Posts Tagged ‘economy’

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Carney’s new nation-building plan lacks a vision for our social, educational and health needs

Wednesday, June 11th, 2025

We all need good work, housing, education, health care, child care, clean water, safe food and environmental protection. These must be central to our idea of a transformed Canada. All require immediate government attention. They can’t be relegated to the background, in deference to corporate demands for a wide-open economy where regulations and taxes don’t hold things back.  Our economic rethinking must extend to developing new guardrails on business entry into the care economy.

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‘Nation-building’ projects should also reflect Canadian values

Wednesday, June 11th, 2025

In his 2021 book, Value(s): Building A Better World For All, Mr. Carney reflects thoughtfully on the corrosive impact of inequality and unhealthiness, and how more equal societies are more resilient. He also writes about seven key values that are essential for building a better world: solidarity, fairness, responsibility, resilience, sustainability, dynamism, and humility, all laced with compassion. The way to embrace those values is to invest in programs that make people healthier and more equal…

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Why the Capital Gains Tax Increase Should Not See the Light of Day

Thursday, June 5th, 2025

The planned measure to increase the capital gains inclusion rate… would create a triple threat: harming Canadian businesses, discouraging investment, and penalizing middle-income Canadians…  – Canada’s capital stock would decline by $127 billion, GDP would fall by nearly $90 billion, and real per-capita GDP would drop by 3 percent. Further, employment would decline by 414,000 jobs, which would raise unemployment from 1.5 million to 1.9 million workers.

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Job Creation Falls Behind Rapid Population Growth

Thursday, June 5th, 2025

Canada’s labour market faces mounting pressures that cannot be fixed merely by adding more workers…  “We cannot afford to leave talent on the sidelines – whether it’s older workers retiring too soon or immigrants struggling to use their skills,”… the country’s most acute demographic challenges [include] rapidly aging populations, lower workforce participation among seniors, high unemployment, and labour mismatches compounding regional disparities… “If we don’t act now, these gaps will only widen.”

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What is modern monetary theory? An economist explains how it could help Canada

Tuesday, May 27th, 2025

As a country with currency sovereignty and substantial natural and human resources, Canada has the ability to use targeted public spending to address pressing challenges such as housing affordability, health-care and child-care expansion, and climate change mitigation. MMT encourages us to shift the conversation from artificial fiscal constraints to real-world economic possibilities. Instead of asking, “Can we afford it?” we should be asking, “What do we need, and how can we mobilize our resources to achieve it?”

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Ontario budget leaves universities and colleges twisting in the wind

Sunday, May 18th, 2025

In 2019, the Ontario government cut tuition fees by 10 per cent and froze them. The measure cost universities $360 million and colleges $80 million, because the government didn’t make up for the budget shortfall. The government also cancelled free tuition for eligible low-income families…The budget also needed to address the structural underfunding of post-secondary education. Instead, funding is falling from $14.2 billion last year to $13 billion this year, to $12.8 billion in 2027-28… at a time when we should be investing heavily in our people.

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How Donald Trump’s tariffs threaten Canadians’ access to prescription drugs

Friday, May 9th, 2025

 Thirty-two per cent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients that go into the medicines that North Americans take originate in China. U.S President Donald Trump has now threatened to slap U.S. tariffs on Chinese drugs and drug ingredients that were previously exempt… Canada already imports $8.76 billion annually in prescription drugs from the U.S. To the extent that tariffed drugs go from China to the U.S. to Canada, the cost of both publicly and privately funded drug plans will increase.

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Mark Carney unveils Liberal party’s election platform, promises $129 billion in new spending

Saturday, April 19th, 2025

The platform defines capital spending as “anything that builds an asset” owned by the federal government, another level of government, or a private company… not “spending” but “investing” that will prompt private sector investment to grow the economy… Carney also repeated his promise that his government would not cut health and social transfers to provinces, and would preserve programs like national child care, dental care, pharmacare and an emerging school food program. 

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Platform Crunch: Tax cuts are alive and well in this federal election, but who benefits? (Hint: Look up, way up)

Friday, April 18th, 2025

The richest 40 per cent of Canadians would enjoy three-quarters of those promised savings (for either party), while the lowest-income earners in Canada would, on average, enjoy zero benefit. Not great preparation for a tariff war that would hit low-income families the hardest… The expenditures are so large and these parties are so concerned with having no deficits that they’ll require massive cuts elsewhere to balance the budget. We are yet to see a detailed list of those cuts…

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‘Victory bonds’ were vital to funding the First and Second World wars. Let’s not wait for the storm to hit before bringing them back

Tuesday, March 25th, 2025

Today, faced with an unprovoked economic attack, we must call on another of our strengths: being among the world’s fiercest savers… We’re saving at rates not seen since 1996… A can-do spirit has been reawakened in this country, along with a taste to go beyond a “Buy Canada” consumer response. Let’s save Canada like we did once, twice before; and finance the fight of our lives, together.   

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