The Progressive Economics Forum

I tend to be supportive of proportional representation for the usual reasons. However, there are some significant advantages to electing federal MPs (or provincial MLAs) from geographic ridings: individual MPs represent, and are accountable to, a defined group of citizens; these citizens have “local” MPs to whom they can raise concerns and from whom they can [...]

It is good to see that the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association is paying attention to this issue: AUMA Wants Full Consultation on new Alberta-BC Trade Agreement Watch for upcoming public consultations on the recently signed Alberta-British Columbia Trade, Investment, and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA).

The Ottawa Citizen endorsed TILMA on Tuesday. I drafted an op-ed in response to the editorial, but Larry Brown of NUPGE beat me to the punch with an excellent letter printed in yesterday’s Citizen. For posterity, my op-ed follows: What Internal Trade Barriers? The Ottawa Citizen has endorsed the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement [...]

Some more interesting factoids about congestion charging as NYC contemplates on of its own. Critics are correct to point out the regressive aspects of congestion charges, that they have the potential to price out all but the most affluent. On the other hand, the poorest do not own cars and are much more reliant on [...]

In assessing the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report, John McCallum asked whether “the budget, with its large increase in spending, might be contributing to an overheating of the economy at this time?” Similarly, in commenting on the Labour Force Survey, Doug Porter of BMO seemed concerned that a supposedly tight labour market and higher [...]

Albertans are being paid less per hour, on average, than they were a year ago. It seems that the resource boom has increased prices more than wages in that province. Relative to inflation, wages also fell slightly in Ontario. Today, Statistics Canada released April’s Consumer Price Index. Although inflation is down slightly and wages were [...]

Both Erin Weir and I gave testimony to the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce in the past 24 hours, and I think we made an impression by challenging their assumptions about “interprovincial trade barriers” and bogus “solutions” like TILMA. My testimony follows: Presentation to the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce By [...]

Here’s a communique (posted about 9 pm) from Peter Bakvis of the Global Unions office in Washington who has been closely observing this fiasco. One wonders if Canada is caving along with the Bushies or will stand as the last defenders of this nepotistic ultra neo con.., (And you read it here first — was [...]

All economists are always in support of “free trade” all of the time, right? Some interestings conversations are happening in the econo-blogs about international trade theory and reality. First, I love how Dani Rodrick is challenges the conventional wisdom on international trade: One of my favorite stylized facts about development is contained in the graph [...]

I get the Daily from Statistics Canada in my email each morning, and periodically they report on “crushing statistics”, which I believe refers to the production of vegetable oils and such (I’m no farmer). Statistics Canada today released its Census of Agriculture, and it probably should also bear the title “crushing statistics”. Between the lines [...]

Copyright has always been pitched as striking a balance between the rights of creators to make a living off their work and the rights of the general public and future generations to benefit from that work. In recent decades, as big corporations have replaced actual creators as owners of many copyrighted works, the balance has [...]

An Ontario citizens’ assembly on electoral reform has come out in favour of a form of proportional representation known as mixed-member-proportional voting, or MMP. The Ontario Premier says it will be put to the people and will require a popular vote of more than 60%, which arguably makes sense for something as important as changing [...]

Earlier today, I appeared as a witness before the House of Commons Finance Committee regarding “Tax Havens and Tax Avoidance”. The panel included a representative from Barbados who contended that it is not a tax haven. A business-school professor supported him by arguing that low-tax conduits for Canadian investment abroad benefit Canada. A couple of tax [...]

Two articles below look at two major items exempted from the Kyoto Protocol: air travel and deforestation. First, the Independent looks at the emission impacts of deforestation in poor countries (though emphasizing that air travel accounts for only a very small percentage of global emissions). Second, the Globe comments that despite its small share of [...]

I highly recommend a new StatsCan (Andrew Heisz) study of income inequality and redistribution – with one significant quibble. Heisz confirms a great deal of what we know – family after tax income inequality has been growing apace in the 1990s, driven above all by increased inequality of market income. http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0019MIE/11F0019MIE2007298.pdf This is a methodologically [...]

As foreshadowed last week and reported below, Flaherty has narrowed non-deductibility to apply only to interest already deducted abroad and delayed its implementation for five years. In other words, corporations will generally be allowed to deduct foreign-affiliate interest costs in Canada even though they generally do not pay Canadian tax on their foreign-affiliate income. Flaherty [...]

Like so many commentators on this topic, Andrew Coyne attacks the inefficiency and absurdity of alleged “internal trade barriers” without actually naming any. He could presumably trot out the two or three usual suspects, but does he believe that Canada’s “economic union” depends upon the colour of margarine in Quebec? Coyne writes that, “Viewed strictly [...]

Since I first posted about Alcan on May 1, it has certainly become more newsworthy! The Canadian Labour Congress sent the following letter to the Prime Minister yesterday.  I will appear on “Goldhawk Live” to discuss the issue on Sunday at 8pm EST. Hopefully, the letter and I are more coherent than Tuesday’s Globe and [...]

When the Canadian Labour Congress comments on the Labour Force Survey, the interests we represent and the policy agenda we hope to advance is quite explicit. When banks comment, they are generally treated as neutral observers. However, banks are powerful economic actors with major economic interests. In April, full-time, paid jobs disappeared, unemployment rose and [...]

By walking out on Gordon Laxer’s testimony about the SPP’s potential impact on Canadian energy security, the Conservatives have given him far more media coverage than he otherwise might have received. Today, the following story appeared in The Montreal Gazette, The Ottawa Citizen and The Edmonton Journal: Tory chair storms out of SPP hearing Freezing in [...]

I just appeared on CJOB radio in Winnipeg. Richard Cloutier asked me about the national manufacturing crisis, but not much about Manitoba in particular. I was, of course, delighted to speak about one of the CLC’s main concerns. However, in looking at Manitoba’s numbers before the interview, I noticed that this province is bucking the [...]

Today’s Labour Force Survey indicates that Canada lost 28,000 paid positions in April and that more people are unemployed. But Statistics Canada’s release began as follows: Estimates from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey (LFS) showed little overall change in employment in April. This follows strong employment gains since September 2006. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate remained [...]

Following the lead of several American municipalities, Maryland has become the first state to mandate a “living wage” for government contractors. Larger businesses working on larger contracts will have to pay at least $11.30/hour in urban areas and $8.50/hour in rural areas. While this bill is no substitute for an adequate minimum wage covering all [...]

Recently, CLC President Ken Georgetti sent the following letter to Jim Flaherty: May 8, 2007 Honourable Jim Flaherty, P.C., M.P. Minister of Finance House of Commons Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 Dear Minister: On behalf of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), I write to express our support for your promise, in Budget 2007, to end the [...]

I lumped it up yesterday when my fill-up closed at just shy of $50. After all, gas should be expensive, as a means of encouraging us to drive less. But what if the main reason for the hefty increases is gouging by oil and gas companies? It’s one thing for governments to reap the gains [...]

UBC’s Max Cameron (who wrote a great book on NAFTA back in the day) looks at endemic corruption in Latin America; in this case, a Peruvian congresswoman who put her maid on congressional payroll as a “political advisor”. (As an aside, those back east might be interested to learn about a major corruption trial underway [...]

True to form, the Liberals will put forward a motion tomorrow calling for the tax-deductibility of foreign-affiliate interest and for lower taxes on income trusts in the name of economic nationalism. UPDATE (May 10): The Canadian Labour Congress has released a letter opposing the motion.

A dispatch from Ellen Gould that is a bit nebulous on the surface: Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua are withdrawing from the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Ellen explains: It’s a little bit complicated to understand why this is such fantastically positive news, but this development basically means Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Venezuela are [...]

LAUREL ROTHMAN AND ARMINE YALNIZYAN Special to Globe and Mail Update May 8, 2007 at 12:37 AM EDT Canada‘s child and family poverty rate is down to 11.7 per cent in the latest Statistics Canada report, released last week. So why aren’t anti-poverty activists breaking out the bubbly? Because that rate is exactly what it [...]

What follows are the Chair’s conclusions from the G8 Employment Minister’s Conference in Dresden. I post this as an expample of  the current conventional wisdom of social and labour market policy (which has changed a bit for the good in the wake of the most recent OECD JObs Studay) and  as an aide memoire that [...]