Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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We’ve arrived at arguably the best moment to invest in affordable housing in over a generation. Will we seize it?
Wednesday, October 1st, 2025
… while we’re going to spend over $100 billion a year on defence outlays to meet our Trump-dictated NATO obligations, Canadians continue to place housing at the top of the list of their worst cost-of-living headaches. Those steep monthly rents, it’s worth saying, represent dollars not spent on all sorts of goods and services provided by Canadians, from food to entertainment to travel to education.
Tags: economy, housing, standard of living
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A solution to Canada’s housing crisis has already been built — we just need to use it
Thursday, September 25th, 2025
While some new construction will be necessary why not use Canada’s vast and underutilized existing building stock? The scale of this untapped resource is staggering. According to a 2021 study, 8.7 per cent of homes — 1.34 million units — sit vacant across the country… Beyond these empty homes… over 100,000 short-term rental units could become long-term dwellings with proper regulation. This would not just address supply, it would make things more affordable…
Tags: budget, economy, housing, jurisdiction
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OPSEU/SEFPO sounds alarm on accelerated agenda to gut public education through Ford’s $2.5 billion unaccountable spending spree via the Skills Development Fund
Friday, September 19th, 2025
… if our public college system hemorrhaging jobs while shutting down hundreds upon hundreds of programs, then where are our public dollars going? The answer… is a government-led agenda to systematically defund Ontario colleges, while committing $2.5 billion in public dollars since 2020 to Ontario’s “Skills Development Fund,” a provincial funding envelope designed to cultivate non-college training programs.
Tags: budget, economy, Education, privatization
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Yes, Canada should (mostly) end our temporary foreign worker programs
Wednesday, September 10th, 2025
Make it easy for businesses to recruit from overseas for the most highly skilled and highly paid positions. Make it impossible to bring in temporary workers from overseas for low-wage and low-skill work… hundreds of thousands of temporary foreign workers to make pizzas, stock shelves or deliver food orders? At a time of rising unemployment and near-record youth unemployment, it makes less sense than ever.
Tags: economy, globalization, immigration, youth
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Why a bad deal on tariffs with Donald Trump is worse than no deal
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2025
… trying to portray a deal with continued tariffs as some kind of “victory” for Canada, because the stated tariff may seem lower than other countries, is dangerously wishful… It would unilaterally disarm Canada’s ability to respond to U.S. actions with counter-tariffs or nontariff measures. It would cement U.S. tariffs as a “new normal” — and thus unleash a flood of capital away from Canada… It would sabotage nascent efforts with other countries to build a co-ordinated global response to Trump, by surrendering before a united front can take shape.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Eliminating interprovincial trade barriers would add 30K annual housing starts: CMHC
Thursday, July 17th, 2025
A new analysis by the national housing agency estimates Canada could add 30,000 more housing starts annually by eliminating interprovincial trade barriers… that prevent the movement of either resources or labour in the residential construction industry… The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has estimated that existing internal trade hurdles cost the economy some $200 billion a year.
Tags: economy, housing, jurisdiction, standard of living
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Why the Capital Gains Tax Increase Should Not See the Light of Day
Thursday, June 5th, 2025
The planned measure to increase the capital gains inclusion rate… would create a triple threat: harming Canadian businesses, discouraging investment, and penalizing middle-income Canadians… – Canada’s capital stock would decline by $127 billion, GDP would fall by nearly $90 billion, and real per-capita GDP would drop by 3 percent. Further, employment would decline by 414,000 jobs, which would raise unemployment from 1.5 million to 1.9 million workers.
Tags: economy, tax
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Job Creation Falls Behind Rapid Population Growth
Thursday, June 5th, 2025
Canada’s labour market faces mounting pressures that cannot be fixed merely by adding more workers… “We cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines – whether it’s older workers retiring too soon or immigrants struggling to use their skills,”… the country’s most acute demographic challenges [include] rapidly aging populations, lower workforce participation among seniors, high unemployment, and labour mismatches compounding regional disparities… “If we don’t act now, these gaps will only widen.”
Tags: economy, immigration, participation, pensions
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‘Victory bonds’ were vital to funding the First and Second World wars. Let’s not wait for the storm to hit before bringing them back
Tuesday, March 25th, 2025
Today, faced with an unprovoked economic attack, we must call on another of our strengths: being among the world’s fiercest savers… We’re saving at rates not seen since 1996… A can-do spirit has been reawakened in this country, along with a taste to go beyond a “Buy Canada” consumer response. Let’s save Canada like we did once, twice before; and finance the fight of our lives, together.
Tags: economy, participation
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This is war. Time for a wartime funding mechanism: Victory bonds
Saturday, March 15th, 2025
… tax cuts and spending cuts [are not] what the nation needs most now, and neither will build the economic strength needed to defend our interests and sovereignty… Raise the floor, raise the ceiling and make EI last longer so it can do the job it was designed to do, acting as an automatic economic stabilizer to sustain purchasing power… prohibit the purchase of [businesses, resources and vital services] by non-Canadians… [and] create a “wartime” funding mechanism: victory bonds… an infusion of cash could fund desperately needed spending in the public interest.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, participation
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