John McCallum Wednesday-Night History

Tuesday May 29, 2007 Tax haven is music to their ears
He's one of Quebec's highest-profile tax avoiders - moving to Ireland, and then to Switzerland to avoid... [If you move you and don't use the services in Canada ... don't pay the tax]
Liberal finance critic John McCallum, say they see nothing wrong with electing a residence outside Canada to avoid Canadian taxes, others, like New Democrat MP Pat Martin, strongly condemn the practice. .....Canada, which has higher tax rates than some other countries, risk having some of their most successful citizens elect to live outside the country of their birth.

Monday 14 May 2007 Flaherty tries to turn spotlight on tax havens
Tax experts say they're confused by Finance Minister's plan
“We are making sure that the secrecy laws with respect to some of these tax haven countries are dealt with,” he said. “That is, if they are going to have tax treaties with Canada, they're going to have to disclose information to the Canadian government rather than run a secret tax haven.”
However, tax experts said Canada does not have tax treaties with the most problematic havens – like the Cayman Islands – while other low-tax jurisdictions do exchange taxpayer information with Ottawa. ...and his determination to end some forms of “double-dipping” ... disallowing the second deduction would only increase revenue for the foreign jurisdiction, while making Canadian companies operating in that jurisdiction less competitive.
“It's clear that he is doing a 180-degree turn from what he said in the budget, which is a good thing for Canada,” said Liberal finance critic John McCallum.
“He is clearly out of his depth on this.”
Mr. McCallum also criticized the minister's attack on double-dipping.
“Why does it make sense to boost the revenues of another country, do nothing for our own revenues, and make our companies less competitive?” he asked.

2005

Tuesday Nov 8, 2005 cc Softwood aid package weeks away: McCallum

Canada's hard-hit softwood lumber industry can expect a sizeable aid package in "not too many weeks," Natural Resources Minister John McCallum said Monday.

Tuesday Oct 18, 2005 rci OTTAWA: MINISTER BOASTS OF SUCCESS IN CHINA EXPEDITION
Canada's minister of natural resources, John McCallum, says that China has responded positively to his offer of supplying Canadian oil and natural gas. Mr. McCallum says his recent trip to China indicated that it's in Canada's best interest to improve trade and investment relationships with what he called China's emerging super-economy. He admits that improving trade with China was important because, in his opinion, the North American Free Trade Agreement was not working as well as it should. Recently, Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin expressed frustration with trade disputes with the United States, implying He implied that Canada will increasingly look to Asia and China to develop markets. <>Monday Oct 17, 2005 rci Canada's minister of natural resources, John McCallum, says that China responded enthusiastically to his offer of supplying Canadian oil and gas. Speaking in a Canadian television interview on Sunday, Mr. McCallum said that his recent trip to China showed him that it's in Canada's national interest to improve trade and investment relationships with what he called an emerging "super economy." He admitted that improving trade with China was important because in his opinion the North American Free Trade Agreement was not working as well as it should.

Tuesday Sep 27, 2005 OTTAWA: SICKNESS FORCES RESOURCES MINISTER TO LEAVE PORTFOLIO
Federal Resources Minister John Efford has been forced by complications from diabetes to abandon his department temporarily. Mr. Efford is being replaced the Revenue Minister John McCallum. Mr. Efford says he hopes eventually to return. Mr. McCallum will have to cope with two of the country's most intractable political problems, the softwood lumber file with the U.S. and soaring gasoline prices.

2004

Tuesday, 21 October, 2003 bbc
Finance Minister John Manley202x212

REPORT FINDS $128 MILLION IN MILITARY SAVINGS A Defence Department committee has found at least $128 million that could be better spent, Defence Minister John McCallum said on Wednesday.
McCallum made public the report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative Efficiency, which he struck in January to help find as much as $200 million in internal savings.

Thursday Jan 30, 2003 ts
>Minister ribbed over sweater remark
'Nice suit' yells Alliance MP to John McCallum
OTTAWA—John McCallum withstood opposition taunts and criticism from female MPs yesterday, one day after his ill-advised comment about Progressive Conservative MP Elsie Wayne's sartorial style.

2002

Thursday Sep 26, 2002 rci WARSAW:
CANADA SAYS YES TO NEW NATO FORCE Canada's defence minister, John McCallum, has expressed support, in principle, for a combat-ready reaction force under NATO. Mr. McCallum was in Warsaw, Poland, for a NATO meeting. He has already met with his British counterpart to discuss possible co-operation in the 21,000-member force. U.S. secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, made the proposal Tuesday at the defence ministers' meeting. The new multinational force would be able to strike quickly against threats from terrorists or renegade states. Mr. McCallum calls it a very positive step in the post-Sept. 11 world. He said the number of troops Canada would contribute could be in the hundreds. The plan will be discussed in more detail at a November summit of the 19 NATO leaders in Prague.

On the day that John McCallum was first sworn into Cabinet, he was so flummoxed by all the pomp that he forgot to sign the papers to officially make him a minister.

The next day, he apparently forgot the car and driver that came with the new job and caused a stir as his limousine chased after him on Parliament Hill before the driver was able to flag him down.

On Mr. McCallum's first official day on the job as junior finance minister, he also attacked the banks for charging "grotesquely high" credit card interest rates, and was summarily chastised by Jean Chrétien, the Prime Minister, for speaking out of turn.

"He has views, now he will have to express them within the Cabinet," Mr. Chrétien said.

Mr. McCallum said the Prime Minister reminded him of that again yesterday when he called him in to discuss taking over the defence portfolio.

"The Prime Minister himself said to me in our conversation that I tend to use colourful language," Mr. McCallum said. "I said, 'You want my language to be less colourful?' and he said, 'No, no, just be careful.' "

Canada's new Defence Minister cheerfully admits that what he knows about the military is limited to what he learned as a young air cadet and what he heard from his father, a decorated war hero.

Mr. McCallum, a former senior bank executive, has always been described as a bit of a rebel, both as an economist and as a banker.

When he made the shift to run for political office in 2000, many said he must have been crazy to trade in a $400,000 salary at the Royal Bank and a powerful post among Canada's business elite for a $65,000 MP's salary and job.

Friday Jan 17, 2003 National Defence Minster John McCallum responds to questions from opposition (CP PHOTO)

It was widely believed that he had been lured to the job with promises of a plum Cabinet post, and that, with his background, he was a natural fit to be groomed for the job of Finance Minister.

When asked if he would be content to toil in the backbenches of politics, he said: "Few people enter politics and immediately enter Cabinet. Even Pierre Trudeau was a parliamentary secretary for a while."

Nobody who knew Mr. McCallum believed that he would wait in obscurity for long, but even those who know him best are likely to be surprised by a meteoric political rise that has pushed him from winning a seat to assuming one of the country's most powerful Cabinet positions in less than two years.

The 51-year-old was born in Montreal and spent part of his childhood in the affluent Westmount neighbourhood. His father was an actuary and his mother sold real estate.

After high school, he went to Cambridge University to study economics. He has three degrees (from Cambridge, the Université Paris and McGill University) and had an 18-year career as an academic. His teaching career took him all across Canada, to universities in Winnipeg, British Columbia (where he met his future wife, Nancy Lim, a student), and Montreal.

He left academia in 1994, when he was Dean of Arts at McGill University, and took a job with the Royal Bank, enamoured of higher pay and the prospect of a career change with considerably broader clout.

His political demeanour has combined a straight-shooting matter-of-factness with an academic's ease of putting issues into broader perspective. He has also been seen as part of a small intellectual wing of Mr. Chrétien's otherwise workmanlike Cabinet.

Friday May 31, 2002 rci
OTTAWA: COMMONS COMMITTEE WARNS OF IMPENDING COLLAPSE OF MILITARY
A Canadian House of Commons committee is calling on the federal government to put an extra $8 billion into the country's military over the next three years. That is one of the recommendations contained in a report by the Standing Committee on National Defence, which warns that the military faces collapse without increases of much as 50 per cent over the next three years. Canada's new defence minister, John McCallum, says he plans to launch a review of the military's needs by the fall. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has reacted sceptically to the report on spending for defence, saying the federal government's resources are not unlimited, particularly since it has lowered taxes. Mr. Chrétien says there is already considerable pressure being put on the resources it has. He says farmers need federal aid as does the softwood lumber industry, which has been hurt by stiff tariffs slapped by the U.S. government on imported Canadian softwood lumber.

Sunday May 26, 2002 cbc EGGLETON DROPPED FROM FEDERAL CABINET Defence Minister Art Eggleton lost his job in a surprise cabinet shuffle Sunday night as allegations of conflict of interest continued to swirl around the federal government.