Archive for the ‘Economy/Employment’ Category
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Better for Workers, Better for All? Assessing a Portable Health Benefits Plan in Ontario
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
Millions of workers in Ontario have no access to supplemental health and dental benefits that reimburse most costs for prescription drugs, dental, vision and mental health services… One solution is a portable health benefits (PHB) plan that allows a worker to maintain coverage while moving from job to job… This commentary explores the purpose, structure and feasibility of a portable health and dental benefits plan in Ontario.
Tags: economy, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, participation, pharmaceutical
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Does Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan deliver on the promise of a just transition?
Friday, March 3rd, 2023
In 2021, the CCPA published Roadmap to a Canadian Just Transition Act, which laid out five guiding principles for an ambitious and effective just transition agenda in Canada. Those points serve as a useful benchmark for the Sustainable Jobs Plan… In the meantime, the federal government will need to focus on getting money out the door to the various training programs that it has promised to fund.
Tags: budget, globalization, Indigenous, jurisdiction, participation
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Canada needs a minimum tax on corporate book profits
Thursday, March 2nd, 2023
In 2021, tax avoidance by 123 of Canada’s largest corporations cost the public $30 billion… Corporate tax avoidance nearly doubled in 2021, compared to the pre-pandemic average. More robust policies are needed… A minimum tax on book profits is the major revenue generator within the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act… If Canada had a 15-per-cent minimum tax on book profits in 2021, it would have reduced the tax gap by $11 billion.
Tags: budget, featured, standard of living, tax
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Affordability — not inflation — is the biggest crisis Canada’s economy faces today
Wednesday, March 1st, 2023
Five fiscal approaches… could lower costs, tackle long-term affordability and create more economic resilience… Reform Employment Insurance… Build more affordable rental housing… Fund school food programs… Focus on low-income households for energy-efficiency retrofits… [and] Avoid wasting money in health care… All governments need to prevent the galloping profitization of care…
Tags: economy, featured, Health, housing, immigration, Indigenous, standard of living
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Humans aren’t widgets, and Canadian workers are not in ‘short supply’
Saturday, February 11th, 2023
Tiff Macklem, Governor of the Bank of Canada, also cites employers’ complaints as justification for painful interest rate hikes. He aims to ‘solve’ the labour shortage by deliberately raising unemployment… The federal government, too, is catering to employers by increasing immigration targets… Properly planned and supported immigration is good for the economy and for society. But importing masses of workers just to make life easier for employers is the wrong way to do it
Tags: economy, globalization, ideology, immigration, standard of living
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COVID ‘blank cheque’: Report finds large corporations spent billions on dividends and share buybacks while receiving government wage subsidies
Friday, February 10th, 2023
Canadians For Tax Fairness found 37 corporations that had received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy and spent a total of $81.3 billion on dividends, $41.1 billion on share buybacks and $51.1 billion on taking over other companies… up to $9.9 billion may have gone to companies which weren’t eligible to receive it… some kind of clawback mechanism is needed, either for this time around, or when designing future programs.
Tags: budget, economy, Health, privatization, tax
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Where are your inflation dollars going? Inflation broken down by profit, wages and industry
Tuesday, January 24th, 2023
The data is clear—the largest driver of inflation is corporate profits… Of every dollar spent on higher prices in the last two years, 47 cents was converted into corporate profits in four industries, led by mining, oil and gas extraction, explains a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
Tags: economy, standard of living, tax
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Why don’t we zone for rental apartments?
Sunday, January 8th, 2023
The speculation-driven condo business model encourages high prices for land, a dynamic that favours firms that want to get in and out quickly instead of operating a rental building for decades… a dynamic encouraged by the strange fact that apartment buildings are taxed higher than condos. Today, we build almost nothing but condos.
Tags: economy, homelessness, housing, ideology, jurisdiction, poverty
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How workers are being sacrificed to a doctrine that intentionally keeps unemployment high
Saturday, December 24th, 2022
The economy risks serious recession from an interest shock that was neither necessary, nor effective in reducing inflation… Hundreds of thousands of Canadians could lose their jobs, and many their homes. Why? They’re being sacrificed to visibly reassert a doctrine that keeps unemployment deliberately high – not just to control inflation, but more importantly to control workers.
Tags: economy, ideology, participation, standard of living
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Financing Employment Insurance Reform: Finding the Right Balance
Friday, December 16th, 2022
… the federal government is facing pressures to avoid increasing EI premiums as many businesses are still recovering from the pandemic and are likely to face another economic downturn. And while some have called for the federal government to contribute financially to the program to limit premium increases, others have expressed concern about burdening taxpayers and adding to the federal debt.
Tags: budget, economy, ideology, participation, standard of living, tax
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