Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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Middle class in decline is the electoral elephant in the room
Thursday, April 7th, 2011
April 7, 2011
Fewer people in the public service means fewer people earning middle-class pay with decent benefits and pensions. Unless the private sector stops urging downward pressure on wages, benefits and pensions, this purchasing power will not be replaced. Fewer people working in the public service also means poorer public services, or less of them. Less income, less service — this is not a recipe for growing the middle class, or a solid platform for future economic growth.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living, tax
Posted in Debates | 2 Comments »
Not exactly an economic gold medal
Wednesday, March 30th, 2011
Mar. 30, 2011.
The Conservatives’ drive for a majority is premised on positioning themselves as the best economic managers… In reality, however, the claim that things may be tough here, but they’re better than anywhere else, has never been statistically valid… Canada’s performance has been middling at best… among the countries that avoided bank failures, Canada’s performance has actually been subpar.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The fairy tale land called Equilibria
Friday, March 18th, 2011
March 14, 2011
Citizen columnist John Robson poked great fun at me recently with his “Economic children’s story” (March 5): a humorous fairy tale about a land where unions kill the goose that laid the golden egg, until taxpaying denizens (starting in Wisconsin) throw off the yoke imposed by overpaid teachers and garbage collectors. Of course, if workers were really paid in golden eggs, unions would never have been invented. Instead, unions were born in a less pastelhued world where workers fought even for the basics of survival. Employers and their think tanks have been complaining ever since…
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, privatization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
The next job bubble to burst may be yours, professionals
Monday, March 14th, 2011
Mar. 12, 2011
Not so long ago, everyone believed knowledge workers were generally sheltered from the more dramatic upheavals of the economy. In the past few decades, as middle-class incomes stagnated and good blue-collar jobs disappeared, the professional class did extraordinarily well. Lawyers, accountants, tenured university professors, architects and even the ink-stained wretches of the press have had pretty good lives. But now, global competition, relentless cost pressures and technological change are hitting the professional class, too. Few will be left unscathed.
Tags: economy, globalization, standard of living, youth
Posted in Debates | 31 Comments »
Boost the wage, help the worker
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
February 22, 2011
U.S. economists David Card and Alan Kruger found no reliable empirical evidence that higher minimum wages produce unemployment. But they found several benefits of minimum wages, including a “trickle-up” effect (whereby many non-minimum-wage workers also got raises); reduced turnover; and higher productivity… If demand for goods and services is chronically weak, increasing purchasing power (by boosting wages) can kickstart demand and thereby increase job creation… Minimum wages… should be increased gradually but steadily in the years to come.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
Canada holds a losing hand in the arbitration game
Monday, February 21st, 2011
Feb. 21, 2011
The London Court of International Arbitration… Unlike a traditional court, there are fewer built-in safeguards to protect the organization’s independence… Its judges are paid by the parties who use the court, and they’re assigned at the discretion of the court, rather than by lottery or rotation… Critics say the court’s structure serves the interests of the international arbitration business first and defendants such as Canada second. As a result, the court might not be the friendliest venue in which to duke it out with the United States, which accounts for roughly half of all arbitration cases.
Tags: economy, globalization, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates, Policy Context | 3 Comments »
Canada’s immigration policy: Who is on the guest list?
Monday, February 21st, 2011
February 18, 2011
In 2010, there were 283,096 temporary foreign workers in Canada, doing work that employers asserted there was no Canadian available to do… In 2000, 11 per cent of temporary foreign workers performed basic labour or unspecified skills; now 34 per cent of them do. They used to primarily fall into the categories of nannies and caregivers, or seasonal agricultural workers. Employers are now using the temporary work permit program to bring in workers for hotels, fast food outlets, janitorial services and factories — typical Canadian jobs, albeit low-paying.
Tags: economy, globalization, immigration, rights, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
TSX sells, Canada sold down the river
Monday, February 21st, 2011
February 19, 2011
The proposed takeover of the TSX Group is unacceptable and would injure Canada’s competitive advantages. The TSX Group Inc. is not just a public company with an equity and derivatives business that trades and raises capital for public companies. It is the linch pin to the nation’s mining industry and, therefore, to the country’s future… its sale would forego the fact that the TSX, with the right managers and strategy, will likely dwarf the London and most other exchanges in a handful of years. Finally, there is absolutely no business case behind this punt.
Tags: economy, globalization, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
Tricky politics for Canada as junior partner in international tie-ups
Thursday, February 17th, 2011
Feb. 16, 2011
The negotiation of a continental perimeter border and security deal with the United States, the proposed merger of the Toronto and London stock exchanges, and the possible free trade and investment treaty with the European Union all dilute Canada’s ability to act alone; that is, to exercise its sovereignty. In exchange, in theory, the Canadian economy will benefit.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
When jails become a jobs program
Tuesday, February 15th, 2011
Feb. 15, 2011
The jails plan to hire 5,000 new employees, according to Don Head, the commissioner. He says the service is trying to count up the costs of the government’s multiple crime bills. Did no one think to do that first? Even apart from all those jobs is the cost of the new infrastructure needed to house a spike in the number of prisoners… Yet the Conservative government has provided no comprehensive costing, and none for a new bill, Bill S-10, that provides for mandatory-minimum sentences for some drug crimes, such as six months for growing six or more marijuana plants.
Tags: budget, corrections, ideology
Posted in Debates | No Comments »
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