TILMA Hearings Continue

After a week of public hearings in Regina, the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on the Economy has moved to Saskatoon. Fortunately, CUPE was able to import Steven Shrybman for some expert testimony. Luckily, he wasn’t caught up in any “inter-provincial barriers” on his way from Ottawa. Some of his testimony was reported in today’s Leader-Post: Ottawa-based trade lawyer Steven […]

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Cameron: Labour rights recognized

From his rabble.ca column: In a judgment rendered June 8, the Supreme Court of Canada has reversed itself and recognized that freedom of association includes the right to collective bargaining. by Duncan Cameron June 13, 2007 Fundamental labour rights, pursued historically, and recognized under international conventions, must be respected in Canada, according to the highest court in the land. In […]

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Supreme Court enshines collective bargaining as constitutional right

Because it looks like a simple rebuke of the zealous anti-union tactics of BC’s Campbell administration, observers Back East may have missed this significant ruling by the Supreme Court on Friday. Below is the story from Saturday’s Vancouver Sun, and a commentary from a columnist in today’s Sun. Interestingly, the term “judicial activism” crops up fairly early in the story, […]

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Rough Trade

The following letter is printed in today’s Globe and Mail: Re Harper signals shift from Africa to Americas (June 8), Announcements by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and International Trade Minister David Emerson that Canada intends to negotiate a free-trade deal with Colombia can only be described as chutzpah. Consider: More union leaders are killed in Colombia than in all of […]

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Mandryk Opposes TILMA

After a week of public hearings, CanWest’s long-time Saskatchewan political columnist has essentially come out against TILMA. The following lines are from Murray Mandryk’s column in today’s Regina Leader-Post: The unions and the left have been raising some very valid questions over why Saskatchewan needs to sign on to this trade agreement and what the impact might be if we […]

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The Keystone Pipeline

The National Energy Board is holding hearings into the proposal to ship Alberta tar sands bitumen to the US for further refining – something of a reductio ad absurdum in terms of resource-led development. Fred Wilson from CEP is writing  a daily blog from the hearings where his union, the Parkland Institute and other Alberta progressives are intervenors. If you […]

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More Legal Analysis of TILMA

The Canadian Union of Public Employees released Steven Shrybman’s second assessment of TILMA at this year’s Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting. His first was for the Ontario Federation of Labour. Alberta-BC trade deal will undermine Municipal authority June 2, 2007 09:38 AM Calgary – A legal opinion produced by Sack Goldblatt Mitchell sheds damaging new light on the recent Alberta-BC Trade, […]

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Postal Workers Respond to Coyne

Today’s National Post features a stinging reply from Deborah Bourque to Andrew Coyne’s critique of Canada’s postal monopoly. I have no expertise on comparative international postal systems, but the facts outlined by Bourque seem to do serious damage to Coyne’s argument. At this point, the debate appears to pit hard evidence regarding Canada Post’s low cost against anecdotes regarding its […]

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We Are The Champions! (Except for Iceland)

Having just finished arguing that inequality is an inevitable result of personal marriage decisions, William Watson has declared Canadians the “strike champs” of the OECD in today’s Financial Post. A new British study suggests that labour disputes cost about 200 days per 1,000 workers per year in Canada, which is apparently far more than in most OECD countries. Four thoughts […]

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The Ottawa Citizen on 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 (TILMA) without specifying any of […]

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Foreign Takeovers

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 Mail editorial, which decried “Ottawa’s […]

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Banks on the Labour Force Survey

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 people withdrew from the labour […]

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The China Syndrome

The following, from today’s Toronto Star, includes some commentary from yours truly: The China syndrome: A new condition characterized by the apparent reluctance of a certain national government to embrace an emerging, global economic power May 05, 2007

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Consumer Tax Index

Crawl Across the Ocean, which has infrequent but excellent posts, features an amusing and accurate critique of the Fraser Institute’s “Consumer Tax Index.”   MORE (April 29): In particular, this critique points out that the political right defines “essential” very narrowly when measuring poverty or railing about taxes, but very broadly when limiting the right to strike.

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TILMA Versus Canadian Football

The Canadian Football League’s season does not begin until June, but debate is already underway about TILMA’s potential effect on its franchises, most of which are for-profit businesses that receive government subsidies. The last federal budget proposed a new Canadian Heritage Sport Fund to promote three-down football, but also proposed to expand TILMA to more provinces. In response to my […]

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Policy Conference Presentations

The presentations from the Ottawa Economics Association’s 2007 Policy Conference are now available online. They include a fascinating exposition on China’s manufacturing sector, a business perspective on Canadian manufacturing, Buzz Hargrove on the Canadian economy, and the Fraser Institute’s take on global warming.

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Police Investigate Ottawa Election

As the National Union of Public and General Employees reports, the Ottawa and District Labour Council played a key role in initiating this investigation: OPP investigation launched, thanks to Ottawa labour council The question remains – why was it left to an outside group like the labour council to take the initiative?Ottawa (28 March 2007) – Thanks to the Ottawa […]

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Harper Meets Labour Leaders

Ken Georgetti and leaders of major manufacturing unions just finished meeting with the Prime Minister about Canada’s ongoing manufacturing crisis. The Canadian Labour Congress briefing note quoted by The Globe and Mail online follows: The Manufacturing Crisis Overview Canada’s manufacturing sector is in crisis. High energy prices, a high dollar, and worsening trade deficits with Asia have caused many Canadian […]

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Twenty Pieces of Silver for Boudria

As advertised on page B7 of today’s Globe and Mail, Hill & Knowlton has promoted Don Boudria from “part-time” Senior Associate to “full-time” Senior Counsellor. Boudria, the former Liberal Whip and House Leader, chaired Dion’s leadership campaign. He attended all of the parliamentary-committee hearings on C-257 to oppose the Bill. In recent days, he visited Liberal MPs who had voted […]

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A Defeat that Smells of Victory

Last night, the House of Commons defeated Bill C-257, “An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (replacement workers),” by a vote of 177 to 122. All NDP and Bloc MPs, about forty Liberals, and one brave Conservative voted in favour. Although the Bill did not pass, the labour movement’s efforts on this issue have achieved at least three important […]

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Georgetti Responds to Coon Come on Anti-Scab Legislation

Opponents of Bill C-257 need to identify a purpose served by replacement workers other than strengthening the bargaining position of employers in relation to their employees. Hence the misleading claim that replacement workers are needed to provide essential services during labour disputes. Matthew Coon Come, a former aboriginal political leader who became a corporate CEO, has lent his support to […]

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Krugman: America’s Disappearing Middle Class

From the keynote speech delivered by Paul Krugman at the Economic Policy Institute’s recent conference on The Agenda for Shared Prosperity: A History of America’s Disappearing Middle Class By Paul Krugman …One thing I’ve been noticing on multiple debates in public policies — climate change is another one — is there seems to be an almost seamless transition from denial […]

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Anti-Scab Legislation

I hope that enough Liberals and Conservatives will vote for Bill C-257 to pass it on March 21. However, Stephan Dion and his labour critic have announced that they will not support it because the Speaker ruled their essential-service amendments inadmissable. The Canada Labour Code already protects essential services during labour disputes. Workers in federally regulated industries are permitted to […]

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Economic effects of unions

Given some recent discourse on unions in our comments area, I decided to reach back to a fairly comprehensive literature survey on the empirical evidence about unions. The report comes not from the CCPA, CAW or CLC, nor does it come from the ILO, but from the World Bank. It is a rather weighty tome, published in 2002, and can […]

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Manufacturing Shipments Fall

An article in Statistics Canada’s Daily notes that the value of Canadian factory shipments hit a two-year low in October. Because manufacturing includes petroleum products, this development largely resulted from the recent oil-price drop. The inclusion of resource-processing industries means that the value of “manufacturing” shipments partly reflects commodity prices. In my view, the more interesting statistic is that the […]

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Who Will Have a Good Holiday?

As we head into the Christmas holidays and many of us look forward to spending some time away from work with our families, it’s worth noting that there is great inequality among Canadian workers in terms of access to paid vacation leave, and big gaps compared to other industrial countries. The statutory minimum in Canada varies by province, and is just […]

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