Archive for the ‘Debates’ Category
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Harmonizing our border makes sense
Friday, February 4th, 2011
Feb. 04, 2011
… manufacturers have invested heavily in their compliance and security and partnered with governments to become trusted traders through initiatives such as Partners in Protection, Customs Self Assessment, and Free and Secure Trade. These programs… provide even greater trade and security information to governments so their resources can be focused on lesser known shipments. Despite this, the transactional compliance hurdles these companies face at the Canada-U.S. border weaken our manufacturing competitiveness, dampen export growth and impede job creation in both countries.
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
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Lower corporate taxes no cure-all
Monday, January 31st, 2011
Jan 31 2011
If corporate taxes were all that mattered, Ireland with its rate of 12.5 per cent would still be booming. No one would do business in Scandinavia, where taxes remain high. In the United States, where corporate taxes vary enormously from state to state, companies would be flocking to zero-tax areas like Nevada and Wyoming. Curiously, they aren’t… Other measures, such as spending on infrastructure or cuts to personal income taxes, may help create as many or more jobs.
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, standard of living, tax
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Memo to Ottawa: Take jobs out of corporate tax debate
Monday, January 31st, 2011
January 31, 2011
There is considerable evidence showing that lower CIT rates increase investment and output. And available evidence also shows that reducing corporate taxesincreases wages. But there doesn’t seem to be much evidence showing that CIT rates affect employment one way or the other. People who expect the CIT cut to have a measurable effect on employment are likely to be disappointed… Employment is an important dimension for policy evaluation, but it is not the only one. Corporate tax policy isn’t about jobs, and it is a mistake to conduct the policy debate as if it were.
Tags: economy, ideology, tax
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Outsourcing shafts workers
Friday, January 28th, 2011
January 28, 2011
The battle cry from Bay Street and the Mayor’s Office calls for a full-scale outsourcing of all kinds of work… After all, if money can be saved, why not? That has been the guiding rule for powerful CEOs when they look at their own operations. Lots of them have outsourced – sometimes overseas, sometimes to contractors here at home… Of course, nobody stays long when they are being so poorly paid, so the turnover was constant. The job changed from one that paid a living wage, down to one that paid poverty wages. But the CEO got a bonus for “achieving efficiencies.”
Tags: economy, ideology, standard of living
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Canada comes up short on jobs
Friday, January 28th, 2011
Jan. 28, 2011
Canada can no longer claim to have recouped all the jobs lost during the recession. The economy is roughly 30,000 jobs short, according to Statistics Canada… it has revised its labour data to reflect 2006 census figures, as opposed to using 2001 population data… However, it added the unemployment rate, at 7.6% as of December, remains unchanged. Based on the revisions, the agency says 428,000 jobs were lost between October 2008 and July 2009. From July 2009 to last month, the revised data suggest 398,000 net new jobs were created – meaning there is 30,000-job gap.
Tags: economy, globalization
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In Sweden, pension problems are so 1989
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011
January 21, 2011
… Sweden scrapped its traditional defined benefit pension for what’s called a “notional defined contribution” plan… tied to the national per capita real wage growth… Swedes contribute 18.5 per cent of their pay to the system: 16 per cent to the NDC and 2.5 per cent to a private account where money is invested in mutual funds of their choice. The public pension is… responsible for 75 per cent of the average monthly benefit for men at 17,000 Swedish kronor ($2,562 U.S.) and women at 12,000 kronor. The rest comes from occupational pensions negotiated between companies and unions.
Tags: economy, pensions, standard of living
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Bringing coherence to our fragmented EI system
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Jan. 21, 2011
Canada’s broken federal-provincial relations victimize the unemployed. A lack of co-ordination between those making decisions about the federal EI program and provincial social assistance programs creates gaps that are unjustifiable from a labour-market-efficiency and social-justice perspective. A coherent system would be run by one order of government. Other countries have one system. Canada has two parallel systems that are barely on speaking terms.
Tags: economy, standard of living
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Fixing EI: Getting beyond regionalism
Saturday, January 22nd, 2011
Jan. 20, 2011
Although the EI system does represent a real transfer of wealth between provinces, solutions to EI’s problems will not be found in a simple reversal of regional redistribution. The cure for what ails the program is much more complex. The country needs a new system that reflects the shifts in labour market patterns that have taken place in every Canadian province. This does not necessarily require more money.
Tags: standard of living
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Study tracks impact of social enterprises
Thursday, January 20th, 2011
January 11, 2011
Social enterprises are businesses operated by non-profit organizations for the dual purpose of generating income and creating social, environmental, and cultural value. Those participating in the study are engaged in a wide variety of social, cultural, environmental and revenue raising market activities. Of the 4,500 employees involved in the study, 60 percent were members of a designated target group such as persons with a mental or physical handicap or a member of a marginalized population… These social enterprises were responsible for training 11,670 people and providing services to an additional 678,000 people.
Tags: disabilities, economy, ideology, standard of living
Posted in Debates | 1 Comment »
Take the politics out of Employment Insurance
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011
Jan. 19, 2011
… despite the creation of the new Canada Employment Insurance Financing Board (CEIFB), the setting of premium rates is still vulnerable to political and partisan influence. Canada should remove politicians and partisan politics from the rate-setting process entirely and grant the CEIFB the same independence to set EI premiums as the Bank of Canada enjoys with respect to interest rates.
Tags: economy, ideology, rights, standard of living
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