new, and it hasn’t even got a decent villain. But it is about a universal weakness inherent in all modern, nation-scale democracies. After all, complex societies governed by hundreds of thousands of public servants who are responsible for spending trillions of dollars can’t realistically account for millions of individual voices. How could you even meaningfully process so many opinions?

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Hang on. It’s 2025. These days, meaningfully processing lots of data is what we do. And the challenge of reliably collecting and administrating those opinions is trivial. I’m not suggesting we descend into some hellish form of governance by opinion poll. But I do wonder why we haven’t tried something that’s far more focused, measured, and verifiable: directed revenue spending.

Self-directed income tax payments? Crazy, no? Except that we’ve been doing it in Ontario for at least 60 years. We (sometimes) get to choose which of five school boards – English public, French public, English separate (Catholic), French separate (Catholic), or Protestant separate (Penetanguishene only) – will receive the education portion of our property tax.

Here’s how it could work. A set amount – perhaps 20 percent of the total federal tax you owe – would be considered discretionary. The T1 tax form could include the names of, say, ten spending programs next to numeric boxes. You would enter the percentage of the total discretionary portion of your income tax that you’d like directed to each program with the total of all ten boxes adding up to 100.

The specific programs made available might change from one year to the next. Some might appear only once every few years. That way, the departments responsible for executing the programs wouldn’t have to deal with unpredictable funding. But what’s more important, governments would have ongoing insights into what their constituents actually wanted them to be doing. If they disagreed, a government could up their game and do a better job explaining their preferences. Or it could just give up and follow the will of their taxpayers.

Since there would only be a limited number of pre-set options available, you wouldn’t have to worry about crackpot suggestions (“Nuke Amurika!”) or even reasoned and well-meaning protest campaigns (“Nuke Ottawa!”) taking over. And since everyone who files a tax form has to participate, you won’t have to worry about a small number of squeaky wheels dominating the public discourse.

Why would any governing party go along with such a plan? Well, they almost certainly won’t if that’s any comfort. Nevertheless, in theory at least, they could gain significant political legitimacy were their program preferences to receive overwhelming public support. And if politicians and civil servants truly believed they toil in the service of the people of Canada, they should be curious about what the people of Canada actually want.

What could go wrong?

Well the complexity involved with adding a new layer of constraints to spending planning can’t be lightly dismissed. And there’s always the risk that activists could learn to game the system by shaping mass movements through manipulative online messaging. The fact that wealthy taxpayers will have a disproportionate impact on spending also shouldn’t be ignored. Although, having said that, I’m not convinced that the voices of high-end taxpayers are less valuable than those of the paid lobbyists and PMO influencers who currently get all the attention.

Those are serious considerations. I’m decidedly less concerned about some other possible objections:

The risk that taxpayers might demonstrate a preference for short term fixes or glamour projects over important long term wonkish needs (like debt servicing) rings hollow. Couldn’t those words just as easily describe the way many government departments already behave?
Couldn’t taxpayer choices be influenced by dangerous misinformation campaigns? Allowing for the fact the words “misinformation campaign” make me nervous, that’s certainly possible. But I’m aware of no research demonstrating that, as a class, politicians and civil servants are somehow less susceptible to such influences.
Won’t such a program allow governments to deflect responsibility for their actions? Hah! I spit in your face in rueful disdain! When was the last time any government official actually took responsibility (or even lost a job) over stupid decisions?
Won’t restricting access to a large segment of funds make it harder to respond to time-sensitive emergencies? There are already plenty of political and policy-based constraints on emergency spending choices. There’s no reason this program couldn’t be structured intelligently enough to prevent appropriate responses to a genuine emergency.

This idea has no more chance of being applied as some of the crazy zero-tax ideas from my previous post. But things certainly aren’t perfect right now, and throwing some fresh ideas into the mix can’t hurt.

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Related Topics:#DavidClinton #GovernmentSpending TaxpayerPreferences TheAudit

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Natural gas pipeline ownership spreads across 36 First Nations in B.C.

Published on June 14, 2025

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Chief David Jimmie is president of Stonlasec8 and Chief of Squiala First Nation in B.C. He also chairs the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group. Photo courtesy Western Indigenous Pipeline Group

From the Canadian Energy Centre

Stonlasec8 agreement is Canada’s first federal Indigenous loan guarantee

The first federally backed Indigenous loan guarantee paves the way for increased prosperity for 36 First Nations communities in British Columbia.

In May, Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV) announced a $400 million backstop for the consortium to jointly purchase 12.5 per cent ownership of Enbridge’s Westcoast natural gas pipeline system for $712 million.

In the works for two years, the deal redefines long-standing relationships around a pipeline that has been in operation for generations.

“For 65 years, there’s never been an opportunity or a conversation about participating in an asset that’s come through the territory,” said Chief David Jimmie of the Squiala First Nation near Vancouver, B.C.

“We now have an opportunity to have our Nation’s voices heard directly when we have concerns and our partners are willing to listen.”

Jimmie chairs the Stonlasec8 Indigenous Alliance, which represents the communities buying into the Enbridge system.

The name Stonlasec8 reflects the different regions represented in the agreement, he said.

The Westcoast pipeline stretches more than 2,900 kilometres from northeast B.C. near the Alberta border to the Canada-U.S. border near Bellingham, Wash., running through the middle of the province.

It delivers up to 3.6 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas throughout B.C. and the Lower Mainland, Alberta and the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

“While we see the benefits back to communities, we are still reminded of our responsibility to the land, air and water so it is important to think of reinvestment opportunities in alternative energy sources and how we can offset the carbon footprint,” Jimmie said.

He also chairs the Western Indigenous Pipeline Group (WIPG), a coalition of First Nations communities working in partnership with Pembina Pipeline to secure an ownership stake in the newly expanded Trans Mountain pipeline system.

There is overlap between the communities in the two groups, he said.

CDEV vice-president Sébastien Labelle said provincial models such as the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation (AIOC) and Ontario’s Indigenous Opportunities Financing Program helped bring the federal government’s version of the loan guarantee to life.

“It’s not a new idea. Alberta started it before us, and Ontario,” Labelle said.

“We hired some of the same advisors AIOC hired because we want to make sure we are aligned with the market. We didn’t want to start something completely new.”

Broadly, Jimmie said the Stonlasec8 agreement will provide sustained funding for investments like housing, infrastructure, environmental stewardship and cultural preservation. But it’s up to the individual communities how to spend the ongoing proceeds.

The long-term cash injections from owning equity stakes of major projects can provide benefits that traditional funding agreements with the federal government do not, he said.

Labelle said the goal is to ensure Indigenous communities benefit from projects on their traditional territories.

“There’s a lot of intangible, indirect things that I think are hugely important from an economic perspective,” he said.

“You are improving the relationship with pipeline companies, you are improving social license to do projects like this.”

Jimmie stressed the impact the collaborative atmosphere of the negotiations had on the success of the Stonlasec8 agreement.

“It takes true collaboration to reach a successful partnership, which doesn’t always happen. And from the Nation representation, the sophistication of the group was one of the best I’ve ever worked with.”

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Trump: ‘Changes are coming’ to aggressive immigration policy after business complaints

Published on June 12, 2025

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From The Center Square

By Brett Rowland

“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

President Donald Trump said Thursday that changes are coming to his aggressive immigration policies after complaints from farmers and business owners.

“Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote in a social media post Thursday morning. “In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!”

Later Thursday, Trump made it clear that businesses need workers.

“Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers – they’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be great. And we’re going to have to do something about that,” the president said.

He added: “We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have, maybe, what they’re supposed to have.”

Just how Trump may change his approach to immigration enforcement remains unclear, but he said he wants to help farmers and business owners.

“You go into a farm and you look and people, they’ve been there for 20 or 25 years and they work great and the owner of the farm loves them and you’re supposed to throw them out. You know what happens? They end up hiring the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else,” Trump said.

Trump said changes would be coming soon, but gave little detail on how policies could change.

“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon – we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too, hotels, we’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

In a later post on Truth Social, Trump said illegal immigration had destroyed American institutions.

“Biden let 21 Million Unvetted, Illegal Aliens flood into the Country from some of the most dangerous and dysfunctional Nations on Earth — Many of them Rapists, Murderers, and Terrorists. This tsunami of Illegals has destroyed Americans’ Public Schools, Hospitals, Parks, Community Resources, and Living Conditions,” the president wrote. “They have stolen American Jobs, consumed BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in Free Welfare, and turned once idyllic Communities, like Springfield, Ohio, into Third World Nightmares.”

He added that deportations would continue: “I campaigned on, and received a Historic Mandate for, the largest Mass Deportation Program in American History. Polling shows overwhelming Public Support for getting the Illegals out, and that is exactly what we will do. As Commander-in-Chief, I will always protect and defend the Heroes of ICE and Border Patrol, whose work has already resulted in the Most Secure Border in American History. Anyone who assaults or attacks an ICE or Border Agent will do hard time in jail. Those who are here illegally should either self deport using the CBP Home App or, ICE will find you and remove you. Saving America is not negotiable!”