Assorted content to end your week. – The Globe and Mail’s editorial board rightly recognizes that attempts to challenge federal carbon pricing on constitutional grounds represent nothing but a politically-motivated waste of money. Ross Belot laments the Trudeau Libs’ decision to respond by watering down already-insufficient plans while making it
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Accidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Katie Dangerfield reports on new research showing that carbon pricing can be an economic benefit, while unrestrained climate change would be disastrous. Bill Curry and Shawn McCarthy report that Scott Moe has eagerly lumped himself in with Doug Ford as Canada’s most
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Osmond Chui writes that Australia is no exception to the trend of modest economic growth being entirely hoarded by the wealthiest few, while work and life are ever more precarious for everybody else: What makes people angry about excessive executive pay is the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Evening Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Martin Regg Cohn writes that reducing access to pharmacare is just the first item on Doug Ford’s extensive hidden agenda. And Steve Morgan examines the effects of Ford’s cuts to public prescription drug coverage and finds that the end result of relying more
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how Scott Moe’s equalization bluster ultimately shows only that he’s more interested in political posturing than responsible governance. For further reading…– Gregory Beatty reviews how Saskatchewan’s effort to remove renewable resource revenue from the equalization formula was abandoned when Brad Wall decided it was inconvenient to remind the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Truth About Carbon Pricing
The taxation levels for carbon set by the federal government will likely prove wholly inadequate in getting people to modify their behaviour to combat climate change. However, given the exit of Ontario from its cap-and-trade program by the incoming populist and reactionary Doug Ford, the truth is, it’s better than
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Rethinking the economics of extreme events
Review of Worst-Case Economics: Extreme Events in Climate and Finance by Frank Ackerman *** Long ago economics was termed “the dismal science,” but in recent years that title has arguably been passed on to climate science, with its regular and dire warnings that humanity needs to rapidly transition off of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Rethinking the economics of extreme events
I was asked to review Frank Ackerman’s Worst-Case Economics: Extreme Events in Climate and Finance. I’ve learned a lot from his writing over the years so it was a pleasure to say yes. *** Long ago economics was termed “the dismal science,” but in recent years that title has arguably been
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On the social environment
Having written my column this week on one of the more glaring areas of increasingly alarming neglect from the Saskatchewan Party under Scott Moe, I’ll take a moment to point out the other single policy change that I find most striking. D.C. Fraser has reported on a reduction in funding
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: That’s Another Fine Mess He’s Gotten Himself Into
In a post yesterday, The Mound offered a searing assessment of Justin Trudeau’s abject failure on the climate-change file. Only the most ardent acolytes of the Prime Minister will fail to see that his soaring rhetoric has far outpaced his level of achievement. Says Mound: Raising public awareness about climate
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ten proposals from the 2018 Alternative Federal Budget
I’ve written a blog post about this year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB). Points raised in the blog post include the following: -This year’s AFB would create 470,000 (full-time equivalent) jobs in its first year alone. By year 2 of the plan, 600,000 new (full-time equivalent) jobs will exist. -This year’s
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: Of Premiers and Pipelines
In an interview with the National Observer last week, Justin Trudeau raised more than a few eyebrows by comparing B.C. premier John Horgan to former Saskatchewan premier and climate policy obstructionist Brad Wall. “Similarly and frustratingly,” said the prime minister, “John Horgan is actually trying to scuttle our national plan
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Even the National Post is Sounding the Alarm.
By now we all know how quickly and severely the Arctic is warming. Nobody’s arguing that any more. What we don’t know, as yet, is how that’s going to impact the majority of us down here by the 49th parallel and below. David Barberr, a lead author of a new
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Amira Elghawaby comments on the loss of empathy in Canadian politics – particularly due to a disproportionate focus on the perceived self-interest of a narrow group of upper-middle-class swing voters, rather than speaking to and about the people with the greatest need
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – CBC reports on Nav Persaud’s research showing how universal prescription drug coverage could produce improved health outcomes for a lower cost. But Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew note that the Libs are instead taking us in the opposite direction with a combination of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – CBC reports on Nav Persaud’s research showing how universal prescription drug coverage could produce improved health outcomes for a lower cost. But Scott Sinclair and Stuart Trew note that the Libs are instead taking us in the opposite direction with a combination of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Dean Baker discusses some of the myths about the effects of corporate globalization – with particular attention to how our current trade and immigration structures are designed to provide easy profits for capital at the expense of labour around the world. And Jason
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada’s $3.3bn fossil fuel subsidies undermine climate action: Report
Canada’s $3.3 billion in federal and provincial subsidies to fossil fuel companies undermine climate action, says a new study by four prominent Canadian environmental groups. The post Canada’s $3.3bn fossil fuel subsidies undermine climate action: Report appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Branko Milanovic highlights the futility of pretending that market mechanisms will produce anything other than profit-oriented outcomes – and the observation represents an obvious reason not to put public services in corporate hands. And David Sloan Wilson (in introducing an interview with Sigrun
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Rachel Notley’s demand for a pipeline quid pro quo demonstrates the steely side of Alberta’s premier
PHOTOS: Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley. Below: Peter Lougheed, Alberta’s first Progressive Conservative premier, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his father, the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau. GRANDE PRAIRIE, Alberta Rachel Notley’s decision yesterday to make support for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan put a national price on carbon conditional
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