Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Highlights of the Ontario budget
– $822 million extra to hospitals, funding more cardiac and cancer surgeries, chemotherapy, MRIs and other services; – $575 million to make drugs completely free for seniors; – $800 million over two years for drug and dental coverage for people without insurance (up to $400 for singles, $600 for couples, $50 for each child); – $2.1 billion over four years for mental health care; – $2.2 billion over three years, providing some parents free child care; – $1 billion over three years for a seniors home-care benefit of $750 a year…
Tags: budget, child care, economy, ideology, mental Health, pharmaceutical, poverty, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Ontario’s debt has exploded. Is the province in trouble?
Today, Ontario has an operating surplus that amounts to 4.2 per cent of its adjusted operating revenues – or in plain language, it’s running a surplus before accounting for interest expenses on the debt… Growth gives a big boost to government revenues and also helps temper the climb in its debt-to-GDP ratio. But with interest rates starting to rise, the fear now is that Ontario’s interest expense will jump. (Interest currently consumes about 8 per cent of provincial government revenues.)
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Immigration alone can’t keep Canada young
If longer work life and other responses to aging makes us more prosperous, however, we will more easily attract immigrants and retain workers who can contribute to our prosperity – a virtuous circle.
Higher immigration may be good for many reasons, but it cannot keep Canada young. Other policies to ease the demographic transition, notably encouraging people to work longer, hold out at least as much promise for boosting living standards.
Tags: economy, globalization, immigration, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Higher Immigration Cannot Keep Canada Young
… no increase within the realm of practicality can prevent population aging. Other policies to ease the demographic transition, notably encouraging people to work longer, are at least as powerful – and, further, would complement changes to immigration policy by improving Canada’s attractiveness to people willing and able to contribute to the Canadian economy.
Tags: economy, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Hydro One privatization is the reason voters distrust Kathleen Wynne
The sell-off of public goods is the quintessence of neoliberalism… Ontario Hydro was a public undertaking funded by the public that returned benefits to all. You can’t sell it, you can only swipe it and hand it over, as Wynne did. The buyers won’t do anything to improve it; they’ll just squeeze it to extract profits. Classical economists of the 1700s and 1800s would’ve called them rentseekers — the ugliest players in capitalism.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, privatization
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
A new era for the workplace – shorter work weeks – is starting now
Ironically, the fact that technology has made work 24/7 for many may make the case for shorter official weeks even stronger. That the wall between world and leisure is effectively blurred means that official number of hours actually worked, particularly by white-collar employees, has little to do with the number of hours that they are at work. Granting shorter workweeks may not cost employers as much as it might seem…
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Chrystia Freeland Wants to Fix the Twenty-first Century
For 2018, which is Canada’s year as G7 president, the Trudeau government promises to make women’s rights and climate action priority issues. Freeland says that, in the coming years, she hopes to focus on several human rights emergencies… “How I think we need to do Canadian foreign policy,” says Freeland, “is to know what our values are, build coalitions around those things, and then be constantly alert for situations in the world where, by acting, we can make a difference.” The liberal order doesn’t begin and end with nafta.
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Wage wars, trade wars, and virtual economic reality
Statistically, the provincial economy is the strongest in decades. Ontario’s 5.5 per cent unemployment rate is the lowest this century, economic growth has been best in the West since 2014, interest rates are low and the budget is balanced. Tell that to vulnerable workers. Or the venerable Ontario Chamber of Commerce… Even the latest uproar over the minimum wage appears to be a battle of perception versus performance — or virtual reality versus economic reality.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Buckle up: Final NAFTA talks will be a bumpy ride
Canada is the world’s biggest buyer of America’s exports…. “We buy more from the U.S. than America sells to China, Japan and the U.K. combined.”… Canada also accounts for a remarkable one-quarter of all U.S. small-business exports… Our enthusiasm for multilateral trade deals has not been matched by Canadian exporters exploiting those deals to crack offshore markets… our less than intrepid exporters should concern us as much as a NAFTA in limbo.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Big little lies
Yes, it turns out, small business creates lots of new jobs. But small business also destroys lots of jobs, because so many tiny companies go bust. If you look at the net number of jobs generated, small firms’ ability to create employment is nothing special… Handing out special favours to small businesses rewards companies for staying tiny and relatively inefficient rather than pushing them to grow and achieve economies of scale.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments