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Doug Ford is the only premier who has yet to sign Ottawa’s $10-a-day child-care deal. He’s right to push back
Wednesday, January 26th, 2022
Ontario wants the feds to either give it more money, or acknowledge the care it already provides in full-day kindergarten, which costs the province $3.6 billion annually… It makes no sense that Ontario’s success in providing early learning and child care to the vast majority of four-year-olds through full-day kindergarten isn’t included, because excluding it makes meeting federal access targets unachievable.
Tags: budget, child care, economy, featured, jurisdiction, tax
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
What football tells us about the future of workers
Wednesday, December 29th, 2021
The Care Economy is huge and growing. We all rely on it at different points in our lives. There is a labour crisis in this sector, and it is a gendered crisis. And nobody’s talking about it. We’ve been hearing about these shortages, on and off, since the 1990s, and still don’t have a national strategy for human resources in health care.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, immigration, participation, rights, standard of living, women
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The migrant worker floodgates have opened. It’s a decision we might come to regret
Wednesday, December 15th, 2021
… public policy is rowing against market forces and demographic trends, to keep things cheap. The larger the share of migrant workers in a job market, the lower the wage growth. In our endless search for a cheap deal, let’s not pit ourselves as consumers against ourselves as workers… This nation of immigrants, the tenth-largest economy in the world, has two wishes, one of which will be granted: lower prices or better jobs.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Ontario’s 10-cent hike in the minimum wage is bad for workers, bad for businesses and bad for the economy
Wednesday, October 6th, 2021
Some minimum wage workers work full-time and full year, but most work part-time. At 20 hours a week, a typical minimum wage worker would be earning $29 more a week if the minimum wage was 60 per cent of the average wage. Instead, on Friday, the government of Ontario legislated $2 more a week for them. That’s bad for workers, bad for businesses and bad for the economy… it isn’t business that creates jobs. It’s customers.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
The Care Economy Statement
Tuesday, May 25th, 2021
This statement… is a call to recognize that good care is crucial to our health and well-being as individuals and as a society; it is the critical social infrastructure that delivers overall economic stability and growth; and it is a shared responsibility, not just a personal one. This requires a shift from thinking of care as an expenditure to understanding it as an economic driver through investment in people and good jobs.
Tags: child care, economy, featured, Health, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
Our temporary residents provide a resource we can’t ignore
Sunday, March 7th, 2021
The de facto “two-step immigration process” that has emerged in recent years has been primarily driven by business demands for faster intake of newcomers, but could lead to better integration and lives for “low” and “high” skilled workers alike. If temporary foreign workers are good enough to work for us, they are good enough to live among us, permanently, if that is what they wish.
Tags: economy, ideology, immigration, participation, rights
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
Is it time to bury the idea of a universal basic income?
Wednesday, February 17th, 2021
… the real issue with basic income is a public commitment to an adequate income floor below which no one should fall when factoring in all income sources. A range of income support programs can provide universal coverage without being uniform in delivery as the recent B.C. study indicates… Highly diverse needs by age, gender, (dis)ability, family status, education, employment status, etc. suggest that income supports should be tailored to a wide variety of living circumstances within our population.
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Social Security Policy Context | No Comments »
COVID-19’s impact: not recession, but a completely different economics
Saturday, April 11th, 2020
… sectors hit first like education and child care, retail, personal services and restaurants [are] more female-dominated… They are paid less, are more likely to have part-time or temporary work, and are less likely to have or be able to enforce protections like sick leave and sick pay… the service sector’s gender-skew challenges governments to improve existing income supports to prevent desperate and counter-productive economic survival plans.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, women
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Do tax policies that contribute to competitiveness also create inequality?
Sunday, December 1st, 2019
Tax levels are rarely the first consideration for investors, unless the “investment” is a tax dodge… regulations matter, proximity to markets matter; and so do… a healthy and well-educated work force, well-maintained infrastructure, reliable energy, transportation and communications systems, and a robust justice system backed by widely trusted social institutions.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, jurisdiction, standard of living, tax
Posted in Equality Policy Context | No Comments »
Why we’re seeing the ugly new face of capitalism
Tuesday, February 14th, 2012
Feb. 14, 2012
The implicit deal is that lower taxes create more investment and competitive cost structures create more demand. Both supposedly create more (good-paying) jobs. Lower taxes, check. Lower payroll costs, check. More good-paying jobs here at home: Insert sound of crickets chirping… in Canada, federal taxes on profits had fallen to 16.6 per cent by fiscal 2010-11 after briefly dipping to 13.2 per cent in 2008, a level not seen since the Great Depression… Unlike the 1930s, corporate profits in Canada have rebounded since the 2008-9 crisis, nearing the previous high water mark… Despite growth, there is no shortage of profitable firms telling workers they can keep their jobs only if they agree to get less.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Policy Context | No Comments »
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