Back of the Line Buddy
Posted below is my column from today’s Globe & Mail regarding this nefarious practice of providing “priority lanes” for higher-income customers — even (in the case of airport security screening)…
Jim Stanford
Oil Prices and the Loonie Again
There’s a refreshingly pragmatic and detailed piece in today’s National Post by Peter Spiro questioning the assumed correlation between oil prices and the loonie. It builds nicely on previous discussion…
Excerpts From CAW Convention Document
Last week’s CAW convention in Toronto was one of the most exciting labour events I’ve ever been to. A highlight, of course, was the high-energy and unanimous endorsement delegates provided…
Spinning Mr. Carney
For novelty value if nothing else, Mark Carney’s appearance at the CAW convention last week was bound to spark lots of attention. After all, we could find no other historical…
Fiscal “Crisis” In Context: Two Indicators
With all the predictions of doom and gloom coming from the austerity camp, one would think that Canada was already about to hit the famed (but never seen) “debt wall.”…
Let’s Make Taxes Voluntary, too!
Further to my recent post on the Ontario PC party’s proposal for right-to-work laws in that province, here is a slightly longer version of my column in today’s Globe and…
Canada: Land of Mines and Banks
Just in time for Canada Day, the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business issued its annual Top 1000 rankings of the thousand largest publicly traded companies (by assets) in Canada…
U.S. Right-to-Work Thinking Now Infecting Canada
It’s clear we’re going to have to gear up our arguments on right-to-work laws, dues check-off, the Rand Formula, etc. In the last year three mainstream parties have introduced proposals…
Trans Pacific Partnership: A Few Questions
The Harper government currently lists 18 different sets of free trade negotiations “in play.” (See my recent post on this.) Today the government announced (from the G-20 meetings in Mexico)…
Our Own Erin Weir Would Make a Great Sask NDP Leader!
I’ve worked closely with Erin for years, being struck by his combination of talent & passion right from the time he entered the PEF’s student essay context (which he won…
Galbraith Lecture by Mike McCracken
I always come back from the annual CEA/PEF meetings highly energized by the companionship of so many other fine committed PEF members, and our success in engaging with the broader…
Canada’s Own Third World
There’s a fascinating new report from the Centre for the Study of Living Standards that calculates Human Development Index (HDI) scores for all of Canada’s provinces and territories. Here’s the…
Running on Fumes
StatsCan released the first-quarter GDP numbers this morning, and the deafening silence you hear is of champagne corks not popping. Quarterly growth was 0.5% (1.9% annualized): uninspiring but not disastrous.…
Promoting Trade and Signing Free Trade Deals are NOT the Same Thing
DFAIT’s web site currently lists 18 different trade deals currently “in play” (and that doesn’t count the Trans-Pacific Partnership, where Ottawa is so far just flirting). But Harper’s push to…
Energy McCarthyism
The high-and-mighty virtiol which greeted Tom Mulcair’s comments last week about the downside of oil-powered currency appreciation is lamentable (repeating the over-the-top reaction to Dalton McGuinty’s similar comments a few…
Temporary Foreign Workers and the Labour Market
Further to recent commentary regarding the Harper government’s dramatic expansion of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TWF) program, consider this shocking factoid: Even before the expansion of the program envisioned in…
Canada’s Oil: For Sale to the Highest Bidder
Want to know why Canada’s currency is sky-high despite our sluggish recovery, our large and persistent current account deficit, and our lousy export performance? Check out this fascinating story in…
If You Could Change One Thing
I had a great change of pace last week, when I stayed out at the CAW Family Education Centre at Port Elgin to teach a 5-day course on “Economics for…
The Oil Price-Loonie Transmission Mechanism
The most interesting comments from Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney last week, in releasing the Bank’s semi-annual Monetary Policy Report, dealt with the relationship between the price of oil…
How Much Will YOU Lose from OAS Deferral??
Announcing a bad policy 10 years in advance doesn’t make it a good policy. So the fact that the Harper government is giving people at least 10 years to prepare…