If the issue wasn’t so serious, it would be funny.Newfoundland and Labrador is up the financial creek, according to Charles Lammam, an analyst with the Fraser Institute, in a new opinion piece with a couple of his colleagues.. The…
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Alberta Politics: Fearless champion of the corporate overdog snarls at CCPA’s eye-popping New Year CEO salary tally
PHOTOS: Beggars and bazillionaires, not really as far apart as you think, the Fraser Institute insists. Top 100 Canadian corporate executives may not appear exactly as illustrated. Minimum wage workers, though? Not so different. Below: CCPA researcher …
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Progress Alberta, new progressive advocacy group, will make waves … not just with opponents but maybe on own side too
PHOTOS: The Alberta Legislature, suitably decorated for the province’s progressive and proudly diverse population. Below: Progress Alberta Executive Director Duncan Kinney. Progress Alberta, a new group that describes itself as “a multi-issue, inde…
Continue readingThe Sir Robert Bond Papers: Let’s hear it for the Fraser Institute geniuses #nlpoli
A year after Kathy Dunderdale left office, the Fraser Institute said she was one of the best fiscal managers of all the Premiers in Canada.Provincial Conservatives repeated the story anywhere and everywhere they could, just as they had done the other t…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Baked Alaska and the Fraser Institute: what changes, and what doesn’t, when oil prices fall and the money melts
PHOTOS: Alaska Governor Bill Walker illustrates about how much is left in the northern state’s budget now that oil prices have gone south. (Alaska Dispatch News photo.) Below: The wild rose, official flower of both Alaska and Alberta; baked Alaska, g…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Canadian market-fundamentalist right looks to ‘Super PACs’ like so-called Alberta Prosperity Fund to grab back power
PHOTOS: ‘Super PACs’ have access to corporate vaults, and very little control or oversight of what they do with the money they’re given. Below: Alberta Prosperity Fund Director Barry McNamar, APF Advisory Council members Dave Rutherford and Camer…
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading.- Kaylie Tiessen offers some important lessons from Ontario’s child poverty strategy – with the most important one being the importance of following through. And Christian Ledwell encourages Prince Edward Isl…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Big Tobacco’s doubtful claim high taxes encourage cigarette smuggling finds support on Alberta’s Wildrose benches
PHOTOS: Young cigarette smokers in 1910. The tobacco industry and its friends on the Opposition benches think high tobacco taxes are a problem. Below: Wildrose Party Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt, an advocate of this view; NDP Finance Minister Joe C…
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Go figure! Major tobacco corporation’s unique Alberta lobbying effort focuses on Wildrose finance critic
PHOTOS: The benefits to young people of a low-tax regime for cigarettes. Real portrayals of the joys of smoking may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Cigarette smuggling – bad for the books for sure; Wildrose Party Finance Critic Derek Fildebrandt, whose 2012 Canadian Taxpayers Federation publication argued contraband cigarettes
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Labour Day 2015: Analyzing Europe’s refugee crisis through the lens of labour rights
PHOTOS: The Za’atari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Below: International studies scholar Vijay Prashad; former Conservative Senator Hugh Segal. On Labour Day 2015, the world’s attention is focused on the great migration of desperate human beings streaming into Europe from the economic and military catastrophes of North Africa and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Shhhhhh! Don’t tell anyone: As PM, Stephen Harper’s economic performance is a bust!
PHOTOS: From the sublime to the ridiculous? Liberal Lester Pearson, the top postwar economic performer among Canadian prime ministers. Below: Stephen Harper, the bottom. Below him: Pierre Trudeau (second best) and Brian Mulroney (second worst). Below them: Unifor economists Jim Stanford and Jordan Brennan. One of the most effective ways
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Was the Senate report on ‘countering’ the threat of terrorism intended to incite hatred for political gain?
PHOTOS: Conservative members of the Senate of Canada answer questions about their “interim report” on countering terrorist threats to Canada. Actual Conservative Senators may not appear exactly as illustrated – but close enough, unfortunately. Below: Liberal senator Grant Mitchell of Alberta, who dissented from the report; former British MP George
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s NDP government moves too cautiously, but in the right direction, on raising the minimum wage
PHOTOS: The government of Alberta’s spin on an increase in the minimum wage – what a contrast to the grim excuse-making of a few months ago! Below: Jobs Minister Lori Sigurdson (from the Premier of Alberta’s Flickr account), Premier Rachel Notley (photo by Dave Cournoyer) and Alberta Chambers of Commerce
Continue readingAlberta Politics: $15 is too low, and three years is too long to wait, for a higher Alberta minimum wage
PHOTOS: Greetings from Halifax, where a minimum wage almost as low as Alberta’s isn’t half of what a two-earner family needs to live a decent life. Can it be much different in Calgary or Edmonton? Below: Enthusiastic Tweeter Dan Kelly’s Twitter thumbnail; Alberta Finance Minister Joe Ceci. HALIFAX, N.S. The
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How weird is this? Calgary Chamber of Commerce spokesperson praises Rachel Notley’s NDP government
PHOTOS: Premier Designate Rachel Notley, in orange shoes, with her caucus. Below: Scott Crockatt, the Calgary Chamber’s communications and marketing director; Manning Centre polemicist Colin Craig. Well, these are strange times indeed when the official spokesperson for the Calgary Chamber of Commerce can extol the potential for Alberta’s just-elected New
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Matthew Yglesias points out that a particular income level may have radically different implications depending on an individual’s place in life, and that we can only address inequality by formulating policy accordingly: The median household income in the United States is about $52,000.
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Even the Fraser Institute Can’t Look the Other Way But It Can’t Tell the Truth Either.
There’s a bumper sticker line that could double for the provincial motto of Alberta: Dear God, Please Give Us One More Oil Boom and, This Time, We Promise We Won’t Piss It Away.Now, with another boom gone bust, Alberta has fallen back into a raging deficit and even the uber-Right
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Nicholas Kristof discusses how U.S. workers have suffered as a result of declining union strength. And Barry Critchley writes that Canada’s average expected retirement age has crept over 65 – with that change coming out of necessity rather than worker choice. – Alex
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jim Stanford highlights the fact that a deficit obsession may have little to do with economic development – and calls out the B.C. Libs for pretending that the former is the same as the latter: I found especially objectionable the article’s uncritical cheerleading
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Nicholas Kristof writes about the empathy gap which causes far too many wealthier citizens to devalue those who don’t have as much. Jesse Singal observes that the primary effect of wealth on well-being is to reduce downside rather than improve happiness – signalling
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