LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)最新文献

{"title":"The Knowledge Deficit About Taxes: Who It Affects and What to Do About It","authors":"L. Godbout, Antoine Genest-Grégoire, J. Guay","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2998056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2998056","url":null,"abstract":"Tax professionals argue that the tax system is too complex for ordinary taxpayers and that this sometimes makes their work for clients more educational than strategic. Tax complexity is not only a headache for these professionals but also a source of inefficiency and unfairness in our tax system as not every citizen understands it to the same degree. We use the tax system to support our retirement, education and poverty-reduction public programs. Failures of the tax system affect these programs as well. Weak understanding of taxes has also been shown to lower the level of trust of citizens in the tax system. This lower level of trust can translate into higher rates of tax evasion or avoidance, raising the cost of taxation for everyone. Canada has experience assessing the financial literacy of its citizens and is developing policies to raise it. This issue is considered strategic as financial tools and markets become more and more complicated and our population is aging. The tax system is a financial tool that citizens must know how to use as much as mortgages or pension funds are. Drawing from the research on financial literacy, we aim to develop a method to measure “tax literacy.” We evaluate, with the use of a survey administered by the polling firm Crop to Quebec citizens, the knowledge and skills of citizens concerning fiscal matters, understood broadly to include direct and indirect taxation as well as social transfers. Age, education and income are associated with higher knowledge of these matters, but not gender or being self-employed. Higher tax literacy is associated with a higher propensity for taxpayers to produce their tax return themselves rather than with the help of a professional. It also appears that women tend to underestimate their understanding of tax. Tax literacy, and the methods for its measurement, are a new tool to assess the failures of certain policies such as the Children Fitness Tax Credit or the Canada Learning Bond to reach their target audiences. More generally, weak understanding of taxes contributes to lowered trust in our tax system, which underpins our social bonds. Assessing this issue is a first step towards making our tax system fairer and more efficient.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127003883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sclerotization of the Judiciary: Judicial Exits from The U.S. Courts of Appeals Are Politically Motivated","authors":"Daniel L. Chen","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2816253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2816253","url":null,"abstract":"Using data from 1802 to 2004, I show that U.S. Courts of Appeals judges are less likely to retire in each of the three quarters preceding a Presidential election when the party of the President at the time the judge leaves is different from the party of the U.S. President who appointed the judge. Judges are more likely to resign in each of the four quarters after a Presidential election, when the party of the President at the time the judge leaves is the same as the party of the President that appointed the judge. My results suggest that 13% of retirements and 43% of resignations are politically motivated. Previous research has not found political cycles because they relied on judges’ self-reports or conducted yearly rather than quarter-to-election analysis. I also show that these political cycles have increased in recent years, which may raise concerns about the political evolution of the judiciary.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"26 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121985240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Interpretation of ‘Residence’ by Canadian Citizenship Judges","authors":"Mouna Haddad","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2941578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2941578","url":null,"abstract":"To obtain a Canadian citizenship, a foreign national from every country should comply with various conditions. One of them is the residency obligation in Canada for a period of time fixed in the Canadian Citizenship Act (“the Act”). \u0000The term residence is not defined by the Act in its previous version and it needs to be interpreted. The previous version of the Act was amended in June 2015. However, it’s still relevant today for citizenship applications submitted before the amendment and waiting for a citizenship judge decision, knowing that an interview with a citizenship judge may take three or more years of waiting time. \u0000In this paper we approach the definition of residence concept in the Canadian citizenship Act, and the interpretation tests that a citizenship judge may use, showing the incoherence caused by their discretionary power, and the related debate at the Federal Court level. We approach a very recent decision of the Federal Court which seems to close the door for an eventual solution.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"69 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123648227","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Literacy Requirements of Court Documents: An Underexplored Barrier to Access to Justice","authors":"Amy Salyzyn, Lori Isaj, B. Piva, J. Burkell","doi":"10.22329/WYAJ.V33I2.4943","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22329/WYAJ.V33I2.4943","url":null,"abstract":"We know that members of the public find court forms complex. Less is known, however, about what in particular makes these documents difficult for non-legally trained people to complete. The study described in this article seeks to fill this information gap by deploying a “functional literacy” framework to evaluate court form complexity. In contrast to more traditional conceptions of literacy, “functional literacy” shifts the focus away from the ability to read and towards the ability of individuals to meet task demands. Under this framework, an individual is assigned a literacy level by virtue of the complexity of the tasks that he or she is able to complete. As a result, the framework focuses as much on tasks (and associated documents) as it does on the capacity of the individual.  Four different Ontario forms needed to initiate three different types of legal proceedings were examined. The results of the study are described in significant detail in the article. Some of the identified sources of challenge include requirements to: generate information that requires expert legal knowledge; infer the meaning of technical legal terms; and move between multiple information sources (including, for example, searching on a website to find a correct court address). Another set of identified challenges was reflected in “distractors” contained in the court forms that risked confusing the reader, such as broad requests for information or the use of unclear terms. Although the associated court guides provided some guidance on the above types of issues, we found that such guidance was often incomplete and also potentially difficult to access given the overall complexity of the guides themselves. Although proposing comprehensive solutions was beyond the scope of this study, the article concludes with a preliminary discussion of possible solutions, including form redesign, the use of dynamic electronic forms and the provision of unbundled legal services. Nous savons que les membres du public trouvent les formulaires juridiques complexes. Ce qui est moins connu, par contre, ce sont les raisons particulieres qui rendent ces documents difficiles a remplir pour les personnes n’ayant aucune formation juridique. L’etude decrite dans cet article vise a repondre a cette interrogation au moyen d’un cadre d’« alphabetisme fonctionnel » permettant d’evaluer la complexite des formulaires juridiques. Contrairement aux conceptions habituelles de l’alphabetisme, l’« alphabetisme fonctionnel » se definit davantage comme la capacite d’une personne de repondre aux exigences d’une tâche que comme sa capacite de lire. Dans ce cadre, on attribue a une personne un niveau d’alphabetisme selon la complexite des tâches qu’elle est capable d’effectuer. En consequence, le cadre utilise porte autant sur les tâches (et les documents qui y sont associes) que sur la capacite de la personne. Quatre formulaires requis pour introduire trois differents types d’instance en Ontario ont fait l’objet","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"28 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121003625","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From Sea to Sea: Regulatory Space of Federal and Provincial Governments in Canada Under CETA and TPP Investment Chapters","authors":"Charles-Emmanuel Côté","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.2857148","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2857148","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of TPP and CETA investment chapters on the regulatory space of government in Canada. Past treaty practice of Canada will be the yardstick for this assessment, most notably the investment chapter in the North American Free Trade Agreement between the Government of Canada, the Government of the United Mexican States and the Government of the United States of America (NAFTA) and the model Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) of Canada. Overall neither TPP nor CETA stands out as better protecting or reducing more the regulatory space of government. It depends of the policy area considered. CETA appears to be more innovative, representing a synthesis of the preoccupations of Canada and the EU towards international investment law and ISA. TPP is a blueprint for US foreign legal policy in the Pacific space and elsewhere, representing an orthodox view of international investment law. The systemic issue of legal articulation between CETA, TPP and past Canadian treaties adds an unprecedented layer of complexity to the matter at hand. It is argued that contradictions in the international obligations of Canada is likely to create confusion both for regulators and arbitrators, while investors might simply make the best of it.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"86 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-07-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121930725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Can a Healthcare 'Lean Sweep' Deliver on What Matters to Patients?; Comment on 'Improving Wait Times to Care for Individuals with Multimorbidities and Complex Conditions Using Value Stream Mapping'","authors":"Jennifer Y. Verma, Claudia Amar","doi":"10.15171/ijhpm.2015.140","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2015.140","url":null,"abstract":"Disconnects and defects in care - such as duplication, poor integration between services or avoidable adverse events - are costly to the health system and potentially harmful to patients and families. For patients living with multiple chronic conditions, such disconnects can be particularly detrimental. Lean is an approach to optimizing value by reducing waste (eg, duplication and defects) and containing costs (eg, improving integration of services) as well as focusing on what matters to patients. Lean works particularly well to optimize existing processes and services. However, as the burden of chronic illness and frailty overtake episodic care needs, health systems require far greater complex, adaptive change. Such change ought to take into account outcomes in population health in addition to care experiences and costs (together, comprising the Triple Aim); and involve patients and families in co-designing new models of care that better address complex, longer-term health needs.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"312 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121706435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Cooperative Advantage for Social Inclusion Meets Uncooperative Government Regulation: International Cooperative Principles and Cooperative Housing Regulation in the Province of Ontario, Canada","authors":"Marika Morris","doi":"10.5947/jeod.2015.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5947/jeod.2015.003","url":null,"abstract":"Canadian housing cooperatives are a tool for building an inclusive society, bringing together people diverse in income, race, age, and ability/disability. This six-year case study of an Ottawa, Ontario, Canada housing co-op found that co-op housing provided benefits for its members: reducing the depth of poverty; increasing physical, material and emotional help; and catalyzing social integration, greater social capital, safer communities, organizational experience, skills-building, networking, and political mobilization. However, the legal framework in which co-ops operate and a lack of resources prevent Ontario housing co-ops from fully adhering to International Co-operative Alliance principles and ensuring that all members benefit equally from co-op housing.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129154537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A Defence of the Principled Approach to Tax Settlements","authors":"S. Templeton","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.2561094","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.2561094","url":null,"abstract":"Public confidence in the administration and enforcement of taxes is a cornerstone of self-assessing tax systems. The Canadian Minister of National Revenue (the “Minister”), through the Canada Revenue Agency, is entrusted with the responsibility to administer and enforce the majority of tax legislation in Canada. Where disputes arise with particular taxpayers over the correct amount of tax owed, the taxpaying public ought to have confidence that the Minister has a principled basis in law for settling disputes for less than amounts previously assessed. Yet opponents of the principled basis for settlement consistently call for reform, arguing that compromise settlement should be permissible on the basis of litigation risk. The hazards of litigation, which are greater the more resources a taxpayer can deploy, are arbitrary in any attempt to uphold the rule of law in tax administration and enforcement. This paper reconciles jurisprudence on the authority of the Minister to settle tax disputes to answer objections raised by proponents of compromise settlements. It then challenges the Carter Commission’s recommendation that US-style offers in compromise should be available in Canada, in light of the Carter Commission’s scathing criticism of Ministerial discretion exercised in the advance ruling context. This criticism is extended to the notoriously arbitrary exercise of Ministerial discretion to grant taxpayer relief from interest and penalties to show that additional discretion would only deepen public suspicion that the tax system is not administered fairly. The last part of the paper rebuts remaining arguments for compromise settlement: that principled-basis settlement is costly; that the principled basis is detrimental to unrepresented taxpayers; that the US offer in compromise system is appropriate for Canada; and that tax foregone in compromise settlements is an acceptable form of government spending. Canadian taxpayers deserve to have confidence that, in a legal system governed by the rule of law, the tax legislation with which they must comply is applied consistently and according to legal principles, not according to litigation risk.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121936273","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Development Plans Role in Promoting Achievement of Sustainable Development: A Case Study of the State of Selangor, Malaysia","authors":"Ainul Jaria Maidin","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.1992191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1992191","url":null,"abstract":"Town and Country Planning Act 1976 provides that development plans which play a vital role in controlling the development of the country. The development plans which consist of National Physical Plan, structure plan, local plan and special area plan is aimed to translate the government's policies with regards to country's development into action so that the development will be more systematic and sustainable. To be a fully developed country by the year 2020, Malaysia has put a great effort to utilize all available resources to boost up its status whether in economy, industry, technology, physical and infrastructure development as well as agricultural aspect. However, this effort posed a great danger to the environment sustainability should the authority failed to monitor and implement a proper development plan as required by the law. Thus, this paper intends to look into the role and impact of the development plans in regulating land use and development in the state of Selangor, Malaysia. It is also the intention of the writer to identify whether the Local Authorities in the State of Selangor implement the policy as stated in the local plan or otherwise. Recommendations and conclusion will be discussed at the end of the article.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"39 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114867458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Why We Need a Lifetime Retirement Saving Limit","authors":"James Pierlot","doi":"10.2139/SSRN.1965829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/SSRN.1965829","url":null,"abstract":"From 1977 to 2007, DB pension plan membership dropped from 31% of private sector workers to 16%. Today, more than 12 million of Canada’s 17.5 million workers do not participate in a DB plan. With declining DB pension coverage, low interest rates and increasing life expectancy, pensions are harder to accumulate — and more expensive. Even workers who delay retirement will need to save more to maintain their living standards in retirement. But can they? For many workers saving in RRSPs and DC pension plans, the answer is no, because contribution limits are too low. To demonstrate this, we developed a model that shows the retirement savings accumulations possible under Canada’s tax rules for retirement saving from 1974 through 2011.","PeriodicalId":370614,"journal":{"name":"LSN: Canadian Law - Public Law (Topic)","volume":"236 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2011-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122463527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}