Shorter Carol Goar: When it comes to Canada Post, the only options are cuts, sell-offs or more cuts. Because who could possibly want better service which also increases public revenue?
Continue readingTag: Privatization
The Canadian Progressive: WikiLeaks reveals CBC and Canada Post may be sold under TPP agreement
A confidential letter leaked by WikiLeaks on Wednesday reveals that the CBC and Canada Post could be sold under the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, currently being negotiated by Canada and 11 other countries in Maui, Hawaii. The post WikiLeaks reveals CBC and Canada Post may be sold under TPP
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Alan Freeman discusses the need for an adult conversation about taxes to replace the Cons’ oft-repeated policy of ignorance: Focusing on low taxes is great politics. It’s also a really dumb way to run the economy of an advanced industrialized country. Getting
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – David Dayen explains how fiscal policy intended to ensure growth for everybody is instead sending all of its benefits to the top end of the income scale – and thus failing to ensure any growth at all: (L)et’s examine how central banks try
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On closed-door decisions
Memo to Don Lenihan: It’s well and good to point to past backroom policy debacles such as utterly unwanted Crown corporation giveaways as examples of a complete lack of public engagement. But before lauding Kathleen Wynne as the face of open government, might it be worth noting that she’s doing
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Evening Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Daniel Tencer discusses the latest evidence that trickle-down economics are a fraud, while David Roberts and Javier Zarracina write about how the elite seems to get its own way even when the results are worse for everybody. And Heather Stewart reports on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – PressProgress points out that neither the public nor a group of the world’s leading economists sees the slightest value in balanced-budget gimmicks which override sound public decision-making. And Paul Krugman observes that the entire conservative economic strategy is based on overinflating bubbles,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Guy Standing discusses the political and social importance of Canada’s growing precariat, as well as the broader definition of inequality needed to address its needs: The assets most unequally distributed are fourfold. First, socio-economic security is more unequally distributed than income. If
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Juxtaposition
Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party is trumpeting the “success” of a hiring freeze in which the entire government saved $8 million in a quarter – or roughly $32 million per year – by not hiring staff. Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party has increased the cost of consultants in the Ministry of Highways
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michel Husson and Stephanie Treillet write that reduced work hours could do wonders for the quality of life for both workers who currently have jobs, and those seeking them: The question is not so much if working hours will decrease, but how. The
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s shattered Tories have a tougher task ahead than the ‘inexperienced’ NDP
PHOTOS: A really smart guy tries to figure out a way back to power for Alberta’s post-Prentice Progressive Conservatives. Actual PC strategists may not appear exactly as illustrated. Doesn’t look like it’s going that well. Below: NDP Health and Seniors Minister Sarah Hoffman; Bill Moore-Kilgannon, her new chief of staff.
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Heather Stewart writes about the OECD’s study showing the connection between increasingly precarious work and worsening inequality. – Tara Deschamps reports on a few of the challenges facing poor Torontonians, while Sara Mojtehedzadeh and Laurie Monsebraaten cover the United Way’s report card
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Evening Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Sara Mojtehedzadeh highlights how Ontario employers are exploiting temporary workers rather than making any effort to offer jobs which can support a life: Under Ontario’s antiquated Employment Standards Act, which is currently under review, there is no limit on how long a company
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On private choices
Among the other noteworthy impacts of Rachel Notley’s resounding election victory, right-wing governments elsewhere can no longer point to Alberta as the worst offender when it comes to breaking down universal public health care. And it may not be surprising that Brad Wall is offering to play that role instead,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Michael Kraus, Shai Davidai and A. David Nussbaum discuss the myth of social mobility in the U.S. And Nicholas Kristof writes that inequality is a choice rather than an inevitability: Yet while we broadly lament inequality, we treat it as some natural
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Podcast: Pension tensions and privatizations
https://politicalehconomy.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/podcast150501-pensions-and-privatization.mp3 I have two guests on two different topics today. First up: Kevin Skerrett, a pension researcher at the Canadian Union of Public Employees. I spoke with him about the role of pensions in financialized capitalism. Don’t let the word pensions scare you off, this is a conversation that gets
Continue readingcmkl: The cold, hard factual stupidity of Ontario selling its electrical utility: Hugh Mackenzie on rabble.ca
Normally I’d be all “but this represents Ontarians’ birthright, stuff that we have worked hard for and built with blood sweat and taxes” over the Ontario Liberals’ plan to sell Hydro One. But Hugh Mackenzie, an economist who works with CCPA, has another take. A rather cold, realpolitik, Bay Street
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Canadians for Tax Fairness offers a checklist to allow us to determine whether the federal budget is aimed at improving matters for everybody, or only for the privileged few. And Andrew Jackson argues that the Cons’ focus should be investment in jobs and
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Solidarity key to protecting public education
Hundreds of parents, teachers and students will be protesting education cuts in BC on Sunday. Families Against Cuts to Education is hosting the protests in five BC communities after yet another round of budget cuts for school boards and increased costs surreptitiously delivered through increases to BC Hydro rates and
Continue readingstaffroom confidential: Solidarity key to protecting public education
Hundreds of parents, teachers and students will be protesting education cuts in BC on Sunday. Families Against Cuts to Education is hosting the protests in five BC communities after yet another round of budget cuts for school boards and increased costs surreptitiously delivered through increases to BC Hydro rates and
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