Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak’s pledge to create one million new jobs sounds like a direct rip-off of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s promise to create 250,000 new jobs in a four year term. Only the state, er province and numbers are different. And how is the Koch brother-funded, union-busting
Continue readingAuthor: Toby Sanger
The Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s (not so incredible) shrinking federal government
Buried in the federal government’s recent Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections are figures showing the Harper government is set to squeeze federal government’s role to the smallest it has been in seventy years. (Bill Curry at the Globe also just wrote about this, but without figures further back than 1958). Total federal
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What happened to the recovery?
(The following is slightly adapted from a short piece on page 3 in the new issue of Economy at Work, the quarterly publication I produce for CUPE, which also covers a lot of other relevant issues.) It’s been a little over four years since Canada’s economy bottomed out in mid 2009. While
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The benefits of sick leave — and of absenteeism
Most of us know the old adage, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” That’s why we’re told by teachers to keep our kids home from school when they’re sick, so they get better and they don’t get others sick as well. It’s why there’s increased focus
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: What’s the real risk and cost for Regina’s wastewater P3?
The City of Regina is engaged in a controversial debate about a proposed public private partnership (P3) for the city’s wastewater plant. Residents formed a Regina Water Watch group to keep the facility public. They collected enough names to take the issue to a municipal referendum on September 25th, despite
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Who really bears the risk for P3s?
Canada is now the second biggest market for public private partnerships (P3s) in the world, as a recent Conference Board report showed (on page 30, see my initial critique here). P3s are big business: Canadian governments closed deals on a reported $7 billion in P3 contracts in both 2010 and
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: NHS fails low incomes–and Canadians
Unfortunately the following note to readers from today’s release of the third and final set of data from the National Household Survey by Statistics Canada speaks for itself: Note to readers Comparability of low-income estimates Low-income estimates from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) compared with previous censuses show markedly different trends than
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Blissful Ignorance: another Conference Board report on P3s
The Conference Board of Canada has produced another report on P3s, funded by the federal and provincial P3 agencies and the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships (CCPPP). Unfortunately and sadly predictably, it’s another exercise in largely blissful ignorance promoting P3s, while glossing over or ignoring their major problems. For
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: A Dozen Reasons why Bill C-377 is the Worst
There has appropriately been a lot a criticism about Bill C-377 at House of Commons committees and the Senate. Hugh Segal has been particularly eloquent as have the many submissions. Graham Cox has a good selection of them on his Citizens’ Press website. Here’s a short summary with a dozen
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The CFIB’s Municipal Manipulations
After analyzing “research reports” issued by the Fraser Institute or the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), I usually end up shaking my head in disbelief. Do they really need to so grossly distort and manipulate the statistics to make their arguments? The answer is invariably “yes”. That’s because the
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s bloated 1 per cent
Statistics Canada’s release on the escalating incomes of the top 1 per cent gained a lot of media coverage — and also provoked some very defensive reactions by major organs of the Canadian media. This included an almost rabid column by Financial Post editor Terence Corcoran accusing Statistics Canada of engaging
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: New historical lows in EI coverage
This is a guest post by Paul Tulloch on the deterioration of Employment Insurance coverage, also responding Statscan’s release of EI figures for October 2012. The painful toll that job loss and unemployment can unleash on Canadian families has traditionally been managed with Canada’s once quite functional Employment Insurance (EI) program.
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Exchange Rates, the Price of Oil and the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project Joint Review Panel
This is a guest post by Paul Tulloch, of LivingWork.ca and frequent commentator on this blog, reporting on some significant and timely work he prepared for the northern gateway pipeline review panel, analyzing correlations betwen the price of oil and the Canadian dollar. Exchange Rates, the Price of Oil and the Enbridge Northern
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: The Austerity Trap
Below is a recent editorial from the New York Times that does an excellent job of summarizing the failures of austerity policies. The NYTimes also published a very good analysis of how austerity measures have actually increased debt loads in many countries, instead of reducing them: “Despite Push for Austerity, European
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario hiding savings from lower interest rates
The Ontario government Fall Economic Statement and Fiscal Review ignores and hides billions savings the province will gain from lower borrowing rates in coming years. While this statement acknowledges that borrowing rates will be considerably lower in coming years–and more than 100 basis points lower in 2014–their forecast of debt
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Three Cheers for the Fraser Institute!
At times, the Fraser Institute produces such helpful material. I hope they make their well-heeled funders, such as the multi billionaire Koch brothers, proud. However, I’m sure the Kochs are more concerned missteps by their progeny Mitt and Ryan are derailing their chance to buy the US presidency. So back
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Dead Money
Kudos to Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney for raising the profile of the over $500 billion Canadian corporations are holding in excess cash surpluses and not investing in the economy, which garnered front page coverage (and kudos to the CAW for inviting him to speak.) It’s not the first
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canadian banks use of tax havens keeps growing
A growing share of Canada’s investment overseas is being channeled by Canadian banks into tax havens. The latest Statistics Canada figures show 24% of Canadian direct investment overseas in 2011 went to the top twelve tax havens, up from 10% in 1987. In fact, tax havens of the Barbados, Cayman Islands,
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Strong public support for financial transaction taxes
An international poll commissioned by the International Trade Union Confederation found very strong support in many countries, including Canada, for the introduction of Financial Transactions Taxes (FTTs), such as the Robin Hood Tax. Trade unions provided results of this poll in their meetings with world leaders at the G20 meetings in
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Conservatives’ small-minded budget kills jobs and fails Canadians
Here’s the budget analysis I prepared for CUPE’s website. Despite its size and the hundreds of measures it details, Harper’s 2012 budget demonstrates just how small-minded their vision is. Canada faces major challenges, with 1.4 million unemployed, stagnant productivity growth, a crisis in retirement security and growing inequality. Instead of
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