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Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre recently circulated a post on several social media platforms claiming that Canada’s manufacturing industry has atrophied under excessive regulation and high energy prices to an extent “unmatched across the industrialized world.” It purported to show that Canada’s manufacturing sector is now smaller than Ireland’s—a country with one-eighth of Canada’s population. This, he argued, is due to […]

Just in time for Prime Minister Mark Carney’s meeting with Donald Trump in Washington, the U.S. Census Bureau has released year-end 2024 data on America’s bilateral trade flows in goods and services. This data reconfirms that the U.S trade deficit is neither new, nor an “emergency” (as Trump has claimed in order to invoke special emergency powers to set tariffs). […]

Canada’s federal election has focused quite appropriately on the existential economic and sovereignty threat posed by Donald Trump. But there are other issues on voters’ minds, too, and continued concerns with ‘affordability’ rank high on that list. Incidentally, on that point the Centre for Future Work’s recent report, Counting the Costs: Impacts of the 2022 Oil Price Shock for Canadian […]

I confess: I was disappointed when the Justin Trudeau Liberals won the fall 2015 election.  I was hoping for an orange break-through. So, it comes with some irony that I find myself defending the economic policy legacy of the Justin Trudeau Liberal government nine years hence. The acute drama that unfolded in December with the Finance Minister’s resignation ahead of […]

In a previous post, I analyzed what Canadian corporations are doing with their profits. I described how across almost every sector of the economy, corporations are distributing more of their profits to owners than they are investing. In this brief post, I’m going to describe what Canadian corporations are doing with funds acquired through issuance of debt and equity securities. […]

The new UK government is signaling some reasonably ambitious reforms on the labour policy front (certainly more ambitious than most were expecting, given the Labour Party’s austere pre-election rhetoric and platform). They call the vision a New Deal for Working People . The policy framework is called A Plan to Make Work Pay. Broad features of the plan were mapped […]

After decades of lobbying and advocacy by Canadian trade unions, the federal Parliament unanimously passed legislation to ban the use of replacement workers (or ‘scabs’) during strikes and lockouts in federally regulated industries (covering about 1 million workers in industries like including finance, interprovincial transportation, and telecommunications). The legislation will take effect in June, 2025. It was supported by all […]

Armine Yalnizyan, Atkinson Fellow on the Future for Workers – Recipient of the 2023 Galbraith Prize in Economics This lecture was delivered on May 31, 2024, at the Canadian Economics Association Annual Meetings, Toronto Metropolitan University Thank you for the immense honour of being awarded the Galbraith Prize in Economics — and for agreeing to wait a year to hear this […]

The Bank of Canada is widely expected to increase its policy interest rate again this week, for the eighth time in the last 10 months. Media and financial market commentary on its decision has made numerous throwaway references to how Canada’s economy is still “running hot,” and that i why a rate hike is needed. This common claim is surprising, […]

Supermarket executives were up on Parliament Hill this week, appearing before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food’s inquiry into food inflation grocery chain profits. They repeated the now-familiar argument that supermarkets have not caused food inflation, they have merely passed along higher input costs to their customers; their profit margins have been stable, it is claimed. Don’t believe them. […]

Once again , PEF will be at the Canadian Economics Association (CEA) annual conference! We now have the official schedule for the 2022 CEA meetings to be held at Carleton University, Ottawa. The conference will be on-line Tuesday, May 31 and in-person Friday, June 3 and Saturday, June 4. Please note that in addition to the sessions below, the PEF […]

It has been a relatively low key federal election campaign so far, with a surprising amount of convergence on some key issues by the major parties. As a bit of blip, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau pledged on August 25 that a returning Liberal government would raise the corporate tax rate on the profits on all banks and life insurance companies, […]

My new book is now available from BTL. The Fire and the Ashes – Between the Lines (btlbooks.com) In The Fire and the Ashes, long-time union economist and policy analyst Andrew Jackson looks back on a fascinating career in the labour movement, the NDP, and left politics, combining keen historical analysis with a political manifesto for today. As one of the […]

To allow the maximum number of quality student essays to join the already promising submissions we have received, PEF is extending the deadline for our 2021 PEF Student Essay Contest to May 11, 2021. Calling all Canadian students anywhere in the world and all post-secondary students in Canada who are working on papers taking a critical approach to the functioning, […]

U.S. President Joe Biden has been pushing the envelope in bringing America back into the Paris Accord process, setting more ambitious targets for reducing U.S. emissions, and committing to very big investments in renewable energy infrastructure and other climate-friendly measures. This is very encouraging, and will reinforce (and up the ante) for Canada to do better. One news story about […]

The 2021 PEF Student Essay Contest is now open! Calling all Canadian students anywhere in the world and all post-secondary students in Canada who are working on papers taking a critical approach to the functioning, efficiency, social, and environmental consequences of unconstrained markets. The winning essays will receive a cash prize of $1,000 for the graduate student category and $500 […]

BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson today announced a plan to completely eliminate the provincial sales tax (currently 7%) for 1 year, and then cut it by 4 points (or 57%) after that. Conservatives are prone to make expensive tax cut promises during elections, a tendency which contradicts their other touch-stone of perpetually promising to get tough on deficits and debt. […]

The progressive economics community, in Canada and around the world, lost a wonderful colleague, comrade and friend with the passing of John Loxley on July 28, 2020. Here I would like to share some personal reflections on John’s impact on my life as a progressive economist, and the very rich legacy he has left our shared community. (I also commend […]

Canada’s most prominent progressive economist has passed. He will be sorely missed. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/mel-watkins-a-life-well-lived