I was invited back to serve as guest economics columnist all last week on Metro Morning, CBC Radio’s drive-in flagship show in Toronto, to substitute for the vacationing effervescent libertarian Michael Hlinka. I did this once a couple of years ago (blogged about it here), when Andy Barrie was still the host. Now he’s retired […]
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The Progressive Economics Forum: Burned by B.C.’s Toxic HST Debate
“The fact that the Clark government’s Frankenstein HST hybrid will significantly reduce provincial sales tax revenue at a time when public services are already under intense fiscal pressure is a powerful and principled reason to throw the whole package out in the referendum, and start the debate from scratch.” I may live in Ontario, but […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Arbitrate This!
Does anyone else find it odd that a free-market-worshipping government can happily leap into the fray to micro-manage a labour market outcome (deciding, for example, that postal workers must get 1.75%, not 1.9%, in the first year of their new contract), yet pleads powerlessness when it comes to interfering with market outcomes that are genuinely […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A July 1 Portrait of Corporate Canada
My copy of the Globe and Mail the other day included the July edition of the Report on Business magazine, featuring its annual ranking of the top 1000 publicly-traded corporations in Canada. The survey makes for fascinating reading. In honour of Canada Day, I would like to present a few statistical factoids about these huge […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Velvet Glove Comes Off Harper Government’s Labour Relations Agenda
Even though labour relations is largely a provincial responsibility in Canada, we were worried about what would happen in this field under a Harper majority. And it didn’t take long to find out. In the disputes at both Air Canada and Canada Post, the government waded into the fray in a pre-emptive and utterly one-sided […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Defined Benefit and Defined Contribution: More Voices
How coincidental that the current number of the Canadian Investment Review arrived in my in-box today, just hours after CAW members at Air Canada hit the bricks to reject the company’s demand to abolish the defined benefit pension plan for new hires (and impose major cuts in pensions for the existing workforce). The demand to […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Air Canada Bargaining and the Fight for Middle Class Jobs
CAW members at Air Canada are coming down to the wire in their bargaining with the company, with a strike deadline set for this Monday at midnight. It’s really the first “normal” round of bargaining the workers have been able to undertake since 2000. Since then, they’ve been through two rounds of CCAA court-supervised restructuring […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: PEF at the 2011 CEA Meetings
The ubiquitous Ish Theilheimer of the left-wing on-line news site Straight Goods has written a very generous profile of the Progressive Economics Forum. He hung out at last weekend’s CEA meetings at the University of Ottawa for a while, and caught a few PEF members (including myself, David Robinson, and Brendan Haley) on the way […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The $0.3 Billion Question
Machiavelli has nothing on these guys. Let’s deconstruct for a moment the central message of today’s 2011 Federal Budget, Take 2: “Storm clouds are gathering in the world economy. We must rush to get our fiscal house in order, lest we be struck by another tempest. We will advance our own ambitious timetable for balancing […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: GDP Report: Awfully Weak Tea Leaves
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was unusually blunt on CTV’s Question Period yesterday, saying he was worried about the possibility of another recession. (Finance Ministers are usually very cautious about using the “r”-word, for fear that might worry consumers an dbring about a self-fulfilling prophecy.) Maybe he had already seen today’s quarterly GDP numbers from Statistics […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: CEOs and “Creating Value”
Today’s Globe and Mail carried a story on the front of the business section about Jason Underwood, CEO of Whiterock REIT (a real-estate development income trust). He earned $4.8 million compensation last year (an increase of 475% from the previous year), which is especially surprising since the entire fund has a market value of just […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: World Economics Association Formed
Today marks the launch of a new global organization committed to plurality and ethics in the economics profession, the World Economics Association. The six initiators of the Association include Edward Fullbrook who has been running the Real World Economics network (formerly the “Post-Autistic Economics” newsletter) for a few years. The group has invited 141 economists […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Lang-O’Stanford Exchange
I was invited last week to serve as the substitute host for the indomitable Kevin O’Leary on CBC News channel’s “Lang-O’Leary Exchange.” Amanda Lang introduced the show by saying, “Hello, I’m Amanda Lang.” Then I said, “And I am definitely NOT Kevin O’Leary.” And the rest was history! Here’s the link to the full show […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Salimah Valiani on “Valuing the Invaluable”: Care Work in Canada
PEF member Salimah Valiani is now the research economist at the Ontario Nurses Association. Just in time for Mothers’ Day ONA released a most excellent paper by Salimah, titled: Valuing the Invaluable: Rethinking and respecting caring work in Canada Here is the abstract: Using concepts of feminist economics, this paper demonstrates the range of […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Majority Conservative Government Ushers in New Era of Economic Stability
“The choice for Canadians is crystal clear,” said Harper. “Continuing our low-tax plan to complete the recovery and create jobs, financial security, stability and certainty for Canadian families and businesses. Or the high-tax, reckless-spending Ignatieff-NDP-Bloc Québécois agenda that will stall our recovery, kill jobs and produce political instability and economic uncertainty by re-opening constitutional debates. […]
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Public Policy Forum Testimonial Dinner
The Public Policy Forum is a centrist NGO based in Ottawa whose mandate is to promote dialogue and engagement among the major policy stakeholders in Canada. Its current President is David Mitchell, former leader of the B.C. Liberals, who is a very decent, sincere, bridge-building person. Every year the PPF hosts a big dinner in […]
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