Politics
We Can't Blame the South Alone for Anti-Tax Austerity Politics – Jacobin magazine
We Can’t Blame the South Alone for Anti-Tax Austerity Politics
The South of slavery and Jim Crow is often cast as the major historical reason for the US’s stunted welfare state. But the most fanatical resistance to taxation and redistribution came from the Northern ruling class.
Newspaper editor Horace Greeley in the early 1860s. In 1872, Greeley, long associated with the antislavery cause, turned against Reconstruction and led a breakaway faction of so-called “Liberal” Republicans who condemned what they saw as the overweening statism of the Reconstruction experiment. (US National Archives and Records Administration)
The obstacles the Biden administration now faces in its efforts to pass a radically scaled down version of its “Build Back Better” bill have reignited an old debate in US political history: Why have tax increases and robust social investment proved so difficult to implement in this country? In recent years, a number of historians, including Ariel Ron and Robin Einhorn, have sought to answer the question by pointing to the legacy of American slavery. They argue that widespread hostility to taxation and government spending grow out of a long-standing American commitment to white supremacy and that the connection was forged in the slave South.
Ron, in a recent piece for Slate, drew a straight line between the proslavery politics of Southerners such as John C. Calhoun in the decades prior to the Civil War and the obstructionist tactics of today’s Republican Party. Concerned above all with protecting the institution of slavery from interference by national authorities, Ron argues, Calhoun and other Southerners became staunch opponents of federal activism. A government that had the capacity to build infrastructure and shape the economy, they feared, might also emancipate the slaves. Republicans in Congress today, Ron suggests, are operating from the same antidemocratic priorities and commitment to racial hierarchy. Not coincidentally, their electoral heartland is composed of the former states of the Confederacy, and they are similarly working to protect white elite power from redistributive government action. As Ron puts it, “Calhoun died in 1850, the Confederacy in 1865. Yet the politics of austerity endure.”
Einhorn has advanced a similar diagnosis. Rather than looking for the roots of American austerity politics in places like Pennsylvania or Massachusetts — in events like the Boston Tea Party — she argues, “we should be digging in Virginia and South Carolina.” Slaveholders saw little need for robust public spending on infrastructure or education. They perpetually worried about the prospects of nonslaveholding majorities wielding the power to tax their human property and thus did their best to cut down the government’s revenue-raising authority. To this day, she writes, the weakness of the American state’s fiscal powers is “part of the poisonous legacy we have inherited from the slaveholders who forged much of our political tradition.”
These accounts are part of a larger scholarly fashion for tracing today’s ills back to the South. In this view, the ghost of Calhoun continues to loom long after Appomattox, and the venom of slavery is inescapably passed down decades after Emancipation.
Tea Party Yankees
This interpretation is not without merit. The rearguard objections of scholars such as Sean Wilentz and Gordon Wood notwithstanding, slaveholders indeed had foundational influence on the legal and political institutions of the United States at the country’s inception. Slaveholders’ fears of an overweening federal government are in part responsible for the particularly decentralized and rigid political order of the United States. Commentators are not wrong to point out that these structures had resilient effects.
But there are major problems with what has become a monocausal and flattened interpretation of US history. Yes, Southern politicians helped make progressive taxation and robust government spending complicated to enact, but proslavery ideology was not the only and certainly not the most important source of anti-tax politics in the United States. Such claims skip over some of the most important episodes in the political development of the United States — including the enthusiastic embrace of laissez-faire among Northern elites after the Civil War as well as staunch support in the South for the creation of the progressive federal income tax — the government’s most important source of revenue in the twentieth century.
In other words, New York Times and Slate readers hardly need to venture all the way to Dixie to uncover deep-seated American strains of antidemocratic and anti-tax politics. To understand our current politics of austerity, we are better served to explore not the defeated ideology of slaveholders but the triumphant politics of liberal elites in the Northeast.
Indeed, the ink had barely dried on the Confederacy’s surrender when affluent New Yorkers and New Englanders — manufacturers, merchants, and financiers — began to campaign against the political power of the poor in the industrial North. In the aftermath of the war, urban workers became ever more adept at using the machinery of government to raise taxes, increase municipal budgets, and alleviate poverty — developments that, in reaction, triggered one of the foremost anti-taxation, counter-majoritarian, “small government” movements in American history. As historian Alex Keyssar has documented, the campaign was endorsed by the country’s leading intellectuals and public figures, often Ivy League–educated, who openly voiced deep hostility to tax hikes stemming from universal suffrage. Many of these men had fought against slavery, but they nevertheless decried the extension of the franchise to non-propertied citizens and their ability to redistribute private wealth via taxes.
The hostility of these urban elites to “universal manhood franchise,” though not free of racism and ethnic prejudice, had little to do with the legacy of slavery or with white supremacy per se. It was instead grounded in their analysis of the new massive inequalities generated by industrial capitalism. In a choice between political democracy and an economic system that produced unprecedented disparities, these men stood firmly with the latter. Writing in exclusive organs such as the North American Review and Atlantic Monthly, they lamented the “severance of political power from intelligence and property” and the rise of a “political system in which power was . . . lodged in the hands of the proletariat.” Driven by their overblown fears of a “communistic attack on property” via taxation and labor rights, they called for the universal right to vote be reversed.
The most prominent effort to eliminate voting rights of the propertyless took place in New York state in 1875, when the bipartisan “Tilden Commission” proposed a constitutional amendment to curb “the excesses of democracy.” Faced with an increase in spending, taxes, and municipal debt, as Sven Beckert has shown, the commission proposed to move control of city governments to boards of finance that would be elected exclusively by property holders. The commissioners asserted that “the choice of the local guardians and trustees of the financial concerns of cities should be lodged with taxpayers.” Business organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and the New York Stock Exchange rushed to advocate for this proposal and were soon joined by organs such as the New York Times, Harper’s Weekly, and the Nation. Despite the support of these powerful institutions, working-class New Yorkers and the labor movement were able to defeat the measure, which would have disenfranchised large portions of the electorate. Elites then turned to other, more mundane methods to “purify the ballot box” — registration laws, literacy tests, prolonged residency requirements. In ways that anticipated the encasing of the market in our own neoliberal age, they insidiously worked to insulate government policy from democratic control. In this context, it was Northern publicists who often lectured to their white brethren in the Reconstruction South (who, of course, needed little advice) that “wise, capable, provident, and frugal rule” could never be compatible with universal suffrage.
Taxing the Rich
As historian Amy Stanley has explained, antidemocratic and anti-tax convictions among the affluent stemmed not from their stubborn commitment to slavery but, perhaps surprisingly, from its abolition. Advancing their own version of liberty in a post-emancipation society, elite Northerners came to see any form of government assistance or support for the poor as nurturing a form of dependence, reminiscent of the subservience of slaves in bondage, that had no place in a free society. Any type of public support threatened to remove the stigma associated with economic reliance and destroy the dependent’s “habit of industry.”
Whereas earlier rank-and-file conceptions in the age of Lincoln associated free labor with broad access to property and opportunity, these self-styled elite “reformers” now defined it narrowly as one’s choice to buy and sell one’s labor in the marketplace. They defined freedom of contract as the antithesis of bondage and the epitome of liberty. Laissez-faire was thus the brainchild not of enslavers but of slavery’s bourgeois opponents. It led these social groups not only to embrace social Darwinism — the application of Charles Darwin’s ideas of natural selection to society — but, ironically, to greater support for police forces and punitive government action against the poor. These policies were implemented not only in the cities of the North, where vagrancy laws criminalized poverty, but also in the postwar South, where federal authorities denied public relief to former slaves if deemed fit to labor and compelled them to sign exploitative contracts with their former masters.
Given the immense industrial fortunes that were accumulated in places such as New York and Boston in those decades, it is not surprising that support for a progressive income tax began to emerge on the country’s agrarian periphery, in the West and the South. As scholars such as Monica Prasad and Elizabeth Sanders have demonstrated, the political drive for an income tax drew support from radical farmers’ movements of the late nineteenth century — the Grange Movement, the Greenback Party, and the Southern and Northern Alliances. The Populist Party enjoyed strong support everywhere but the Northeast. It included an income tax in its 1892 Omaha Platform, alongside other demands designed to regulate corporations and combat inequality. Industrial interests warned that income taxes would lead to the growth of an “inquisitorial” government and set the country on the road to socialism. These early efforts to pass a federal income tax began a twenty-year struggle.
In 1893, Southern and Midwestern Democrats in the House introduced a federal income measure that was soon declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The justices from the Northeast voted against the tax; justices from the South voted in favor of it. In 1913, a constitutional amendment enabling income tax finally passed, with the Southern states, alongside other agrarian states, leading the way. As Einhorn herself has meticulously documented, opponents of the income tax in the South deployed the “Lost Cause” of the South argument in their attempts to crush the amendment. Harking back to the antebellum years, they warned voters that an empowered federal government might step in to challenge Jim Crow.
But these tactics failed. Of the first nine states to ratify the amendment, seven had been slave states (Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Mississippi, Maryland, Georgia, and Texas). This was hardly an unambiguous victory for “democracy” in a segregated South, but it demonstrates that Calhoun’s anti-statist theories mattered less than the severe impoverishment of the region in those decades. It also shows that Southern oligarchs did not speak for the region as a whole. “Southern” traditions were as varied and contradictory as those of the North.
The long-term implications of the amendment were profound. Efforts in the 1920s to replace the income tax with regressive sales taxes failed. As a result, when the United States embarked upon the creation of the New Deal state, it was financed heavily by an income tax, whose base was gradually broadened to include a wider population of taxpayers, even as its progressivity remained intact. As economist Thomas Piketty has pointed out, the top federal income tax in the United States averaged 81 percent between 1932 and 1980, far surpassing the rates of continental European countries such as France and Germany. These decades of high redistributive tax policy, while far from perfect, belie notions of the United States as irredeemably anti-statist in ways that had been dictated by the founding generations.
In light of a long and dynamic history filled with reversals and ironies, it is doubtful that hostility to taxation and government spending in American politics can be pegged on any particular period or region. The impact of the slave South on the development of American institutions has been profound, of course, as has been the resilience of racism. But, as historians have demonstrated, these legacies evolved in complicated ways over time.
When politicians today whittle down social spending, and as they preach for fiscal responsibility and against a culture of “entitlements,” they draw on a rich vocabulary that owes as much, if not more, to the liberal Northeast than to “the South,” to industrial capitalism than to plantation slavery. To displace our challenges to the supposed lasting influence of the Confederacy does a disservice to our public debate, blinding us to how political alignments, not historical legacies or immutable ideological commitments, drive policy.
When Shannon Waters first joined the press gallery at the B.C. legislature, the decision on whether or not to continue the Site C dam project was looming large. Shannon was there as a reporter for BC Today, a daily political newsletter, and she remembers being blown away by long-time Narwhal reporter Sarah Cox’s work.
“Her ability to look at these huge complex reports, which, at the time, I mostly just felt like I was drowning in, and cut through that to tell stories about what was really going on was impressive,” Shannon says. “That was my initial intro and I have been following The Narwhal ever since!”
Fast forward more than six years later, Shannon joins The Narwhal as our first-ever B.C. politics and environment reporter. And get this, Sarah will be her editor in the new gig.
“After years of admiring their work, I’m excited to work with Sarah and the whole Narwhal team,” Shannon says.
I sat down with Shannon to get to know her better and hear more about what brought her The Narwhal’s growing pod.
What’s your favourite animal?
That’s easy, it’s an octopus. I have one tattooed on my arm. I just think it’s really neat that we have a creature on this planet as intelligent as an octopus. It’s the closest thing to alien life that we’ve ever come across but it’s right here on the planet with us. And I think that’s very cool.
What is the thing about journalism that gets you excited to start your work day?
I get excited about working as a journalist because every day is a bit different. I like having the opportunity to learn new things on a regular basis, partly because I get bored really easily.
My favorite thing about being a reporter is you never really know exactly how your day is gonna go and you’re always getting to talk to interesting people. As a bonus, I also really like to write, and I always have.
Your first job was at a radio station in Prince George, B.C. How did this early experience shape you?
I think it really honed my sense of journalism being part of the community and a community service. We covered all kinds of things. I was on the school board beat when I first got there and then I was covering city hall a little later on. I did a weekend shift. I covered crime stories.
Sometimes you’d start out the day covering one story and then by the end of the day, you’d be doing something else. I was also in Prince George in 2017, for the wildfires, and the city became a hub for people who were displaced from all across B.C. That was a really intense, eye-opening experience about what communities can do for people when they are put to the test. So again, learning things, and that variety and getting to write about them for a living.
You’re a self-described political nerd. Where does that come from?
I’m fascinated by politics because it touches every aspect of our lives, and there’s not really any way to get away from it. I consider myself a bit cynical about our political systems but even if you don’t like them, or don’t believe in them, or don’t want anything to do with them, you can’t really get away from politics. I find it fascinating to look at what is going on in the political sphere, what kind of policies are popular at the moment? Which ones are being rejected? How is that conversation going? How did it get started? Where might it go? And politics is also about people.
I like being someone who can hopefully try and help people understand why politics matters, what they can do to try and affect the change that they might want to see and how the politics in their area or the policies being enacted by politicians affects them and the people around them. It’s not something that everybody finds fascinating. A lot of people’s eyes glaze over when you tell them you’re a political or a legislative reporter. But I really enjoy the work. And it’s one of those things that feels like, well, somebody should be doing it. And so for now, at least, that somebody can be me.
It’s an election year in B.C. What are you most excited about?
I’m looking forward to seeing what happens. We’re really in a very interesting space in B.C. right now. If you were talking to me a year ago about the election, I would probably have sounded a bit more bored, because it seemed like much more of a foregone conclusion — you know, the NDP were going to likely win a majority and we’d have sort of more of the same. But now you have this really interesting churn in the political landscape with the emergence of the B.C. Conservatives as a real contender of a party according to the polling that we’ve been seeing. Meanwhile B.C. United, which is the very well-established B.C. Liberal party renamed, has sort of had the wheels come off.
So, I’m really interested to see what happens on the campaign trail as you have these parties trying to court voters, what sort of ideas they’re going to put forward. I’m also really curious what it means for the Green Party. B.C. hasn’t had a lot of elections where we’ve had so many parties competing for seats in the legislature and I think that’s going to make for a very interesting and probably quite dramatic campaign.
What kind of stories do you hope to tell more of?
I am excited about getting more in depth. I’ve been doing daily news for about seven years now, including covering elections. I have really enjoyed doing that and I feel like when you’re a daily news reporter you also have all these thoughts about potential stories that need a closer look or more time to percolate. So I’m really looking forward to looking at the news landscape and seeing what’s missing. With the election, I’m also excited to look back and think: what was the government saying about this particular policy in the last election? What have they done on it during the interim? And what are they saying now?
I think one of the biggest things I learned as BC Today’s reporter and later Politics Today’s editor-in-chief is finding the stories in the minutia and the nuts and bolts of what goes on in the legislature. There’s a list that has been building in my head for a long time of all of these stories that I’ve wanted to take a closer look at over the years and I’m excited to get started.
What are three things people might not know about you?
I could eat peanut butter toast and drink coffee every day of my life and die happy. Growing up I wanted to be a marine biologist and study either sharks or cephalopods. I am the biggest word nerd, which can be a good thing for someone who writes for a living, but is sometimes a struggle. I am still striving to use the word “absquatulate” in a story someday!
Politics
Trudeau questions Poilievre's judgment, says the Conservative Leader 'will do anything to win' – The Globe and Mail
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is flanked by Minister of Housing Sean Fraser, right, and Treasury Board President Anita Anand, left, during a press conference in Oakville, Ont., on April 24.Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized Pierre Poilievre over his judgment, a day after the Conservative Leader visited a protest against carbon pricing that featured a “Make Canada Great Again” slogan and a symbol that appeared to be tied to a far-right, anti-government group.
Mr. Trudeau accused Mr. Poilievre of exacerbating divisions and welcoming the “support of conspiracy theorists and extremists.”
“Every politician has to make choices about what kind of leader they want to be,” the Prime Minister said at a press conference Wednesday in Oakville, Ont.
“He will do anything to win, anything to torque up negativity and fear and it only emphasizes that he has nothing to say to actually solve the problems that he’s busy amplifying.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Poilievre stopped at a protest against carbon pricing near the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border while on his way from PEI to Nova Scotia. Video of the protest shows an expletive-laden flag directed at Mr. Trudeau that was a symbol of the anti-vaccine-mandate protests that gripped Ottawa two years ago, as well as an anti-carbon-tax sign and a van with the slogan “Make Canada Great Again” written on it.
“We saw you so I told the team to pull over and say ‘hello,’” Mr. Poilievre said to the protesters in one of the videos posted online. He thanked them for “all you’re doing.”
“We’re going to axe the tax and its going to be in part because you guys fought back,” Mr. Poilievre said in the videos. “Everyone hates the tax because everyone’s been screwed over. People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.”
When asked to take a picture in front of the flag with the expletive, Mr. Poilievre responded: “Let’s do it in front of something else.”
One of the vans at the protests has what appeared to be a symbol of the anti-government, far-right group called Diagolon. Mr. Trudeau tried on Wednesday to tie that to Mr. Poilievre. The Conservative Leader has previously disavowed the group.
In a statement Wednesday through his lawyer, the group’s leader, Jeremy MacKenzie, said he was Mr. Poilievre’s biggest detractor in Canada. He also criticized Mr. Trudeau, saying “both of these weak men are completely out of touch with reality and incapable of telling the truth.”
Mr. Poilievre’s office defended the Conservative Leader’s visit to the protest in a statement on Wednesday.
“As a vocal opponent of Justin Trudeau’s punishing carbon tax which has driven up the cost of groceries, gas and heating, he made a brief, impromptu stop,” spokesperson Sebastian Skamski said.
“If Justin Trudeau is concerned about extremism, he should look at parades on Canadian streets openly celebrating Hamas’ slaughter of Jews on October 7th.”
During his press conference, Mr. Trudeau also pointed out that Mr. Poilievre has done nothing to reject the endorsement of right-wing commentator Alex Jones earlier this month. Mr. Jones, on X, called Mr. Poilievre “the real deal” and said “Canada desperately needs a lot more leaders like him and so does the rest of the world.”
Mr. Jones was ordered to pay nearly $1-billion in damages to the families of the victims of the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting, which he portrayed as a hoax.
“This is the kind of man who’s saying Pierre Poilievre has the right ideas to bring the country toward the right, towards conspiracy theories, towards extremism, towards polarization,” Mr. Trudeau said.
In response to the Prime Minister’s remarks, Mr. Skamski said “we do not follow” Mr. Jones “or listen to what he has to say.”
“Common-sense Conservatives are listening to the priorities of the millions of Canadians that want to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime,” he added.
“It is the endorsement of hard-working, everyday Canadians that Conservatives are working to earn. Unlike Justin Trudeau, we’re not paying attention to what some American is saying.”
With a report from The Canadian Press.
Politics
Politics Briefing: Younger demographics not swayed by federal budget benefits targeted at them, poll indicates
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Hello,
The federal government’s efforts to connect with Gen Z adults and millennials through programs in last week’s federal budget has not yet worked, says a new poll.
The Angus Reid Institute says today that the opposition Conservatives are running at 43 per cent voter support compared to 23 per cent for the governing Liberals, while the NDP are at 19 per cent.
Polling by the institute also finds the Liberals are the third choice among Gen Z and millennial voters, falling behind the NDP and Conservatives.
According to the institute, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is viewed more positively among Gen Z adults than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with Poilievre at 29 per cent approval and Trudeau at 17 per cent. Poilievre also has a higher favorability than Trudeau’s approval among younger and older millennials.
Gen Z adults were born between 1997 and 2012, while the birth period of millennials was 1981 to 1996.
The poll conclusions are based on online polling conducted from April 19 – three days after the budget was released – to April 23, among a randomized sample of 3, 015 Canadians. Such research has a probability sample of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Asked about the poll today, Trudeau said the budget is aimed at solving problems, helping young people and delivering homes and services such as child care.
“I am confident that as Canadians see these measures happening, they will be more optimistic about their future, the way we need them to be,” Trudeau told a news conference in Oakville, Ont.
He also said he expected Canadians to be thoughtful about the future when they vote. “I trust Canadians to be reasonable,” he said.
The Globe and Mail has previously reported that Trudeau’s government has set an internal goal of narrowing the Conservative Party’s double-digit lead by five points every six months. A federal election is expected next year.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter sign-up page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Pierre Poilievre visits convoy camp, claims Trudeau is lying about ‘everything’: CBC reports that the Conservative Leader is facing questions after stopping to cheer on an anti-carbon tax convoy camp near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where he bluntly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of lying about “everything.”
Smith defends appointment of task force led by doctor skeptical of COVID-19 measures: The Globe and Mail has published details of the little-known task force that was given a sweeping mandate by the government to assess data used to inform pandemic decision-making. Story here.
Canadians should expect politicians to support right to bail, Arif Virani’s office says: The office of Canada’s Justice Minister says, warning that “immediate” and “uninformed reactions” only worsens matters.
Parti Québécois is on its way back to the centre of Quebec politics: The province’s next general election isn’t until 2026, a political eternity away, and support for separating from Canada remains stagnant. But a resurgent Quebec nationalism, frustration with Ottawa, and the PQ’s youthful, upbeat leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon have put sovereignty back on the agenda.
Anaida Poilievre in B.C.: The wife of the federal Conservative Leader has been on a visit to Kelowna in recent days that was expected to conclude today, according to Castanet.net.
Ontario to do away with sick note requirement for short absences: The province will soon introduce legislation that, if passed, will no longer allow employers to require a sick note from a doctor for the provincially protected three days of sick leave workers are entitled to.
Australian reporter runs into visa trouble in India after reporting on slaying of Canadian Sikh separatist: In a statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Indian authorities should safeguard press freedom and stop using visa regulations to prevent foreign journalists covering sensitive subjects.
Canadian military to destroy 11,000 Second World War-era pistols: The Ottawa Citizen reports that the move comes as the Canadian Forces confirmed it has received the final deliveries of a new nine-millimetre pistol as part of a $19.4-million project.
B.C. opposition leader in politics-free oasis: The first hint that there may be more to Kevin Falcon, leader of the official opposition BC United party, than his political stereotype comes when you pull up to his North Vancouver home – a single-level country cottage rancher dwarfed on one side by large, angular, modern monstrosity. A NorthernBeat profile.
TODAY’S POLITICAL QUOTES.
“Having an argument with CRA about not wanting to pay your taxes is not a position I want anyone to be in. Good luck with that Premier Moe.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the Canada Revenue Agency weighing in on Saskatchewan’s government move to stop collecting and remitting the federal carbon levy.
“That’s not something that we’re hoping for. We’re not trying to plan for an election.“ – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, at a news conference in Edmonton today, on the possibilities of an election now ahead of the vote expected in the fall of 2025.
THIS AND THAT
Commons, Senate: The House of Commons is on a break until April 29. The Senate sits again April 30.
Deputy Prime Minister’s day: In the Newfoundland and Labrador city of Mount Pearl, Chrystia Freeland held an event to talk about the federal budget.
Ministers on the road: Cabinet efforts to sell the budget continue, with announcements largely focused on housing. Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech and Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez are in Burnaby, B.C. Defence Minister Bill Blair is in Yellowknife. Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault is in Edmonton. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Natural Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau are in the Quebec city of Trois-Rivières.
Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu is in Lytton, B.C., with an additional event welcoming members of the Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw band to four new subdivisions built after the 2023 Bush Creek East wildfire. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen is in Sault Ste. Marie. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is in Québec City. Diversity Minister Kamal Khera is in Kingston, Ontario. Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada are in Whitehorse. Justice Minister Arif Virani and Families Minister Jenna Sudds are in North York, Ont. Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is in Charlottetown.
Meanwhile, International Trade Minister Mary Ng is in South Korea leading a group of businesses and organizations through to tomorrow.
GG in Saskatchewan: Mary Simon and her partner, Whit Fraser, on the last day of their official visit to Saskatchewan, is in Saskatoon, with commitments that include visiting the Maternal Care Centre at the Jim Pattison Hospital and meeting with Indigenous leaders.
Ukraine needs more military aid, UCC says: The Ukrainian Canadian Congress says Canada should substantially increase military assistance to Ukraine. “As President Zelensky stated, “The key now is speed,’” said a statement today from the organization. The appeal coincides with U.S. President Joe Biden signing into law an aid package that provides over US$61-billion in aid for Ukraine. “We call on the Canadian government and all allies to follow suit and to immediately and substantially increase military assistance to Ukraine,” said the statement. An update issued on the occasion of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s February visit to Ukraine noted that, since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Canadian government has provided $13.3-billion to Ukraine.
New chief commissioner of the Canadian Grain Commission: David Hunt, most recently an assistant deputy minister in Manitoba’s environment department, has been named to the post for a four-year term by Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay.
PRIME MINISTER’S DAY
In Oakville, near Toronto, Justin Trudeau talked about federal-budget housing measures, and took media questions.
LEADERS
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is in the Quebec city of Victoriaville, with commitments that include a meeting at the Centre for Social Innovation in Agriculture
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, in the Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo, attended the sentencing of deputy party leader Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt for her participation in the Fairy Creek logging blockades on Vancouver Island.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Edmonton, held a media availability.
No schedule released for Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.
THE DECIBEL
James Griffiths, The Globe’s Asia correspondent, is on the show t to discuss Article 23 – a new national security law in Hong Kong that includes seven new offences related to sedition, treason and state secrets that is expected to have a chilling effect on protest. The Decibel is here.
OPINION
The Liberals’ capital-gains tax hike punishes prosperity
“In her budget speech this month, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed to 1980s-era tax changes by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney as a precedent for boosting the tax take on capital gains. … If one were to leave it at that, the Liberals come off quite well, having decided to boost the inclusion rate for capital gains – the amount subject to tax – to two-thirds, well below that of the latter years of the Mulroney government. But Ms. Freeland was only telling half the story.” – The Globe and Mail Editorial Board
The Liberals weight-loss goal shows they are running out of options
“The bad polls are weighing down the Liberals, so they have decided to shed some weight: They aim to cut the Conservatives’ lead by five percentage points by July. Like middle-aged dieters beginning a new regime, they’ve looked in the mirror and decided they have to do something. They’ve committed to it, too.” – Campbell Clark
Fear the politicization of pensions, no matter the politician
“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland don’t have a lot in common. But they do share at least one view: that governments could play a bigger role directing pension investments to the benefit of domestic industries and economic priorities. Canadians, no matter who they vote for, should be worried that these two political heavyweights share any common ground in this regard.” – Kelly Cryderman
The failure of Canada’s health care system is a disgrace – and a deadly one
“What can be said about Canada’s health care system that hasn’t been said countless times over, as we watch more and more people suffer and die as they wait for baseline standards of care? Despite our delusions, we don’t have “world-class” health care, as our Prime Minister has said; we don’t even have universal health care. What we have is health care if you’re lucky, or well connected, or if you happen to have a heart attack on a day when your closest ER is merely overcapacity as usual, and not stuffed to the point of incapacitation.” – Robyn Urback
Germans Debate Longer Hours and Later Retirement as Economic Growth Falters – Bloomberg
Meet Shannon Waters, The Narwhal’s B.C. politics and environment reporter – The Narwhal
Deutsche Bank's Investment Bankers Step Up as Rate Boost Fades – Yahoo Canada Finance
Silver investment demand jumped 12% in 2019
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