Wages did not cause Canada’s inflation crisis
Political cartoon published July 7, 1894 by the Chicago Labor newspaper showing the condition of the labouring man at the Pullman Company. The employee is being squeezed by Pullman between…
Mitchell Thompson
NATO: Against the poor of the world
Serbian men hold a poster with pictures of victims of the 1999 NATO air campaign against Serbia and Montenegro in the town of Nis. Photo by AFP. NATO and its…
We’re working longer hours for their profits
Photo by Liz West/Flickr A new study by TD Economics confirms the obvious: working class living standards are declining in Canada. For years, GDP and productivity growth have stagnated and,…
Landlords are profiting from Canada’s rental shortage
Condo towers in downtown Toronto. Photo from Wikimedia Commons. In their corporate reports and amongst themselves, Canada’s largest landlords are remarkably honest about where their revenue comes from—from gouging and…
Blame landlords for Canada’s skyrocketing rents
Airplane visible between two Distillery District condo towers, Toronto. Photo by Lori Whelan/Flickr. While pundits and corporate media outlets delight in describing Canada’s skyrocketing rental rates as an accident of…
Ontario hospitals looked to make themselves ‘lean’ throughout the pandemic
Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario. Photo by Nick Matthews/Flickr. Even as hospitals across Ontario were overwhelmed by patients during the pandemic—extending wait times and triggering triage protocols—the system’s managers…
Doug Ford ploughs ahead with attacks on education
Thousands of demonstrators gather to protest against Doug Ford and the Ontario provincial Conservatives’ planned cuts to education in front of Queen’s Park, Toronto. Photo by Mary Crandall/Flickr. For months,…
Correcting the record on Bill Graham and the Iraq War
Bill Graham, former Canadian defence and foreign affairs minister, died at the age of 83 on August 8. With the recent death of former Liberal Defence and Foreign Affairs Minister…
School wars in Ontario: McKinsey consultants, eLearning, and wage cuts
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, middle, and Education Minister Stephen Lecce, right, walk the hallway at a Toronto-area middle school, November 2020. Photo from Twitter. Since 2018, Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives…
For Ontario’s political establishment, cutting ‘welfare dependence’ means making the poor desperate
Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford reacts after winning the Ontario provincial election to become the new premier, June 7, 2018. Photo courtesy the Toronto Sun. Recurring proposals by the…
Loblaw sees ‘profit improvements’ in wage and benefit cuts
Loblaw makes its profits by paying workers poverty wages, writes Mitchell Thompson. Photo by Lars Hagberg. Twice since the pandemic began, the billionaire CEO of Loblaw Companies Ltd. has risked…
Federal pandemic assistance on the chopping block—another way to ‘discipline’ workers
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau delivers a speech to G7 leaders at the international summit in Cornwall, England, June 13, 2021. Photo from Twitter. The Trudeau government’s willingness to curtail Employment…
Bill Davis’s anti-worker legacy
Ontario Progressive Conservative Premier Bill Davis replies to students from Carleton University at the Skyline Hotel, March 17, 1981. Photo by Russell Mant/Ottawa Citizen. The death of former Ontario Premier…
Is the Canada Recovery Benefit a ‘workfare’ program in disguise?
Leaving those in financial difficulty behind for a lower-wage future isn’t a bug in the CRB system—it’s a feature of a program designed and redesigned to crack down on recipients…
The Regina Manifesto at 85: More Relevant Than Ever?
The cyclical crises of Canadian capitalism has brought with it a paralysis of Canadian reformism split between the labour movement and the NDP. It is only natural that this has…
Canada’s Five Giant Banks Ought to Be Nationalized, Not Bailed Out
Photo by DRheaume Canada’s banking system is on the edge of a crisis, once again, with a collective debt of $1.8 trillion — and the public will be on the…
Ontario NDP has no answers for Toronto’s homeless death crisis
Photo by Svetlana Grechkina Toronto’s homeless death crisis is the sort of social catastrophe the Ontario NDP was created to fight. Yet, the current party is offering little in the…
Housing in the age of austerity: Toronto’s war on the poor
Asquith Park, Yorkville • Photo by Ed007Toronto For those in Toronto’s growing majority of low income neighbourhoods, things are bad and getting worse — and it’s no accident. A study…
A Brief History of Canadian Labour Woes
Illustration by DonkeyHotey Average hourly earnings for Canadian workers have been mostly stagnant since the late-1970s, owing to the crippling of organized labour by government and capital. Canadians are working…
Canada’s Household Debt Crisis: Blame Capitalism!
Photo by Maëlick Canadian capitalism is in crisis, with household debt reaching a record high 166.9 per cent of disposable income and about 208 per cent of GDP, and wage…