May 7, 2012
While we’ve all heard reports on consumers getting taken by various credit card scams, far less well known are the nefarious practices in the credit card processing business for merchants. Unfortunately, many small firms have fallen victim to incredibly unethical players in this business – and credit card companies have done very little to try to stop it.
March 5, 2012
Whenever I am waiting to meet a Member of Parliament in a grand lobby or cramped outer office, I think back on a lesson I learned almost 18 years ago when I started lobbying provincial politicians back in Manitoba: for every one group like CFIB asking government to reduce taxes or limit spending, there are 30 groups calling for government to open the taxpayer's wallet to pay for their important cause.
February 6, 2012
When CFIB launched its Pension Tension campaign last summer, we figured we were in for an uphill battle. While the proposals to hike Canada Pension Plan (CPP) premiums had made the rounds, virtually no one was talking about the sustainability of our public sector pension system or the imbalance between the savings options for those paying taxes and those working for government.
January 16, 2012
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper independently acknowledged the destructive impact of excessive regulation in 2011 and resolved to do something about it. Harper called red tape a "silent killer of jobs" last January when he created the Red Tape Reduction Commission tasked with identifying federal red tape and recommending solutions to reduce it for the long term.
January 3, 2012
As I set my annual new year's resolutions to eat better and exercise more (ok, begin exercising), it got me thinking about new year's resolutions that governments and members of the public could make to support Canada's entrepreneurs. Here are a few ideas how governments and all of us can help:
