Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.- The Lever examines new research showing how private equity is systematically funnelling risk and underperformance to less wealthy investors. And Charlie Warzel discusses how…
industrial policy
Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Linda McQuaig calls out the Ford PCs for making it even more difficult to hold corporate health care operators to account for sub-par…
Thursday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Scott Rivkees writes that COVID-19 denialism has come to dominate public policy around an ongoing viral threat, while Kelly Skjerven reports that…
Fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces
I’ve just written a blog post about the fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). It consists of a summary of key points…
Ten Things To Know About The 2017 Federal Budget
I’ve just written a blog post in which I review the recent federal budget. Points raised in the blog post include the following: -The federal government is projecting deficits in…
Foundations for an Alberta Alternative Budget
An Alberta-based volunteer working group, of which I’m a part, recently released a document titled Foundations for an Alberta Alternative Budget (for media coverage, see this Metro article). Working group…
Political Reality and Climate Policy: A Response to Mark Jaccard
Mark Jaccard’s article in Policy Options has generated a lot of interest. It is a provocative article that challenges the economic orthodoxy that prioritizes carbon pricing above all else. Jaccard…
Trudeau, Carbon Pricing, Regional Politics, and Technology Policy
Yesterday, Justin Trudeau appeared to be backing away from a national carbon price. He says some of the provinces have already implemented carbon pricing, so the federal government will be…
Indigenous Workers in Canada
Labour market data in Canada is easily available by sex, age, and region. We spend a great deal of time talking about these factors. More recently Statistics Canada made labour…
The outsize (un)importance of the tarsands
It’s easy to overestimate the importance of the tar sands to the Canadian economy. Tar sands and their pipelines are after all hailed by the ruling Conservatives, sections of the…
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 Enrepreneurial State
In her important new book “The Entrepreneurial State” which got a rave review from Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzucato attacks the conventional view…
Industrial Policy, Manufacturing Employment, and the Loonie
The Institute for Research on Public Policy has published a very interesting overview study on the resuscitation of “industrial policy” in economic policy circles. It points out that industrial policy…
Closing the Loop: Zero Waste, GHG Emissions and Green Jobs in BC
Below is the summary for our latest Climate Justice Project report, Closing the Loop: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Creating Green Jobs through Zero Waste in BC (I recommend checking…
Mitt’s bad day (wasn’t nearly as bad as the dinosaurs’)
As expected by everyone outside the American right-wing echo chamber, Obama handily defeated Romney in the US election. In the weeks leading up to the election, pollster Nate Silver (who…
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…
Clean electricity, conservation and a zero-carbon future
Today we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Clean Electricity, Conservation and Climate Justice in BC: Meeting our energy needs in a zero-carbon future, co-authored by John Calvert and…
A Green Industrial Revolution
Today the CCPA released a new big picture report by myself and student researcher Amanda Card calling for a Green Industrial Revolution. The report builds on work done for the…
Upstream Supply Chain as Sector Development Strategy
My column in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail suggested that Canada implement a “Buy Canadian” strategy associated with major natural resource developments, with the goal of enhancing Canadian content in the…