This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Thomas Walkom discusses how a continued economic slump is combining with the Cons’ economic policies to destroy secure jobs in favour of precarious, low-paying work: Those making economic policy from afar may admire creative destruction. Those being destroyed rarely do. Here in
Continue readingTag: labour.
Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Chrystia Freeland writes about the dangers of increased concentration of wealth – particularly when it bears at best a passing relationship to any worthwhile contribution to society at large. And CBC’s report on Peter Sabourin’s investment fraud highlights the fact that the tax
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Thomas Walkom, Dan Leger and Michael Harris write about the sketchy surveillance programs in place on both sides of the 49th parallel. But there may be an opportunity to make common cause with the 1% in criticizing constant intrusion on personal privacy, as
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Andrew Gavin Marshall surveys the grossly disproportionate amount of wealth and power held by a small elite class: In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: International report condemns Harper government’s attacks on workers, trade unions
By: Obert Madondo Twitter: @Obiemad A new report by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) condemns the Harper Conservatives for repeated violations of union and worker rights. The annual report, titled Countries at Risk: 2013 Report on Violations of Trade Union Rights, was released in Geneva earlier this week. It suggests that labour conditions have deteriorated under Prime Minister
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Doreen Massey observes that our political vocabulary has largely been hijacked by corporatist language: At a recent art exhibition I engaged in an interesting conversation with one of the young people employed by the gallery. As she turned to walk off I saw
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Deborah Gyapong discusses CMA President Anna Reid’s presentation to the federal All-Party Anti-Poverty Caucus, with the positive response of MPs from all parties looking like a particularly noteworthy development: The CMA put forward seven recommendations for governments at all levels to examine
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Harper Conservatives spying on well-known aboriginal rights advocate, says UFCW Canada
By: UFCW Canada | Press Release Dr. Cindy Blackstock (Photo credit: Art Babych) TORONTO, June 9, 2013 – As reported in the Toronto Star, the federal Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has found that Dr. Cindy Blackstock, Executive Director of the First Nations Children and Family Caring Society (FNCFCS), has been the subject of
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
This and that to end your weekend. – Dave Coles introduces readers to the Cons’ latest attack on labour – with a backbencher’s private member’s bill again serving as an excuse to introduce unprecedent restrictions on union organization. – Michael Harris suspects that the Cons’ attempt to delay any public
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Conservative attack on workers continues with “Private Members’ Bill”: PSAC
By: Public Service Alliance of Canada | Press Release On June 5th, Conservative MP Blaine Calkins for Wetaskiwin (Alberta) introduced Bill C-525, an Act to change the certification and revocation sections of the Canada Labour Code, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Parliamentary Employees Staff Relations Act. The purpose
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Jillian Berman reports on research showing that the predictable effect of decreased unionization is a transfer of wealth from workers to shareholders: The jump in corporate profit over the past few decades can be explained largely by a decline in union membership over
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Frances Russell makes the case for mandatory voting as an antidote to vote suppression: At first glance, entrenched opposition to mandatory voting in all the English-speaking democracies – Australia excepted – is puzzling. Given all the obligations of citizenship in a democracy
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: CUPE: B.C. school support staff layoffs “devastating”
By: CUPE | Press Release NEW WESTMINSTER, BC – Education workers and students are paying the price for ballooning deficits in Coquitlam and New Westminster. The districts have announced layoffs of CUPE support staff that the union says will severely affect the quality and even safety of education and services. A $12.6-million
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Greeks ask Canadians to help stop Canadian mining corp Eldorado Gold
By: Mining Watch Canada | Press Release OTTAWA – The situation around Eldorado Gold Corporation’s mining projects in northern Greece is extremely tense. In the face of negative official response to social and environmental concerns from the company, Greek authorities, and even the Canadian Ambassador – a delegation from the affected
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Canada Originally Intended All Education To Be Free
Out of Canada’s 33 Fathers of Confederation, only one went to university.1 It’s not that Nova Scotia’s Charles Tupper was the only intelligent one among them, other founders were businessmen, doctors, and lawyers, it’s that none of those jobs, and many others, did not require any post-secondary education. And the
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Canada Originally Intended All Education To Be Free
Out of Canada’s 33 Fathers of Confederation, only one went to university.1
It’s not that Nova Scotia’s Charles Tupper was the only intelligent one among them, other founders were businessmen, doctors, and lawyers, it’s that none of those jobs, and many others, did not require any post-secondary education.
And the eduction jobs in the late 19th century did require was entirely made free shortly after confederation because provincial governments, though extremely small and limited, believed that their public schools should provide all the instruction necessary for citizens to obtain jobs in any sector, be it agriculture, engineering, manufacturing, commerce, medicine or law.
Today however provinces have lost sight of the importance they once placed on education. Where once provincial governments provided all the training necessary for a skilled workforce, they are increasingly providing less while at the same time businesses are only requiring more.
By 2020 the BC government predicts that 77.3% of all jobs will require a post-secondary education. That means in seven years provincial governments will not provide the education needed for three-quarters of all jobs whereas for decades those same governments believed it was important enough to provide the education for every job.
When Canada was founded, education was seen as the extremely important public good that it is. Even in that most conservative era of small government, where health care wasn’t paid for, roads were tolled, and government sanitation services were non-existent, education was such a priority that our provincial governments sought to make it entirely free to every citizen, to provide the training and skills for any and every job.
That is how education in Canada was originally viewed by government, and that is how all education necessary for all employment was publicly provided for decades. Of course over time that changed, and now Canada has a skilled labour shortage, productivity is declining, and our economy is stagnating.
And though today education remains perhaps the most beneficial public good, it is now a costly private expense, while health care, an almost entirely private good, along with roads and sanitation are completely paid for with public funds.
The great past of Canada was built on the importance of education and the complete public provision of it in order to train its citizens for every job. Over the last few decades that has changed, and with it so has Canada’s opportunity for a great future.
1. [Richard Gwyn. John A, The Man Who Made Us, p.321 ]↩
Continue readingThe Scott Ross: Canada Originally Intended All Education To Be Free
Out of Canada’s 33 Fathers of Confederation, only one went to university.1 It’s not that Nova Scotia’s Charles Tupper was the only intelligent one among them, other founders were businessmen, doctors, and lawyers, it’s that none of those jobs, and many others, did not require any post-secondary education. The eduction
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: UNIFOR: Canada’s new super union that combines CAW and CEP
Meet Unifor Canada, the son-to-be super union combining the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) and the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW). It’ll be biggest private sector union in Canada. The post UNIFOR: Canada’s new super union that combines CAW and CEP appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: OPSEU President demands immediate apology from Corrections Minister
Community Safety and Correctional Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur must immediately apologize for blaming correctional staff for violence by inmates at London’s Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre (EMDC), says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. The post OPSEU President demands immediate apology from Corrections Minister appeared first on
Continue readingwmtc: walmart workers are on strike! sign their petition to show your support.
I’m back! And Walmart workers are on strike! Workers in Miami, Massachusetts and the Bay Area in California are on strike. Please sign their petition supporting their right to speak out for better conditions in the workplace. Workers who have spoken out have seen their hours reduced, their shifts changed
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