News
Does airport preclearance offer a model to help U.S. prevent future mass shootings?
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WASHINGTON — In a nation of more than 332 million people now outflanked by their own firepower, a Canadian-born professor is preaching the merits of using risk management to prevent mass shootings.
Sheldon Jacobson, who teaches computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, suggests approaching gun safety like air travel: with screening efforts focused on identifying those who pose the greatest danger.
“People think we can bring all these killings down to zero. It’s not going to happen,” said Jacobson, who was born in Montreal and moved to the U.S. in 1983 to go to school.
“What we can do is reduce the risk. And as we reduce the risk, we will reduce the outcome, which is fewer gun violence incidents and ultimately fewer deaths.”
Jacobson’s own research was integral in developing the PreCheck system the U.S. Transportation Security Administration uses to streamline the often time-consuming safety screening procedures in place at airports across the country and around the world.
For a small fee, frequent flyers can submit to an interview and background check to be able to skip some of the most frustrating airport security rituals, like doffing shoes and belts, removing laptops and waiting in long lines.
The same methodology is used for Nexus, the Canada-U.S. preclearance system that provides eligible travellers a fast-track option for moving between the two countries.
Jacobson isn’t suggesting he has all the answers, but rather that risk management research could be a helpful jumping-off point for a new approach in the U.S., home to an estimated 400 million firearms — 1.2 for every one of the country’s residents.
“Bring the stakeholders to the table to start discussing the opportunities to create the appropriate layers (of security),” he said.
“This kind of thinking should not be the end of discussion, it should be the beginning of the discussion, to bring the people together to talk about the possibility.”
The idea, however, would likely face headwinds from the conservative Supreme Court, which just last month struck down a 109-year-old New York law that had limited the ability to carry a gun in public for self-defence.
The Bruen decision, as it’s known, kneecaps “concealed carry” laws, which advocates credit for giving New York, California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey the lowest rates of gun violence in the country.
“A risk-based approach, which is a group-based approach, (runs) head on into the Bruen decision,” said Alexandra Filindra, a politics professor at the University of Illinois Chicago who specializes in gun safety laws.
The court essentially found that the New York law was an affront to the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which of course is where the “right of the people to keep and bear arms” is enshrined.
“When you’re constricted, you have something that’s called a fundamental right, and courts can only use history to justify upholding a law,” she said of Bruen. “What risk-based approach would actually withstand scrutiny under this system now?”
Just six weeks after 19 children and two teachers were killed in an elementary school classroom in Uvalde, Tex., seven people died and nearly 40 were injured when a rooftop gunman opened fire on a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago.
And two weeks prior to Uvalde, 10 people were killed when a gunman motivated by racial hatred stormed a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. All three cases involved high-powered, semi-automatic assault weapons in the vein of the AR-15 rifle.
The tensions in the U.S. around mass shootings, gun rights and the Supreme Court were on full display Monday at the White House, where President Joe Biden gathered lawmakers and stakeholders to mark what some have described as the most substantial bipartisan gun-control legislation in a generation.
“We face literally a moral choice in this country, moral choices with profound, real-world implications,” Biden said.
“Will we take wise steps to fulfil the responsibility to protect the innocent, while keeping faith with constitutional rights? Will we match thoughts and prayers with action? I say yes, and that’s what we’re doing here today.”
Few, however, are satisfied.
“You have to do more,” shouted Manuel Oliver, whose 17-year-old son Joaquin was one of 17 people gunned down in 2018 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Oliver, now a prominent gun-control advocate, said on Twitter that he took issue with the tone of Monday’s event: “The word CELEBRATION has no space in a society that saw 19 kids massacred just a month ago.”
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a rare instance of Democrats and Republicans reaching a consensus on Capitol Hill, provides funding to encourage states to enact more stringent “red flag” laws designed to keep dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands.
It also expands mental health supports in schools and closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole,” which excluded intimate partners living in a different domicile from restrictions designed to deny weapons to anyone convicted of domestic violence.
Even the bill’s advocates have acknowledged it doesn’t go far enough — particularly those calling for higher age limits for gun purchases and restoring the now-expired assault weapons ban from the Bill Clinton era.
Biden “has good intent, but we also know he has not followed through,” said Sandy Phillips, who founded the grassroots advocacy group Survivors Empowered after her daughter Jessi was among 12 who died in the movie theatre massacre in Aurora, Colo., in 2012.
“We’re not going to stay quiet and say, ‘Well done, Mr. Biden, Mr. President,’ when there’s so much more to do.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 12, 2022.
James McCarten, The Canadian Press
More money will land in the pockets of Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit (CCB) installment.
The federal government program helps low and middle-income families struggling with the soaring cost of raising a child.
Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees who are the primary caregivers for children under 18 years old are eligible for the program, introduced in 2016.
The non-taxable monthly payments are based on a family’s net income and how many children they have. Families that have an adjusted net income under $34,863 will receive the maximum amount per child.
For a child under six years old, an applicant can annually receive up to $7,437 per child, and up to $6,275 per child for kids between the ages of six through 17.
That translates to up to $619.75 per month for the younger cohort and $522.91 per month for the older group.
The benefit is recalculated every July and most recently increased 6.3 per cent in order to adjust to the rate of inflation, and cost of living.
To apply, an applicant can submit through a child’s birth registration, complete an online form or mail in an application to a tax centre.
The next payment date will take place on May 17.
News
Capital gains tax change draws ire from some Canadian entrepreneurs worried it will worsen brain drain – CBC.ca
A chorus of Canadian entrepreneurs and investors is blasting the federal government’s budget for expanding a tax on the rich. They say it will lead to brain drain and further degrade Canada’s already poor productivity.
In the 2024 budget unveiled Tuesday, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government would increase the inclusion rate of the capital gains tax from 50 per cent to 67 per cent for businesses and trusts, generating an estimated $19 billion in new revenue.
Capital gains are the profits that individuals or businesses make from selling an asset — like a stock or a second home. Individuals are subject to the new changes on any profits over $250,000.
The government estimates that the changes would impact 40,000 individuals (or 0.13 per cent of Canadians in any given year) and 307,000 companies in Canada.
However, some members of the business community say that expanding the taxable amount will devastate productivity, investment and entrepreneurship in Canada, and might even compel some of the country’s talent and startups to take their business elsewhere.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled the government’s 2024 federal budget, with spending targeted at young voters and a plan to raise capital gains taxes for some of the wealthiest Canadians.
Benjamin Bergen, president of the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), said the capital gains tax has overshadowed parts of the federal budget that the business community would otherwise be excited about.
“There were definitely some other stars in the budget that were interesting,” he said. “However, the … capital gains piece really is the sun, and it’s daylight. So this is really the only thing that innovators can see.”
The CCI has written and is circulating an open letter signed by more than 1,000 people in the Canadian business community to Trudeau’s government asking it to scrap the tax change.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke and president Harley Finkelstein also weighed in on the proposed hike on X, formerly known as Twitter.
We need to be doing everything we can to turn Canada into the best place for entrepreneurs to build 🇨🇦<br><br>What’s proposed in the federal budget will do the complete opposite. Innovators and entrepreneurs will suffer and their success will be penalized — this is not a wealth tax,…
—@harleyf
Former finance minister Bill Morneau said his successor’s budget disincentivizes businesses from investing in the country’s innovation sector: “It’s probably very troubling for many investors.”
Canada’s productivity — a measure that compares economic output to hours worked — has been relatively poor for decades. It underperforms against the OECD average and against several other G7 countries, including the U.S., Germany, U.K. and Japan, on the measure.
Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers sounded the alarm on Canada’s lagging productivity in a speech last month, saying the country’s need to increase the rate had reached emergency levels, following one of the weakest years for the economy in recent memory.
The government said it was proposing the tax change to make life more affordable for younger generations and fund efforts to boost housing supply — and that it would support productivity growth.
A challenge for investors, founders and workers
The change could have a chilling effect for several reasons, with companies already struggling to access funding in a high interest rate environment, said Bergen.
He questioned whether investors will want to fund Canadian companies if the government’s taxation policies make it difficult for those firms to grow — and whether founders might just pack up.
The expanded inclusion rate “is just one of the other potential concerns that firms are going to have as they’re looking to grow their companies.”
He said the rejigged tax is also an affront to high-skilled workers from low-innovation sectors who might have taken the risk of joining a startup for the opportunity, even taking a lower wage on the chance that a firm’s stock options grow in value.
But Lindsay Tedds, an associate economics professor at the University of Calgary, said the tax change is one of the most misunderstood parts of the federal budget — and that its impact on the country’s talent has been overstated.
“This is not a major innovation-biting tax change treatment,” Tedds said. “In fact, when you talk to real grassroots entrepreneurs that are setting up businesses, tax rates do not come into their decision.”
As for productivity, Tedds said Canadians might see improvements in the long run “to the degree that some of our productivity problems are driven by stresses like housing affordability, access to child care, things like that.”
‘One foot on the gas, one foot on the brake’
Some say the government is sending mixed messages to entrepreneurs by touting tailored tax breaks — like the Canada Entrepreneurs’ Incentive, which reduces the capital gains inclusion rate to 33 per cent on a lifetime maximum of $2 million — while introducing measures they say would dampen investment and innovation.
“They seem to have one foot on the gas, one foot on the brake on the very same file,” said Dan Kelly, president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Some business groups are worried that new capital gains tax changes could hurt economic growth. But according to Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez, most Canadians won’t be impacted by that change — and it’s a move to create fairness.
A founder may be able to sell their successful company with a lower capital gains treatment than otherwise possible, he said.
“At the same time, though, big chunks of it may be subject to a higher rate of capital gains inclusion.”
Selling a company can fund an individual’s retirement, he said, which is why it’s one of the first things founders consider when they think about capital gains.
Mainstreet NS7:03Ottawa is proposing a hike to capital gains tax. What does that mean?
Tuesday’s federal budget includes nearly $53 billion in new spending over the next five years with a clear focus on affordability and housing. To help pay for some of that new spending, Ottawa is proposing a hike to the capital gains tax. Moshe Lander, an economics lecturer at Concordia University, joins host Jeff Douglas to explain.
Dennis Darby, president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, says he was disappointed by the change — and that it sends the wrong message to Canadian industries like his own.
He wants to see the government commit to more tax credit proposals like the Canada Carbon Rebate for Small Businesses, which he said would incentivize business owners to stay and help make Canada competitive with the U.S.
“We’ve had a lot of difficulties attracting investment over the years. I don’t think this will make it any better.”
Tech titan says change will only impact richest of the rich
Toronto tech entrepreneur Ali Asaria will be one of those subject to the expanded capital gains inclusion rate — but he says it’s only fair.
“It’s going to really affect the richest of the rich people,” Asaria, CEO of open source platform Transformer Lab and founder of well.ca, told CBC News.
“The capital gains exemption is probably the largest tax break that I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “So I know a lot about what that benefit can look like, but I’ve also always felt like it was probably one of the most unfair parts of the tax code today.”
While Asaria said Canada needs to continue encouraging talent to take risks and build companies in the country, taxation policies aren’t the most major problem.
“I think that the biggest central issue to the reason why people will leave Canada is bigger issues, like housing,” he said.
“How do we make it easier to live in Canada so that we can all invest in ourselves and invest in our companies? That’s a more important question than, ‘How do we help the top 0.13 per cent of Canadians make more money?'”
More money will land in the pockets of Canadian families on Friday for the latest Canada Child Benefit (CCB) installment.
The federal government program helps low and middle-income families struggling with the soaring cost of raising a child.
Canadian citizens, permanent residents, or refugees who are the primary caregivers for children under 18 years old are eligible for the program, introduced in 2016.
The non-taxable monthly payments are based on a family’s net income and how many children they have. Families that have an adjusted net income under $34,863 will receive the maximum amount per child.
For a child under six years old, an applicant can annually receive up to $7,437 per child, and up to $6,275 per child for kids between the ages of six through 17.
That translates to up to $619.75 per month for the younger cohort and $522.91 per month for the older group.
The benefit is recalculated every July and most recently increased 6.3 per cent in order to adjust to the rate of inflation, and cost of living.
To apply, an applicant can submit through a child’s birth registration, complete an online form or mail in an application to a tax centre.
The next payment date will take place on May 17.
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