Fair Tax Summit Planned for March 29 & 30 in Ottawa

A Fair Tax Summit will take place March 29 and 30, 2012 at the Lord Elgin Hotel, in Ottawa. The conference aims to build a movement for progressive taxation in order to protect social programs and build a better Canada.

Canadians for Tax Fairness is organizing this conference for activists, researchers, labour and NGO leaders, students, environment group members, beneficiaries of social programs, journalists and elected officials in collaboration with the following co-sponsors: Canadian Labour Congress, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, National Union of Public and General Employees, KAIROS, Citizens for Public Justice, Halifax Initiative, Inter Pares, and Canadian Health Coalition. (We expect more organizations to join us.)

The goals of the conference include:

• facilitating a sharing of research and learnings from the experience of campaigns in other countries;
• clarifying choices and policy options and developing a common platform for action on fair taxes; and,
• developing public education, advocacy and action campaign plans including figuring out how best to communicate our message.

Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in French and English.

The program includes workshops on:

• Fair taxes and the environment
• Making taxes more progressive
• How to make corporations pay for all the services they get
• Getting value for your money
• Reforming municipal taxes
• How the tax system could help to reduce poverty and inequality,
• Tackling tax havens, and
• Provincial tax fairness campaigning.

​Plenary sessions include:

• Tax cutting and austerity budgets or tax fairness and better government services and social programs? The political and economic context for fair tax campaigning.
• Framing the tax debate
• Beyond our borders, learning from global tax justice campaigns
• A call to action

​ The key note address will be by Linda McQuaig, well known author and journalist, who has most recently co-authored with Neil Brooks the best selling book, The Trouble with Billionaires. She will speak about Building a Better Canada.

Other confirmed speakers include:

• John Christensen, Tax Justice Network International, UK
• Alvin Sindiga Mosioma, Tax Justice Network - Africa
• Neil Brooks, Professor, Osgoode Law School, York University
• Armine Yalnizyan, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
• Toby Sanger, Canadian Union of Public Employees
• Andrew Jackson, Canadian Labour Congress
• Alain Deneault, Échec aux paradis fiscaux
• Sheila Block, Wellesley Institute
• Trish Hennessey, CCPA
• Nicole Tichon, Tax Justice Network USA
• Shannon Daub, CCPA BC Office
• Laurel Rothman, Campaign 2000
• Marc Lee, CCPA BC Office
• Kathleen Lahey, Queen's University Faculty of Law
• Nadia Lévesque, Public Service Union of Quebec

The event fees for the Fair Tax Summit are:

Regular (sponsored by an organization)$ 175.00Individual or small organization$ 75.00Student or unwaged$ 25.00

The conference will be held at the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa. A block of rooms is being held at a special discounted rate of $144 a night.

The conference will be limited to 150 participants so register early to be sure to get a spot.

For more information contact Sofia Samper at: sofia.samper@taxfairness.ca