Interview with Glen “the Hamilton Kid” of the Steeltown Spoilers
Interview with Glen “the Hamilton Kid” of the Steeltown Spoilers: The above link is to an interview with Glen “the Hamilton Kid” of the punk band Steeltown Spoilers. Glen talks…
free trade
It’s Time that Canada Found a New/Old Economy
By the time you’re in your 60s you’ve developed a sense of a certain cadence to life, something like a master Circadien rhythm that regulates life on our planet. Every…
The Precariously Employed
The other day I made reference in a post to a study showing that half of the workers in the GTA are precariously employed, meaning they have unstable and unreliable…
Free Trade – Part 2
Continuing with the theme of yesterday’s post, I am taking the liberty of reproducing some letters that appear in today’s Star on free trade. They nicely puncture the myth, propagated…
The Legend of Brian Mulroney
Actually, our former Prime Minister is more a legend in his own mind, but then, confronting harsh reality has never been one of Mr. Mulroney’s strong suits. His litigious past…
How absurd has multinational corporate practice gotten? According to the OECD ridiculous
It is really hard being an honest analyst. You spend most of your time being ridiculed by your on-the-take (in one form or another) adversaries. But sometimes the data speaks…
This is your last chance to submit your comment against the…
This is your last chance to submit your comment against the treasonous, anti-worker, anti-environment Canada-China Foreign Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement to the Canada Trade Agreements Secretariat. The deadline is…
$12 bil CETA GDP Claim from SimCity, not Real World
This week’s edition of Embassy newspaper contained a very interesting briefing insert on the Canada-EU CETA talks. Below is a commentary from me critiquing the ubiquitous but unbelievable claim that…
FTA’s Assumed Benefits Can’t Be Found
Last month’s over-the-top “celebrations”of the 25th anniversary of Brian Mulroney and Ronald Reagan’s signing of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement seemed strained, to my mind. The self-congratulation and back-patting struck…
The Deadly Myths of Globalisation
What follows is the introduction to a talk I gave at the 3rd Innis Christie Lecture & Symposium in Labour and Employment Law. My sister was educated at the Dalhousie…
Should Mulcair channel Hillary Clinton on the Ballot Box Question?
The 2015 election is already on, with Stephen Harper trying to choose the ballot question as anything but the poor Conservative performance in so many areas, the party’s blunders and…
Propaganda From Vic Toews
There are two letters of particular note in this morning’s edition of The Toronto Star, one a propaganda piece from our much beleaguered Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews, the…
Baskin-Robbins and the Walmartization of Ice Cream
It’s been an unusually hot summer, and soaring temperatures have boosted sales of that quintessential summer food, ice cream. But Baskin-Robbins has decided to shut its production facility in Peterborough,…
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)…
CHAPTER 8: The Miserable Metrics of Neoliberalism
Conclusion to Chapter 8 Consistent with the main line of argument in this thesis then, is the proposition that labour market flexibilisation is the other side of the neoliberal policy…
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…
Who Wants “Closer” Ties With China?
The Prime Minister’s trip to China last week sparked a flurry of media coverage regarding prospects for “closer” economic ties between Canada and China. Some even speculated that another free…
Is Labour Doomed?
Last week (Feb. 2nd) I drove up to London, Ontario, to shoot some film footage of the locked-out workers picketing outside the Electro-Motive Diesel plant for a documentary I am…
Gateway is Certainly in Sinopec’s Interests. It is in No way in Canada’s National Interests
Defenceless: Selling Our Sovereignty Glavin’s been writing a series of articles on our retreat from even gesturing in the direction of national security interests in our trade and foreign investment…