Paul Krugman On Fiscal Cliff: Republicans 'Holding America Hostage'

America is facing a fiscal cliff and Republicans are threatening to push us off, according to Paul Krugman.

"The fiscal cliff issue reflects GOP intransigence," The New York Times columnist wrote Wednesday in his 'Conscience of a Liberal' blog, "they’re holding America hostage, saying — more or less explicitly — that if they can’t have what they want but can’t pass, they’ll tank the whole economy."

On FEMA, Inequality and the Need for Better Government

I interrupt my regularly scheduled cultural blogging to offer this: I, for one, am not at all shocked to hear Republicans saying extraordinarily moronic things about disaster management even as the ravages of Sandy are still upon us here in New York. The early favorite for gold, I think, is Congressman Steve King, of Iowa, with his statement, in an Iowa debate, that he wants a clear inventory of what disaster money will be spent on, because Katrina victims “spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of—in addition to what was necessary.” Where he got that spectacular impression from, no one is quite saying. Did some reporter somewhere mark a $20 and follow it down the Gucci-black-market rabbit hole? Every second that ticks by whatever ill-sourced, ideologically motivated piece of “journalism” that fact may have come from—if it came from one at all—gets shoved down into Google’s seventh hell, where I am happy for it to remain.

Tax Evasion: Canada Doing Less Than Other Countries To Catch Rich Tax Cheats, Critics Charge

Canada is doing less than many other countries in going after tax cheats, and honest taxpayers are getting stuck with the bill as wealthy Canadians get away with evasion, opposition critics are charging.

Hoang Mai, the NDP’s national revenue critic, says the government’s $250 million in budget cuts to the Canada Revenue Agency will make an already bad situation with tax evasion even worse.

Conservative Support Dips In New Poll As Three-Horse Race Takes Shape

A new poll shows Canadians are split three-ways on who they would vote for if an election were held today, with no more than five points separating the leading party from third place.

The survey conducted by Forum Research for The National Post, interviewed 1,735 respondents via interactive voice response. A completely random sample of this size has a margin of error of +/- 2.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20. It's somewhat unusual, however, that the poll was conducted on a Saturday (Oct. 27).

Soldier injured in Afghanistan fought uphill battle for compensation

Daniel Scott was nearly killed during a training exercise in Afghanistan in 2010, when metal balls from a mine that exploded by mistake ripped through his chest, fracturing a rib, collapsing his left lung and damaging his kidney, spleen and pancreas.

The Surrey native, then 24, was airlifted to a field hospital in Kandahar, during which time a friend who was injured alongside him died as Scott held his hand. Surgeons removed Scott’s left kidney, his spleen and part of his pancreas, but he had lost so much blood the doctors didn’t hold out much hope, his father Jim Scott said.

If Ottawa says no to China on Nexen deal there'll be a price to pay: experts

OTTAWA - Canada can expect a chilly reception and damaged relations with Beijing if the Harper government dents China's pride by refusing a $15.1-billion bid for a piece of this country's oilpatch, observers say.

And other foreign investors will have occasion to pause if state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. is blocked in the friendly takeover of Calgary-based Nexen, they add.

Those investors would question Ottawa's commitment to open markets and the government would take political heat — from both supporters and opponents of the decision — for once again not having a clear strategy for dealing with foreign takeovers.

Crown agrees to bail for businessman with Conservative ties

A lawyer for the federal justice department agreed to let fugitive businessman Nathan Jacobson out on bail on Wednesday in spite of a warning from a confidential informant that earlier led police to arrest him.

Jacobson, who was close to federal cabinet ministers, was arrested by Toronto police last Thursday for extradition to the United States after he failed to show up for sentencing this summer for a 2008 money laundering conviction.

Parliament Hill reno costs quietly soar above billion-dollar mark

OTTAWA - The cost to repair Parliament Hill's crumbling West Block has quietly passed the billion-dollar mark, newly released documents show.

The revised work estimate for the heritage structure appears on a single line of the federal public accounts for the fiscal year 2011-12, released this week.

The price tag for the renovation has soared since 2005, when Treasury Board approved $769 million to restore the building.

FIPPA and the Brave New World: What's behind the secretive Canada-China deal?

One great myth of the West during the post World War II and Cold War periods -- and for a number of years after the Cold War -- was that democracy and capitalism were intimately connected.

Democracy, the myth went, happened where there was "free enterprise." Capitalism was either a pre-condition to free and democratic political institutions, or an inevitable and natural corollary of them.

Well, 21st Century China has given the lie to that myth.

An open letter to Stephen Harper: Canada - China FIPPA abrogates rights of Indigenous people

Prime Minister Harper:

On behalf the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, we are writing to firmly express, advise and direct the Government of Canada to reject the Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement with China as the Government of Canada has breached its fiduciary duty to consult First Nations on our respective constitutionally-enshrined and judicially-recognized Aboriginal Title, Rights and Treaty Rights.