While it is a truism that migrant labour built Canada, this same migrant labour has long been used to discipline domestic workers. Both facts are imprinted into the history of Canada. Today is no different and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) is at the centre of debates about migrant
Continue readingTag: Immigration
Accidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Timothy Shenk discusses Thomas Piketty’s contribution to a critique of unfettered capitalism and gratuitous inequality: Seen from Piketty’s vantage point, thousands of feet above the rubble, the fragility of this moment becomes clear. Economic growth was a recent invention, major reductions to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Livio Di Matteo discusses the wasted opportunity to improve Canada’s health care system through concerted national investments. And Ryan Meili asks who will provide future direction now that the Cons have scrapped the Health Council of Canada: Now we see the federal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Tim Harford proposes four first steps to start combatting income inequality. And the Star’s editorial board makes clear that there’s tax room available for Ontario (among other jurisdictions) to pursue in order to serve the public good: Sousa promises to protect the “middle
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Rights groups demand independent oversight of federal agency CBSA
by: BC Civil Liberties Association | Press Release Public inquiry recommended oversight in 2006 – no action since that time The BC Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Council for Refugees and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers today called on the government to end its long inaction on the need for
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Stephen Hume writes about the importance of tax revenue in building a functional and compassionate Canada: My taxes provide our mostly peaceful, prosperous and safe society; a health care system that for all its flaws and glitches is pretty darn good compared to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Justin Fox questions whether traditional studies tracking the distribution of wealth by quintiles do much good when the most obvious economic faultline is between the (give or take) 1% and everybody else: Something really dramatic is going on up there in the top
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Angelina Chapin highlights the drastic impact a guaranteed annual income would have on Canadians currently living in poverty: To set and meet goals, you have to think long-term. When you’re poor, you can’t focus on the future (and Bill Gates wasn’t raised poor,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Jeremy Nuttall discusses why the Cons’ temporary foreign worker program is ripe for abuse, as it ensures workers have every incentive to avoid reporting employer wrongdoing since the employer can singlehandedly ship the employee out of Canada in retaliation. – But the good
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne calls out Stephen Harper’s hypocrisy in paying lip service to the problems with the use of disposable temporary foreign labour while expanding exactly that policy throughout his stay in power: The program was supposed to be a last resort for employers
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Robert Reich (via GlenInCA) points out the connection between a strong middle class and curbs on corporate excesses – with may go a long way toward explaining why the business lobby is working so hard to eliminate the concept of a secure livelihood
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition
The Cons can’t wait to lock up any refugee who might arrive in Canada on the wrong ship: Immigration Minister Jason Kenney insists Canada’s new measures [including mandatory detention for every single passenger on a designated ship] will provide a strong deterrent to anyone thinking of paying a human smuggler
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Paul Krugman comments on the role of fear in boosting employers’ authority over workers: The fact is that employment generally involves a power relationship: you have a boss, who tells you what to do, and if you refuse, you may be fired. This
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: How Harper can avoid turning a Budget Implementation Bill into a Duffy budget bill
On November 25th, I made the following submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance regarding Bill C-4, Economic Action Plan 2013 Act No. 2, on behalf of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. 1. Introduction and Context Thank you for the invitation to appear before the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on how governments are outsourcing policy decisions to employers in areas ranging from immigration to employment insurance – and on why that may not be any more desirable for employers than for the people affected. For further reading…– The relatively fine print surrounding the new immigration nominee program is
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – James Bloodworth discusses the most important challenge facing Ed Miliband and Labour in the UK – which largely matches the task for progressives around the globe: People have never put all that much stock in politicians of course, and the expenses scandal
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: By invitation only
There’s been plenty of outcry over the Cons’ latest omnibus budget bill. But I haven’t yet seen any discussion of the changes it makes to immigration – and I’d think it’s well worth looking in more detail at the additional steps the Cons are taking to slam the door in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Nikiforuk writes that air quality in Alberta’s Upgrader Alley may be among the worst in North America, including dangerous concentrations of cancer-causing chemicals. And Danny Harvey points out that the planet as a whole stands to be damaged by excessive tar
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Joseph Stiglitz reminds us that inequality isn’t an inevitability, but a choice favoured (and lobbied for) by the few who want to remove themselves from the general public: (W)idening income and wealth inequality in America is part of a trend seen across
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Gordon Hoekstra reports on a study by British Columbia determining that Canada lacks any hope of containing the types of oil spills which will become inevitable if the Cons’ pipe-and-ship plans come to fruition. But once again, the Cons’ response is to make
Continue reading