Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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‘Reserve army’ of precariously employed keeps lid on wages
The best explanation for very soft inflation in Canada is probably continued slack in the job market. The Bank of Canada does note… the continuing very low participation rate for young people, suggesting we are still short of a tight job market… wage pressures and inflation might remain persistently low even with a low unemployment rate due to the seemingly inexorable rise of precarious work.
Tags: economy, participation, poverty, standard of living, women, youth
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Federal government can and must put pensioners first
The federal government can and must ensure bankruptcy laws put pensioners at the front of the line. And it can go one very important step further: working with the provinces and territories to create Canada-wide mandatory pension insurance. Such a system would guarantee monthly pensions up to $2,500 whenever an employer with an underfunded pension plan… It would be paid for by pension funds, a fair trade-off, given their tax-exempt status.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, pensions, rights, standard of living
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Kids short-changed
So, Royal Bank of Canada economist Josh Nye and Bank of Montreal chief economist Doug Porter would prefer smaller deficits… Did they not notice that the 2016 census demonstrated that a shocking 17 per cent of Canadian children live in poverty? Do they not understand that… child poverty is a strong drag on economic growth and that child benefits are necessary to decrease child poverty and economic growth? How far away is Bay Street from the real world that Canadians experience?
Tags: budget, economy, featured, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living
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Caledon praises federal Economic Statement
As a non-stigmatizing, inclusive program, the Canada Child Benefit delivers its benefits to all eligible families through the same vehicle, the personal income tax. It is portable, providing a stable and assured supplement to income no matter where families live or move. It is progressive, meaning benefits decline as incomes rise. What you see is what you get because benefits are not subject to income tax. The program pays the same amount to all families with the same income, regardless of the source of that income, where they live or family type.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, poverty, standard of living, youth
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Ontario will have to hike taxes or cut spending, watchdog warns
“As the baby-boomers continue to age, they will require more resources from Ontario’s health care system, increasing pressure on government spending.” … The FAO estimated that to meet that target, Queen’s Park would have to fill an annual hole of about $6.5 billion… “Perhaps worst of all, the FAO says continuing on this course will unfairly shift the fiscal burden from baby boomers to younger Ontarians.”
Tags: budget, economy, Health, standard of living, tax
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Canada may be entering ‘sweet part’ of business cycle, Stephen Poloz says
The Canada Child Benefit has had a “pretty significant” impact on the economy, Poloz said, adding it could be one of the reasons the country has seen rising labour-force participation. “What it did is put a floor under some folks,” Poloz said, adding it may have allowed formerly stay-at-home parents to afford child care or a second car and therefore more easily re-enter the workforce.
Tags: economy, globalization, participation, standard of living
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Time to follow America’s lead on minimum wage
… Even if business scaremongering about a wage hike were remotely true (at the margins), the reality is that a rapid increase in interest rates would have far more impact, as would a collapse in the housing market… the politicians… are merely playing catch-up… the heavy lifting happened outside Ontario, with Alberta’s NDP government leading the way to a $15 target in Canada.
Tags: economy, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, poverty, standard of living
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What minimum-wage critics don’t want you to know
The most that any of these studies can claim is that employment will grow more slowly under higher minimum wages than in their absence. None predict that employment will decline… I am going out on a limb to predict that employment in all three provinces will increase with higher minimum wages – not because of them, of course, but because of factors (such as economic growth, population and aggregate demand) that matter most to employment. This is the perfect time to redirect growth so more benefit reaches those who need it most.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, standard of living
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Most small businesses go nowhere, why tilt the tax system in their favour?
The best way to stimulate productivity isn’t by subsidizing the creation of a lot of tiny, uncompetitive firms with no hope of going anywhere. It’s by opening the economy to competition and market disruption. Only we’re not terribly keen on either. We don’t need a pro-small business tax policy in this country. We need a pro-growth policy. And the starting point is to get rid of the small business deduction.
Tags: economy, featured, globalization, ideology, tax
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Doubling the length of tweets won’t fix Twitter’s real problem
Twitter has irreversibly altered our sense of public discourse by convincing us that any argument worth having – religion/politics/racism – can be successfully advanced or bested in a 140-character feat of witty genius… Part of our accommodation consisted in us confusing ideas with information… tweets aren’t meant to be interrogated or analyzed. They aren’t meant to spur long, nuanced discussion – which is the kind of discussion our world desperately needs.
Tags: featured, globalization, ideology, participation
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