Severance Pay and Public Servants
I am an economist, not a lawyer or expert on the collective agreements in the federal public service, but I can still detect a hatchet job. The CBC have given…
I am an economist, not a lawyer or expert on the collective agreements in the federal public service, but I can still detect a hatchet job. The CBC have given…
20080810-violin.jpg The President rolled out his FY2013 budget recently, which includes eliminating $40 billion in tax breaks from Big Oil companies, such as BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. Meanwhile,…
Take a look at the picture below. Take it in. Now scan your eyes to the far right…there, in faded blue you’ll see the initials MMT. Now zoom out. Take…
Statistics Canada reported today that the number of Canadians receiving Employment Insurance rose by 4,230 in December, a month in which unemployment rose by 6,100. The proportion of unemployed workers…
A shorter version of this article appears today at Economy Lab, the Globe and Mail’s on-line business feature. Capitalism has entered an ugly new era, one that may work well…
No. Of course not. Even if the government waves around scary large increases in nominal dollar terms. As has been widely reported, the most recent OAS actuarial report shows that…
Now that the government is planning for an $8 billion cut, the potential job losses could drive job losses to between 99,000 and 108,000 full time positions across Canada. At…
The Mark have published a pre Budget commentary from yours truly.
Finance Canada published its annual Tax Expenditure Report for 2011 and it shows that the cost of some of the most inequitable tax preferences and loopholes continues to rise. For…
The best one can say about today’s Economic and Fiscal Update is that it signals some very slight flexibility amid changing circumstances. The Minister said “We will not be bound…
Governments around the world are heading down a path to economic suicide. So said Nobel Prize-winning former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, to hundreds of well-heeled financiers…
The Canadian Association of University Teachers represents 66,000 university and college teachers, academic librarians, researchers and staff at more than 120 universities and colleges in Canada. Their 2012 brief to…
Arun Dubois’ blog post yesterday on Modern Monetary Theory has prompted me to write my own take on the subject. For those interested, an interesting thumbnail sketch of MMT, essentially…
When it comes to the Canada Pension Plan, a major talking point from the right is that the CPP has “unfunded liabilities”, with the implication that is not affordable and…
Jason Clemens, who hangs his hat at several right-wing think-tanks (the Fraser, Pacific Research and Macdonald-Laurier Institutes), lauds Canadian fiscal conservatism in today’s Wall Street Journal: Canada’s government, for example,…
Once again, in the middle of summer, the anti-government government has unleashed more anti-policy policy via a compliant Statistics Canada. Who needs data when you’ve got family values? The Harper…
Down south, the Obama administration is in a dangerous game of chicken with Republican congressional leaders, who are cynically holding the US economy hostage in order to impose a radical…
Was it worth the wait? Hardly. Today’s federal budget is about as appetizing as two month-old pizza warmed up in the microwave. I guess they deserve high marks for consistency,…
Some progressives worry that the new Conservative majority will dismantle the Canadian state. Hard-nosed economic conservatives like Andrew Coyne and Terry Corcoran worry that the Conservatives will not actually cut…
This is the second video produced by our frenetic little team at the Citizens' Climate Lobby (Toronto Chapter) about why the Conservatives paying $1.4 billion dollars to the oil, gas…