Over at the web site of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’m co-author of a blog post titled “The Federal Role in Poverty Reduction.” Points raised in the blog post include the following: -Canada’s Minister of Families, Children and Social Development has been tasked to lead the development of a Canada
Continue readingTag: Privatization
Accidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your weekend reading. – George Monbiot examines how politics in the UK and the U.S. are dominated by unaccountable corporate money. And Stephen Maher and B.J. Siekierski report that both the Libs and Cons are fully on board – as Rona Ambrose managed to take (however justified)
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Ontario’s Electricity Sector: Privatization and deregulation
We’re pleased to present this very topical post by Edgardo Sepulveda examining what has caused Ontario’s rising high electricity prices. This is Edgardo’s second guest post as a PEF member, following his, first, which was an analysis of the impact of fiscal policy changes on post-tax income distribution. Edgardo has
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – David Masciotra offers a cultural case for a basic income: Reward, purpose and meaning are the abstractions meant to pacify the poor and the working class. The rich have wealth, comfort and pleasure. They also have a universal basic income. In Jacobin,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Alex Hemingway highlights the similarities between Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump in pushing infrastructure plans designed primarily to turn the promise of public services into long-term corporate profit centres: But as I described recently in the Canadian context, these “partnerships” have proven
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Jared Bernstein argues that the limited stimulus provided by tax cuts for the rich is far from worth the overall costs of exacerbating inequality and damaging public revenues: I’m encountering progressives who are compelled to be at least somewhat supportive of wasteful, regressive
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: #RealChange wearing thin: A look back at Trudeau’s first year
We’re one year into Justin Trudeau’s government of #RealChange, yet it’s mostly the rhetoric not the policies that have changed. Some of the shine is finally wearing off. Whether approving pipelines, settting electoral reform up to fail or privatizing airports and transit, the Liberals are showing themselves to be the good
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Linda McQuaig writes about the dangerous spread of privatized health care which threatens to undermine our universal system: Privatization advocates want us to believe public health care is no longer affordable. But in fact, it’s private, for-profit medicine that’s unaffordable. The publicly
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Danielle Martin highlights how investments in ending poverty including a basic income can improve health outcomes among other key social indicators: Far more than consumption of medical care, income is the strongest predictor of health. Canadians are more likely to die at an
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Murray Dobbin highlights how our political and economic discussions are poorer for the dominance of neoliberalism: That’s it? That’s the best the economics profession can come up with to explain Canadians’ indebtedness catastrophe? It’s all about human behaviour, written in stone, so I
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jonathan Sas highlights why we’re best off having public services delivered by the public sector: The three decades long bashing and diminishing of the redistributive capacities of the state has led to pronounced inequality, degraded infrastructure stock, and a blunted ability of government
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on SaskTel’s response (PDF) to the Wall government’s attempt to make excuses to sell off one of Saskatchewan’s core Crowns – and how its position in dealing with federal regulators may in fact only be stronger after the selloff of MTS. For further reading…– I’ve written about SaskTel’s beneficial
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Afternoon Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Lana Payne points out the significance of even central bankers like Mark Carney recognizing the desperate need to combat inequality. And Iglika Ivanova discusses how British Columbia’s election-year surplus represents a wasted opportunity to start addressing the social problems which the Libs have
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Eshe Nelson interviews Richard Baldwin about the future of globalization and the possibility that the worst disruptions to workers are just beginning: What happens to the chart on global income distribution during this phase of globalization? It keeps going down. It will be
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: New column day
Here, on the Libs’ pleasantly surprising hints toward enforcing the Canada Health Act – and the Saskatchewan Party’s response that it would rather fight for profit-motivated medicine than work on building a sustainable universal system. For further reading…– By way of background on the enforcement of the Canada Health Act
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On advance opportunities
And now, time to give credit to the Saskatchewan Party where it’s due. Some people are justifiably anticipating that thanks to Donald Trump, self-dealing will be the word of the year to come. @MikePMoffatt @nutgraf1 I’m waiting for the OED to make “self-dealing” Word of the Year for 2017. —
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Evening Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – The Star argues that Canada can’t afford to leave tax loopholes wide open for the rich – as the Libs are doing in violation of their campaign promises. And Martin Lukacs notes that obscene giveaways to the rich seem to be the
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Paul Krugman writes about the dangers of Donald Trump’s crony capitalist infrastructure plan. And Tom Parkin warns us that Justin Trudeau’s Canadian equivalent is headed toward exactly the same results: A private infrastructure bank means paying more for financing. It means getting less
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Kevin Connor reports that the more Ontario voters are exposed to the realities of public-private partnerships, the more they’re turning against the idea – with a quarter or less of respondents seeing any upside to handing public services over to businesses. Tony Keller
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest Post: Where’s the evidence for a health care sustainability crisis in Canada?
PHOTOS: Well, that’s one way to “bend the cost curve” … premier Ralph Klein’s way. The old Calgary General Hospital begins to fall an instant after the dynamite was triggered on Oct. 4, 1998, the Klein PC Government’s approach to health care infrastructure. Within seconds, Calgary’s only downtown hospital had
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