Revised LFS Numbers Don’t Change the Big Picture
What a rough week it’s been over at Statistics Canada. It’s a world-renowned statistical agency — though its lustre has been tarnished in recent years by budget cuts, cancelled data…
Jim Stanford
Important Challenges to Investor-State Dispute-Settlement
In my many years documenting and critiquing the overblown claims of free trade proponents about the supposedly self-regulating efficiency-promoting mutually-benefiting effects of globalization, I’ve encountered some real doozies. (My Ph.D.…
Benjamin Zycher’s Eight-Year Itch
The controversy regarding the mathematical errors in the Ontario PCs’ “million jobs plan” went viral last week, after a critical mass of economists weighed in to confirm that the party…
More on Conference Board Model of Corporate Tax Cuts
Further to my post yesterday about how the Ontario PCs have vastly overstated their own consultants’ estimates of the number of jobs produced by their various policy proposals (including lower…
Major Numerical Problems in Tim Hudak’s Jobs Plan
When Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak kicked off the current election campaign with a plan to “create a million new jobs” in Ontario, he tried to dress up the platform…
Jason Kenney, TFWs, and Canada’s Services Trade
When he announced the sudden moratorium on new Temporary Foreign Workers (TFW) in the restaurant industry, Employment and Social Development Minister Jason Kenney tried to reconcile this dramatic about-face with…
More on Demographics, Demand, and Canada’s Falling Employment Rate
My post last week on the continuing decline in the employment rate in Canada (to below 61.5% in April, barely higher than the low point reached in the 2008-09 recession)…
Austerity Bites, Employment Rate Falls Again
Today’s labour force numbers are ugly, there’s no other word for it. Employment down 29,000 jobs. Paid employment (ie. not counting self-employment) down 46,000 jobs. The only reason the unemployment…
How NOT to Create A Million Jobs
It was almost too painful to watch: Tim Hudak and top Conservative luminaries kicked off their campaign for the 2014 Ontario election in a Toronto music recording studio. Problem: that…
Neoliberalism in Canada: 3 moments, 3 indicators
The current edition of Canadian Dimension magazine has a fascinating series of articles on episodes of economic transition around the world (more of them bad than good in recent times,…
Canada’s transformation under neoliberalism
Even before that transformation began, Canada was hardly a model of inclusion, equality, and democracy. But in the latter years of the postwar expansion, Canada progressed both economically and socially.…
Guest Post: Paul Pugh on Uruguay’s Fitting Recognition
Here is a guest post from Paul Pugh, from Thunder Bay, who provided us a couple of years ago with some interesting and encouraging data about Uruguay’s incremental successes in…
Collective Bargaining and Poverty Reduction: OECD Data
My union Unifor is currently undertaking an important “Rights at Work” campaign, which involves a national tour of meetings with our officers and local leaders and stewards, followed by a…
Are Higher Minimum Wages Un-Canadian?
The debate over increasing the minimium wage, so clearly necessary to lift working incomes above the poverty line (not to mention boost consumer spending power), is heating up in many…
The Odd Conversion of Mainstream Economists to the Virtues of Depreciation
The long-overdue depreciation of Canada’s currency is gathering steam. The dollar lost 8 cents against its U.S. counterpart, in fits and starts, over 2013. It’s lost another 2 cents since…
The Staple Theory @ 50: Mel Watkins
We now present the final installment in our autumn-long series of special commentaries marking the 50th anniversary of the publication of “A Staple Theory of Economic Development,” the classic article…
The Staple Theory @ 50: Index of Contributions
Here for ease of access is a consolidated listing (in order of posting) of the contributions to the special series of commentaries we have posted this autmn marking the 50th…
The Staple Theory @ 50: Jim Stanford
Winter is now officially upon us, and so it is time to conclude our autumn-long series of special commentaries marking the 50th anniversary of Mel Watkins’ classic article, “A Staple…
The Staple Theory @ 50: Gerry Helleiner
One remarkable and gratifying aspect of our special series of commentaries marking the 50th Anniversary of Mel Watkins’ classic 1963 article on staple theory, is the interest and input it…
Staples @ 50: Duncan Cameron
We are nearing the end of our series of special commentaries celebrating the 50th anniversay of the 1963 publication of Mel Watkins’ classic article, “A Staple Theory of Economic Growth.”…