Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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Is there a made-in-Canada solution to high inflation?
Saturday, January 1st, 2022
Inflation and the pandemic have a lot in common: both attack household incomes, both hit low-income households hardest, and both demand government action to support incomes. Social assistance rates must rise, as they should have years ago. Minimum wages must rise. Federal transfers to low-income Canadians should increase. Painful 20th century policy prescriptions to cut inflation by squeezing the life out of the economy, through increasing interest rates and reducing government supports, are no answer to our 21st century problems. They will only make our problems worse.
Tags: child care, economy, globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living
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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
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Taming inflation can be worse than inflation
Friday, December 17th, 2021
While Canadian inflation is running at 4.7 per cent, Canadian wages are also rising. For some of the most disadvantaged workers (new hires), average wages are growing at the impressive rate of 10 per cent a year — putting them well ahead of inflation… And this booming labour market may get better yet, as contracts expire and new ones are negotiated at a time when workers are wielding more power than they have in decades.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology
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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
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Labour shortage? The answer is to bring older adults back into the workforce
Monday, November 15th, 2021
Bringing older adults back into the workforce is one answer to the current talent shortage. Extended working lives create benefits for everyone. Individuals experience improved physical and mental well-being. Employers profit from loyal, engaged employees who bring guidance, expertise and balance. The economy enjoys increased spending, income tax and charitable contributions.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, Seniors, standard of living
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Labour shortage? The answer is to bring older adults back into the workforce
Tuesday, November 9th, 2021
Canada is due for a rethink when it comes to age. None of life’s traditional milestones hold true today… Extended working lives create benefits for everyone. Individuals experience improved physical and mental well-being. Employers profit from loyal, engaged employees who bring guidance, expertise and balance. The economy enjoys increased spending, income tax and charitable contributions.
Tags: economy, ideology, mental Health, participation, Seniors, standard of living
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Ontario’s higher minimum wage is long overdue. Now go for a ‘living wage’
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021
In no Ontario community does $15 an hour provide a living wage. By living wage we mean the sum required for shelter, food, childcare, transportation and other necessities. To determine the living wage rates, the network crunches and averages costs for a single adult, a single parent and a family of four… If anything, Ford’s announcement places a focus on other not-wonderful elements of how his government is, or really isn’t, working for workers.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living
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Ford government should dump old-school thinking on minimum wage
Wednesday, October 13th, 2021
In awarding Canadian economist David Card the Nobel Prize in economics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has given a huge boost to the value of empirical study in the field of labour economics. For it was Card, working alongside American economist Alan Krueger, who put real world wage increases in New Jersey under the microscope and found no support for the theory that a rise in the minimum wage reduced employment.
Tags: economy, featured, ideology, standard of living
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The key to Canada’s economic recovery is obvious. Why isn’t anyone talking about it?
Monday, September 13th, 2021
The federal budget estimates that a national child care program would add about 240,000 workers to the labour force. And since those workers are already here in Canada with Canadian credentials, integration into the labour force is seamless. An in-depth study of the economic impact of investing in early childhood education… shows that serious investment in high-quality child care boosts economic growth, reduces poverty, enhances equality, and sets the younger generation on a path to take on the world.
Tags: child care, economy, featured, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, standard of living, women
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Stronger EI and paid sick days are vital for workers. Labour Day is a moment for voters to judge parties on that
Monday, September 6th, 2021
… Canada needs a modern Employment Insurance system that covers all workers, including gig workers, self-employed people and the many misclassified workers who have been abandoned on the sidelines of so-called economic progress… If the pandemic has shown anything, it’s that systemic change is needed in how we view and regulate employment, and that how we treat workers (especially those in low-wage jobs) affects us all.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, poverty, standard of living
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