overthere

No, not unless you outspend them, and even that might not work. Nobody wants to go to jail, so the tax dodges employed by corps are nearly always entirely legal. The problem is not tax evasion, which I don't think is endemic. It's not tax avoidance, which every taxpaying person and company in Canada does. The problem is the tax code itself. It is far too complicated and provides too many outs for everybody. Give CRA the resources to rewrite the tax laws and regulations, then you'll have a shot at collecting more from big taxpayers. Make the system much simpler, with far fewer exemptions and no precedents to employ the legions of accountants and lawyers. One caveat: the purpose is not to increase tax load, it is to make it easier to understand/apply and collect tax. If you insist on making one group pay far more, they simply take their money and leave, taking jobs (and taxes) with them.

You think Revenue Canada gives a rats ass about chasing Joe Six Pack for $50?. They might invest $.03 worth of computer time and a stamp in reminding him of a math error or a forgotten info slip. Auditors spend little time on Joe , their focus is obviously on small business. Joe has no deductions anyway. My dear friend the former auditor advised that she made the bulk of her assigned quota(about half a million per year) in minutes. Auditors use databases to identify anomalies in businesses of the same type, then send masses of vaguely threatening letters advising same that they have this one and only opportunity to review and amend their returns. She actually had no idea if any of them was scamming they were just anomalies and outliers. The $ pour in, many have been a little adveturous and don't want a detailed examination.. Giant lumps of easy cash. The actual hard work was flagging and proving those that were more creative in their theft accounting.

The agreement with AFN on the education funding last tear that the AFN backed away from, with Grand Chief SAttleo losong his job as a result is an example. The legislation called for the billions in education money to be adminstered by local, First Nations school boards for the benefit of children, and specifically not be given directly to the bands. It was a seaparate and accountable pot of money. Rejected......

It is too late, Mr Trudeau accepted and agreed to implement all the recommendations during the campaign, before the report was released. I agree that change is required. It will be interesting to see how they are all implemented, quite a few are going to be fun. For exam,ple, and there are many: "We call upon the federal, provincial, and territorial governments to review and amend their respective statutes of limitations to ensure that they conform to the principle that governments and other entities cannot rely on limitation defences to defend legal actions of historical abuse brought by Aboriginal people. Many civil actions do have time limitations for bring action or appealing. Not any more. A settlement is never a settlement if any aspect of the case can be framed as 'abuse' at any time. And it only applies to aboriginal people.

The Oilers stumbled around last night in a fashion very similar to their worst moments . The y won because their goalie stood on his head, and the Oilers had 3 scoring chances total and scored on all of them. They better not play like that tonight against the Rangers.

Kathleen Wynne is buying morning beer? Is anybody in ON going to organize an intervention?

Speaking of responsibility, what is the final dollar count for sending nearly 400 partyhounds delegates to Paris? I would guess a minimum of $10k to $20K per, excluding security bills and cost of aircraft. Would $40 to $80 million sound right? Oh, and the carbon footprint...

When I travel internationally I have a passport hat identifies me clearly as a Canadian citizen. I rarely run into anybody else who cares. Maybe it matters in a trailer park in Florida or Phoenix. I agree wholeheartedly with your second sentence. It takes a special level of insecurity to rely on waving the flag to make a positive impression. How very American...... I recall a trip to Burkina Faso, when a gent identified me as American. I gently corrected him by saying I was Canadian . His response was short and accurate: "same thing". And from his perspective he was right. There was no need for him to differentiate, we all look, act and are the same from his side.

Hey, thanks for that trenchant analysis of North Korea vs Canada.

What he thinks is best is a new electoral system that guarantees Liberal Majorities. I know that meets with your approval too. Won't happen when the system is rigged. 18 months. Hilarious, you haven't been anywhere have you? In a lifetime of international travel, my observation is that only the utterly clueless ever wear lapel pins or flags on their luggage. Wearing or displaying the Canadian flag abroad is like having a facial tattoo that says "Hi, I'm a goober". It doesn't get and never got anything special except from other goobers.

No, the treatment of the Church was subdued and factual. If they were going black hat/white hat they'd have had shots of anal rape and sobbing children clutching crosses. The movie is pretty balanced, which makes it much better. It is a story about a story. not the story itself.

So you favour not collecting giant lumps of easy cash, but spending more resources on investigations?

What is it that posters want from our electoral system? I want a govt that is first and foremost stable. We have had that for 150 years or so. It is a reason that people move here. FPTP has advantages and disadvantages, as do all systems. What is the compelling reason that we change? We have just seen a change in govt under FPTP, an orderly and civil transfer of power that is not actually the norm in much of the world. We have had many such transfers. There won't be any for a long time if we go to ranked ballots. All of our govts do just that anyway in office. For example, there is no question that Harper gained a majority because he moved to the center. And he more or less stayed there, and lost when he got company from the Liberals who did the same in 2015. The NDP have largely failed to budge much from the left, and despite at least a couple of charismatic leaders have never been the govt.

Yep, it will be a Commons committee stacked with Liberals, a series of sideshows to 'consult' with First Nations, provinces, citizens and anybody sympathetic and/or sycophantic, then passage to much bravura in the Commons. Election promise made and met, and we get the benefit of Liberal govt forever. . I see Trudeau himself serving 4 terms before stepping down, one more year in harness than Dad. Then we will get the next white guy from Montreal as PM. Liberal, of course.

Ummmm... in Toronto maybe. Or is lack of bums in seats an unfair metric for popularity in TO?. If that is the case, the Argos are wildly popular and the Jays are not.

You can only laugh at the naivete. What do you think happens when the govt gets into the recreational drug business? Prices will go up in the short term as everybody piles on a tax.. Growers will dust off their hydroponic lights and get back into direct comptetition with govt. Government will raise taxes. Less people will buy govt weed. Govt hires joint inspectors to make sure people are smoking approved weed......... and so on. Why not just crack it up to 20% VAT right now like in Europe? We can create a workers paradise overnight. What could go wrong? Why not go to zero $? We have no enemies and the respect of the whole world now that Trudeau is PM. We can dump NATO. They'll be our allies for free. Maybe they will move their HQ from nasty Brussels and over to Trois Rivieres. Not to worry, the switch to preferential ballots(surely the #1 priority for Trudeau)- means he and you will have all the time there is.

Can't you see the humour in the Leafs situation though? The fan base is restless after 30 games with a guy they signed for crazy money and crazy term.

except to sign Hamonic they'd have to give up either Nurse or Klefbom plus a forward plus perhaps a draft pick. That is why Snow has not managed to trade Hamonic yet- he wants a Hamonic in return. The OIlers goal this year should be 80 points.

Regardless of what we think, the big brains in Canadian hockey think enough of him to offer him the job of head coach for the Olympic Team, where he won both times. He is the only coach ever to win Olympic gold, World Championship and a Stanley Cup. While entirely predictable, it is pretty funny to see Leafs fans turn on Babcock already- well short of half a season since he took over a very poor team with crappy players.

Back to the OP subject, plucking low hanging fruit is an efficient way of getting a return on the money, our money. Pursuing easy pickings costs little in CRA overhead. Would you rather they expend huge sums for less return to the taxpayer? What exactly is your objection? That they don't catch everybody?

That statement has more than a whiff of fascism.

They need average goaltending to get out of last place. They need a couple of average defencemen to compete with decent teams.

The only promise that matters is "electoral reform". Trudeau wll ride the tide to get that passed, then he won't have to care about any polls, ever.

I don't see the problem with going after low hanging fruit. My good fiend, a former auditor, expalined the process she followed and it made sense to me. She didn't bother with middle class salaried workers, they have few options to cheat. Higher earners, self employed, and small business have opportunity and the the risk/reward ratio is good for Revenue Canada. Big corporations have better accountants and lawyers than CRA, and it is far harder to make a profit from pursuing them . The auditors tend to do what is most profitable, they aren't assessed on what they might collect but what they do collect. I'm not sure that is so wrong. The real culprit is the Byzantine labyrinth of contradictory tax law and regulation. If the govt wishes to up their take from corporations, they need to address that.

You might be a little behind the times there Skipper. I don;t think you;'re seeing lineups on your side of the border with the Canuckbuck at $.73. And nobody is watching US networks anymore on either side unless they are called HBO.