Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
« Older Entries | Newer Entries »
Canada’s new immigration rules put premium on young people
Monday, August 27th, 2012
21 August 2012
New immigration rules will target workers aged 18 to 35… Canada will rely on young immigrants to soften the fiscal pain of a demographic crunch… Driving the change is the concern that the ratio of working-age Canadians to retirees is shifting dramatically… “If you were going to design an immigration system that was going to help employers keep wages low, this is pretty close to what you’d want”…
Tags: economy, globalization, immigration, pensions, standard of living, youth
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Investing in Ontario’s future (or not)
Saturday, August 25th, 2012
11 August 2012
Preliminary 2011 data show Canadian businesses investing more per worker than the OECD average — 102 cents per dollar across the group … “Ontario … continues a long-term slide. After getting 77 cents of new investment for every dollar invested across the OECD in the early 2000s (65 against the United States) and 72 in the late 2000s (63 against the United States), Ontario workers may get a mere 70 in 2012 (and only 60 against the United States).”
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Unions recognize the need for a radical change
Friday, August 24th, 2012
9 August 2012
… the Canadian Auto Workers union (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) have unveiled their blueprint for a proposed merger, creating the largest industrial union in Canadian history… They acknowledge that nothing short of a “culture change” will stem the 25-year decline in the strength and credibility of private sector unions… They aim to create a new union unlike anything labour activists or the public have seen in the past.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, participation, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Four attacks on workers by Harper Government
Saturday, August 11th, 2012
1 August 2012
… the federal government, supported by a number of employer organizations, has a plan for transforming Canada’s labour market… Taken together, these policies will suppress the wages and incomes of Canadians rather than address the real problems in Canada’s job market… Temporary Foreign Workers… Employment Insurance… Old Age Security… (and) Attacks on Unions… Canadians need our country’s premiers to denounce this low-wage agenda and stand up for what is in the best interest of working people.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Employers discriminate against older adults, Canadians tell pollster
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
22 July 2012
Nearly three-quarters of Canadians believe workplaces are shunning older job applicants based solely on their age, a worrisome finding given labour force trends in Canada… Only nine per cent said they would hire someone aged 18 to 24, or aged 55 to 64. And only three per cent said they would hire someone over the age of 65… some experience is great, but it really doesn’t matter if you’ve had 10 years or 30 years of experience — once you’ve got a good amount, you don’t need tonnes of it” to be among the favoured age group for hiring…
Tags: economy, participation, youth
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
Tear down those mountains of cash
Wednesday, August 8th, 2012
21 July 2012
… debt is not the major problem. That was four years ago. Today, a far bigger threat is… cash hoards… at least 45 per cent of Canada’s biggest companies are hoarding cash rather than investing in employment or capital. None of it is going into research and development, expansion of market share, new offices and factories or, crucially, on employing people. Nor is it going into tax revenues, since cash reserves – and some of the earnings that contribute to them – escape the taxman, giving companies an incentive to not invest.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The government should be the first to fight youth unemployment
Wednesday, July 11th, 2012
Jul 11, 2012
Beyond the financial issues youth incur due to unemployment, being out of work for a year or more can have a “scarring effect”… In an increasingly competitive business world, Canadian youth continue to struggle to penetrate a shrinking job market, and those struggles risk having negative impacts on long-term earnings and career paths if long-term unemployment solutions are not put into action… any policies aimed at the employment and education needs of today’s youth will reap them tenfold the benefits in the future.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Target deal not about CanCon — it’s about easing rules on foreign ownership
Monday, July 9th, 2012
Jul 7, 2012
The news is that the minister has approved foreign ownership of a cultural distribution business, thereby once again setting a precedent that breaks policy. At least one expert in the legal tangle known as the Investment Canada Act says Friday’s Target decision is another sign that Ottawa will soon announce new cultural investment rules… the old formal blanket prohibitions on foreign ownership will soon be replaced.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Corporations behave badly – and we pay
Friday, July 6th, 2012
Jul. 05 2012
Once upon a time, banks and drug companies enjoyed good reputations and a relatively high degree of trust. Most people regarded them as useful industries that created products and services that benefited society… Today these industries are movie villains – multibillion-dollar enterprises portrayed as so rapacious they’ll do anything to turn a buck. Judging by current events, this characterization is all too true. Some of the most powerful people in these lines of work will lie, cheat and steal until they get caught, all the while assuring us that they are adding incomparable value to society.
Tags: economy, ideology, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The unseemly nature of the welfare state
Wednesday, June 13th, 2012
Jun. 12 2012
You can track government programs by economic cost and consequence. You can also track them by moral cost and consequence. The latter was once the more important of these considerations. In the 19th century and well into the 20th century, the New World embodied the word “industry” – meaning not a category of commerce but a virtue of hard-working people. This moral perspective on the worth of work had practical consequences.
Tags: economy, ideology, tax
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Recent Comments