A good parental leave system makes children more affordable, and improves gender equity in the labour force and at home. In Quebec, parental leave innovations include time reserved solely for the father, higher replacement rates, and flexibility. This has dramatically increased the number of fathers taking parental leaves, which in
Continue readingTag: social democracy
The NDP—back to social democracy
Rather like the British Labour Party under Tony Blair, the NDP made a play for the political centre. The Liberals, led by the dangerous to underestimate Justin Trudeau, have now writ fini to that ambition.The thing for the NDP to do now, in the heart and mind of this member
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Guest Post by Mimi Williams: When the NDP abandoned its socialist principles, it abandoned its chance of winning
PHOTOS: Federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair – whatever was he thinking? Below: Guest Post author Mimi Williams; Jeremy Corbyn, new leader of Britain’s Labour Party. Many New Democrats were shocked and dismayed at the outcome of Monday’s federal election, despite their relief that Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party government
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: The economics of the possible and beyond
Last week, I wrote a short piece for Ricochet on the kind of simple but serious economic thinking missing from the Canadian election debate so far. Here, I want to expand on the reasons why we might have trouble talking honestly about the barriers to significant economic reform without a real popular upsurge. If
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson discusses how increased development of the oil sands fits into Canada’s economic future – and how it’s foolhardy to assume that one necessarily equates to the other: A new and effective global climate agreement to avoid hitting the 2 degree increase
Continue readingMichal Rozworski: Podcast: The challenge of Sanders and Corbyn to the extreme centre
http://rozworski.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Podcast150814-Sanders-Corbyn.mp3 Over the past year, unlikely challengers have emerged to the dominant politics of the center-left in both the US and the UK. Jeremy Corbyn is looking increasingly poised to win the leadership of the UK Labour Party next month. Meanwhile, on this side of the Atlantic, Bernie Sanders
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Question The Nature Of Your Orders – new Facebook page.
New Facebook Page.Instead of continuing to fill up my personal Facebook page with political posts, I’ve created a new paged called Question The Nature Of Your Orders. Anyone wishing to continue to follow my posts (like I was posting to my Facebook page…
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Question The Nature Of Your Orders – new Facebook page.
New Facebook Page.Instead of continuing to fill up my personal Facebook page with political posts, I’ve created a new paged called Question The Nature Of Your Orders. Anyone wishing to continue to follow my posts (like I was posting to my Facebook page) can Like (and then choose to Get
Continue readingDriving The Porcelain Bus: Question The Nature Of Your Orders – new Facebook page.
New Facebook Page.Instead of continuing to fill up my personal Facebook page with political posts, I’ve created a new paged called Question The Nature Of Your Orders. Anyone wishing to continue to follow my posts (like I was posting to my Facebook page) can Like (and then choose to Get
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: A Timely Scottish Warning for the New Democrats
There’s a price you pay for abandoning the Left. The latest party to learn that lesson is Scotland’s Labour Party. The “Blairification” of the Labour Party has sent a good part of Labour’s base in Scotland over to the SNP. Scottish Labour is suffering from a …to some extent self-inflicted
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Three planks for a possible anti-austerity
What would anti-austerity in Canada look like? There are really two types of questions here. There are those of analysis: what has Canada’s austerity looked like, what makes it distinctive and how does it appear in people’s everyday experience? The others are those of political strategy. These are questions that will have to wait for a social, political
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Beyond social democracy: new institutions, new subjects
So many of the debates on the contemporary left come back to the legacy of social democracy. The Swedish experience came closest to fulfilling social democratic ideals in the post-war era and so speaks to these debates in a unique way. Earlier this year, I talked to Petter Nilssen of Sweden’s
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Some thoughts starting from a Fraser Institute graph
I’ve been meaning to post something on a chart from a Fraser Institute report for a while but slept on it. The chart comes from Fraser’s annual Consumer Tax Report and is supposed to show the different paths taken by how much households pay in taxes and how much they spend
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Morning Star :: Swedish government reveals progressive budget
Morning Star :: Swedish government reveals progressive budget. Filed under: Austerity Tagged: Austerity, Europe, social democracy, Sweden
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Free-market era in Sweden swept away as feminists and greens plot new path | World news | The Observer
Free-market era in Sweden swept away as feminists and greens plot new path | World news | The Observer. For a man who is a near-certainty to become Sweden‘s prime minister after today’s general election, Stefan Löfven has had a miserable campaign. In his latest misstep, Löfven, a burly union
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Why I Left The NDP-Sana Hassainia, the MP for Verchères-Les Patriotes
Sana Hassainia MP – Left the NDP One week after her resignation from the NDP, Sana Hassainia, the MP for Verchères-Les Patriotes in Quebec, speaks about why she left and the direction of the party under Thomas Mulcair’s leadership. Editors’ note: This is a translated version of an interview originally conducted
Continue readingWhy a lifelong Dipper is disappointed with Thomas Mulcair
Born and raised in Saskatchewan, I’ve been a supporter of the CCF/NDP since before Thomas Mulcair was born. The major reason is simply that Canada’s social democratic party has always been the voice of the vulnerable and the oppressed. And that is also the major reason I am uncomfortable with
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Policy Network – News
Policy Network – News. State of the Left 30 May 2014 The dust is still settling after the European elections of last weekend with the horse-trading over the Commission presidency and the populist challengers in France and Britain still dominating much of the news agenda. The elections delivered stark warning
Continue readingParchment in the Fire: Financialization and the Collapse of European Social Democracy – Costas Lapavitsas on Reality Asserts Itself 7/8
Financialization and the Collapse of European Social Democracy – Costas Lapavitsas on Reality Asserts Itself 7/8. Filed under: Europe, Social Democracy Tagged: Europe, financialization, social democracy
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: In Praise of our Distinguished Predecessor
J. King Gordon (b.1900, d.1989) was not a professional economist, though as a Rhodes Scholar he studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford while inhaling the Fabianism in the air. He was a progressive and a political activist who deserves to be remembered by us. Twice in his life he
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