Analysis of HST Revocation

As a matter of business and scramble for fairness in the field of costs, the service sector and the industries are likely to have a short-term boon for their business. This is in respect to business and companies with projects rushing and hurrying their projects before the revocation of the HST takes place in 2013. The temporary boon in business would is not expected to bail out the situation when the situation escalates out of proportion. It would be a matter of too little for a bigger problem (Palacios, 2010: Freeman, 2011).

The Future of Huckleberry Mine and similar companies hangs on the balance with the revocation of the HST. It is because of the system that makes businesses have a sustainable growth. The future of companies depends on how good business is and how much potential a company has to consider expansion. Revocation of the HST puts the future of such companies in jeopardy of closure or moving of assets to provinces with a better tax system.

People tend to get used to whatever kind of taxing systems their local governments decide on. The reality of the situation is felt by the stakeholders are shareholders of collapsing companies. With Huckleberry Mine left with a few choices on how to pull itself together in preparation for the changes in 2013, citizens are busy voting the revocation of the HST. Some of the citizens are not players in the sector and the repercussion of their vote would affect the future of these companies and the employment chances of their children or even themselves.

Most companies like Huckleberry depend of the annual tax savings to expand and sustain their existence in the corporate sector. Revocation of the HST makes it clear that these savings will be lost and many companies will not have the viability potential. In other words, the revocation of the HST is like revoking those saving for the companies. The lesser the savings will be, the less powerful these companies will get (Campell, 2009; Freeman, 2011).

With unsustainability that is expected to be caused by the HST revocation growth may not be expected to remain the same and so is the potential of expansion. With more costs incurred and less profits made, companies will have to make changes on their workforces in order to operate at some degree of profitability. To do this, layoffs and cutoffs will be resulted to hence threatening the livelihood of 1000’s of people.

Investment is favored by good taxation systems. The importance of these systems is favoring the business climate and increasing investment levels. The PST regime that is to be re-adapted makes capital taxation on of its dossiers and threatens a fall on investment. Capital taxation affects investment in several ways. Amongst these ways is the margin of investment that a company is willing to invest. Secondly, expansion of the investments cost the investor twice and cycles back to the question of margin. An investor willing to invest 100% of capital would end up investing less due to the taxation of the initial capital (Hansen, 2005: Freeman, 2011).

Investments have been made previously due to the fact that HST was a better tax system than the PST. Its revocation is likely to take away the insurance operators hand on it. As it goes, more investors are likely to gauge the economies of scale and withdraw some financial percentage in order to insure themselves as they approach the global recession.

Tax raise is not an issue anyone cannot handle with a well thought out plan. At the consumer level, a tax raise of 2% is too small to affect spending. On the bigger player operating at the margins of billions it is a big deal with the potential of affecting business. On the other hand, if the bigger players are affected negatively by tax they transfer the burden to the consumers and all other players held in between. The logical impact that these raise of taxes have on the companies is leveling output with input. The end result is that companies operate at no profit.

Cut backs and layoffs are strategies at which the companies employ in order to make their existence in the corporate world profitable. Without profits even if the spending and earnings level up, companies would find it impossible to continue with the business. The PST 2% tax increase makes the above situation 2% closer to being a reality. Many employers would not wait for that moment to come in order to take action. They result to taking action right away so that by the time the implementation times comes they would be equipped well enough for atleast sometime before all players and sectors adapt the changes (Canadian Tax Foundation, 1999: Freeman, 2011)

Budgets of companies involve foreign investment, expansion of existing businesses, business affiliations, and rescue plans. With increased input costs, these companies are likely to cut on their budgets. The implication of budget architecture of the companies prior to the revocation of the HST is that there will be less foreign investing. The result is because the operating cost at home would be too high that budgets will be drafted to squeeze fewer projects for high costs. This would leave nothing to go to the investments (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2002:Freeman, 2011).

The future of an economy can be predicted using the facts of the present day turnovers. As customers are caught in this ‘tax war’, they tend to predict that measurers would be taken as soon as possible. Despite that customer may have the potential to shop as they used to before the tax hikes, most will result to hold off from big spending. Their ‘card’ is that the tax will be scrapped so they will not have to shop more presently but after the changes are implemented. These goes to all sectors where customers spend heavily. Real estate investment, home building, and renovation would put a customer to a state of thought that results to holding off till favorable taxation conditions are realized (Canada. Dept. of Finance, 1996; Freeman, 2011).

Consumers are the backbone of an economy; whether local or foreign they will all do business the same. This is because there are economic trends that circulate in an economy. At BC, the consumer spending is already waning and the economy isn’t as good as economist predict it can be. Destroying the consumer spending trends any further would put the entire economy in jeopardy. The consumers make up the public base and if the consumer loses faith in the economic sector it means that the public lacks faith in their local government.

Consumers cutting spending, investors investing less, companies hiring less and laying off their employees, and inflation getting worse; there are no chances that an economy would grow. The growth of the economy with respect to HST revocation predicts are negative growth in that investors are likely to pull their assets and investing elsewhere outside of BC (Freeman, 2011).

BC is only but a province in Canada where other provinces exist as well. The regime of tax that BC is working with and the one that want to implement are not the best in all provinces. With this in mind, the HST revocation is an investment in loss yielding project. Many of investors who had invested under the HST would see a reason to invest in provinces where the HST is the only system in place. New investors will not bother investing in the first place; they would consider the provinces with the best tax systems

IMPACTS OF CANADA’S COUNTER-TERRORISM ACTIVITIES AND LEVEL OF SAFETY

Since 9/11 the Canadian government has increased the budget on security.  The budget of Canada has seen a 92 billion dollar increase and all directed to security. Analysts would wonder whether the figure matches the results. Before 9/11, Canada was a base for several terrorist groups and many terrorism attacks were planned in Canada without the knowledge of the Canadian government. Terrorists like Ressam lived and operated in Canada using Canadian passports. He would make bomb and plan bombings while in Canada without interruption by the authorities. This means the terrorism watchdogs back then were reluctant or lacked funding that would have helped them to deal with the question of security. This would lead to the question, “has the 92 billion on budget helping in any way to curb terrorism?”

The 92 billion dollar increase on the budget means that there has been 69 billion dollar increase on security spending with respect to inflation. This amount has been distributed to several projects and funding of organizations that act as terror watchdogs. Relative to the figures that have been put towards that campaign of the anti-terrorism calls, safety has been directed towards one issue while living others at dire need of funding. Terrorism is a red flag that makes USA and USA friends an obvious target. In the state of panic, many are times when states friendly to USA end up taking the same measures as USA itself when terrorism, threats are made. This is the case of the Canada post 9/11; her realization that terrorism can hit their targets contributed to this ‘panic’ spending (Bell, 2011).

The Department of National Defense (DND) of Canada was investigated and found to be the biggest spender of the security funding. 21 billion dollars is the average amount of money that goes to this department. The role played by this department is to address all security issues hibernating from with and without Canadian borders. The 21 billion funding of this department goes to workforce, equipment and, communication. The operations of the department are aimed at dealing with all security threats but with the 9/11 events the department embarked to lean more on the issue of anti-terrorism.

Security and public safety programs tripled their spending from 3 billion to 9 billion. The spending in all department and programs was brought by the fact that more qualified personnel were required to overlook the issues. In order to accomplish the task of preventing terrorism, more sophisticated equipment and technology are required. The public safety programs were aimed at protecting terrorism attacks on public facilities (Hocking, 2007). These programs ensure that the safety of the Canadians is put in the forefront. The tripling of the spending on these sectors was aimed at making tripling the efficacy of the department and increasing security levels. It was believed that the more the spending, the better the outcomes of the efforts. At this point could Canada be termed as safe place? Does a Canadian feel like he/she is safe?

Despite the large amounts of money that have been invested in the efforts of fighting terrorism, we are not safe yet. If Al-Qaeda and other Middle East extremist groups are the threats to go by; then it is clear that the more the efforts of fighting terrorism, the harder the terrorist try to continue their strikes. The Middle East extremist groups can hardly reach the western countries and launch attacks. However, other means of getting the terrorist attacks launched have been devised. The internet is one of these ways where Canadian citizens are used by the extremist groups to launch attacks on Canadian soil. They are trained through the internet and fed with ideologies that blur their mental visionary of applying sense. The government on the hand waits for a jet or missile to come flying over the Canadian skies. It is through the preparedness of the government and the flexibility of the terrorist groups that the spending on security works and fails at the same time. If there are windows of failure it means that we are not safe at all (Brysk, & Shafir, 2007).

Besides the issue of terrorism that is taking ‘all the money’ a decade later there are other issues of insecurity more grave than the terrorism one. On the issue of development and addressing inflation, the government has failed to protect the public from raising costs of living. The economy of Canada is not one of the best and there are many projects whose importance plays a great deal on the security of Canadian citizens. How is investing so much on anti-terrorism measures helping an unemployed father of three? From national insecurity to personal insecurity is the most appropriate phrase to apply against this kind of efforts.  The troubled life of one Canadian citizen in one municipality makes two if the margin is expanded. If this criterion is taken to a national grind, it would be noted that the troubled lives can be translated to substandard living conditions. The reality of the situation is that economy is dragged behind by the citizens who living standards are low and who contributions are minimal. A state with a failing economy and a wining anti-terrorism measures doesn’t guarantee safety to its citizens (Conte, 2010).

Focusing on other issues besides the aspect of terrorism, it is clear that there has been overspending on security with other sectors lagging behind. The transit system of Canada is not the best in the world and some money to the margins of 100 billion can turn it around. The transit system corresponds with the economy through the contribution made by industrialization. The amount of hours wasted on the roads, railways, waterways and airways translate directly to economic loss incurred. With a better transit system, the loss has the potential of being eliminated. Without doing that, the safety of Canadians will not depend on the anti-terrorism measures. To achieve absolute safety, the Canadian government would have to direct as much attention to all sectors as it has done for terrorism (Alexander, 2008).

Childcare is a program that many households cannot guarantee for their children. The situation brought by the global recession leaves many of these households with few choices. Priorities are made only in addressing grave issues mostly. With the C$ losing value to other international currency it means that the fate of the family-Canadian does not depend on personal efforts only. With struggle to make ends meet in terms of education and housing, childcare is considered an optional variable. Assumption of childcare is a mental excuse for hopes that the need does not arise. In actual meaning of this situation is domestic insecurity. Given that the government has the power to allocate and remove funds for some projects, the amount being used in anti-terrorism measures can be directed to address the issue of childcare. Without doing this, Canadians are not safe (Deflem, 2010).

Prescription drugs for pharmacare could use a portion of the amount used in security. Many households are unable to afford prescription drugs given that many companies are forced to abolish the healthcare plans for regular low earning employees. Care for the aged and management of diseases for the working class cannot be afforded by all with the financial inabilities brought by the global recession. Health safety matters most to the citizens than does a 70 billion dollar at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.