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 readingTag: labour.
The 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
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Temporary Foreign Workers Program: RBC pledges not to outsource Canadian jobs
Stung by the Temporary Foreign Workers Program scandal, the Royal Bank of Canada says it’s no longer in the deplorable business of outsourcing Canadian jobs to foreign workers. But only, it seems, when “a worker eligible to work in Canada is available and able to perform the service.” The post
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Report gives Manitoba’s invisible migrant farm workers a voice
They come to Manitoba each summer under Canada’s Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program to work on farms and nurseries. And they’re invisible. Now a new report by the Migrant Worker Solidarity Network and The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Manitoba gives these migrant farm workers a voice. About the report: The Migrant Worker’s
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Pat Steenberg observes that the Harper Cons’ deficits are the result of conscious choices to reduce government revenue – and that we can fix our deficit and rein in inequality at the same time by reversing the damage: (W)hen our governments say they
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Murray Dobbin contrasts the B.C. NDP’s recent election loss against the type of popular focus which helped Saskatchewan’s CCF to earn a twenty-year stay in office in the face of far more hysterical opposition: You can design a campaign that projects a
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Justin Ling writes that the Cons’ aversion to accountability isn’t limited to their own government, as they’re one of the few holdouts against transparency in resource-sector reporting of payments to governments abroad. – Meanwhile, Stuart Trew discusses an international citizens’ initiative to
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Duncan Cameron is the latest to weigh in on the Cons’ distorted sense of priorities in directing public research money toward private profits: Publicly available research is important. Since no one knows where discoveries or advances in knowledge will lead, the entire
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Babad takes a look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data on wages and employment levels – reaching the conclusion that the corporatist effort to drive wages down does nothing to improve employment prospects. But the absence of any remotely plausible policy justification
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Sunday reading. – Daniel Boffey catches one of David Cameron’s top aides saying what most Cons leave as an unstated assumption: that recession and depressed wages are good for business (as long as “business” is defined only to mean short-term profits based on exploitation): The prime
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Saskatchewan: A beachhead of labour law reform?
By: Andrew Stevens | First published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on May 3, 2013: Sweeping changes to Saskatchewan’s labour relations and employment standards legislation are on the verge of being passed. Bill 85, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, will dramatically transform the laws governing trade unions and industrial relations in the province. The
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Saskatchewan: A beachhead of labour law reform?
By: Andrew Stevens | First published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives on May 3, 2013: Sweeping changes to Saskatchewan’s labour relations and employment standards legislation are on the verge of being passed. Bill 85, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, will dramatically transform the laws governing trade unions and industrial relations in the province. The
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Armine Yalnizyan makes the case as to why wealth equates to far too much power in Canada: The problem is not that the wealthy are too powerful. The problem is that, with rare exception, as their power has increased, it has not been
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