In the American Prospect, Ezra Klein compares five countries’ health care systems (hat tip to Mark Thoma). in spite of his general defence of Canada, there are a few areas where I think he gets it wrong and I have added in some comments in those places. The Health of Nations Here’s how Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and our own […]
Read moreA number of key critical points on the federal government’s “analysis” of the economic impacts of Kyoto – http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/media/m_123/toc_eng.html – have already been made, including by Erin. http://progecon.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/inconvenient-truth/ A lot hinges on whether continued adherence to the protocol means that very large cuts have to be made to domestic emissions in a very short period of time – a key […]
Read moreA Saskatchewan Federation of Labour Vice-President has reported back from a meeting on TILMA organized by the C. D. Howe Institute.
Read moreAndrew Coyne makes several good points in today’s column on the economic-nationalist case for income trusts. He is skeptical, but for different reasons than the other Andrew and I. Like most of Coyne’s economic commentary, this column displays what I would characterize as excessive faith in the efficiency of free markets. Interestingly, he does not mention that Dion and May […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot summarizes the case for a world parliament, drawing on a new campaign being launched this week. I’ve always thought this to be a far-sighted and much-needed, if politically impossible, idea. Dare to dream, I suppose. Perhaps by the time I die the world will have something like a truly global parliament. (And if they could have those levitating […]
Read morehttp://www.ccl-cca.ca/NR/rdonlyres/F6226BEA-0502-4A2D-A2E0-6A7C450C5212/0/connecting_dots_EN.pdf Based on the Executive Summary, this report seems worth a read. It seems to go beyond the common rhetoric on the need for more ‘human capital development in a knowledge-based economy’ to take a serious look at economic returns to firms from training – though the scale of the suggested benefits seems rather high. I’ve always leaned to the […]
Read moreYesterday’s Tyee article by Horner and Orchard provides a good historical overview of the Wheat Board, but does not mention the recent plebiscite based on which the Conservatives propose to remove the Board’s barley monopoly. It is worth explaining why this flawed plebiscite does not give the Conservatives much of a democratic mandate, rather than ignoring the plebiscite altogether. Of 80,000 ballots sent […]
Read moreThe annual G8 meetings often result in a group hug (aka the “summit declaration). Much of the time, when the goals are laudable, they fail to achieve the desired result, as Sachs comments below on the MDGs, or they misrepresent what they are doing in the first place (remember the 2000 release that “ended” third world debt?). The Millennium Development […]
Read moreThis article from The Tyee reviews the history of the CWB and recent attacks by the Harper government: Harper’s Hit on Grain Farmers: Tories will aid US firms by gutting Canadian Wheat Board By Albert Horner and David Orchard TheTyee.ca For a year the Harper government has been threatening to destroy the power of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). Agriculture […]
Read moreLarry Hubich has sent an open letter to the Premier of Saskatchewan on TILMA. The letter cites much of the Lee, Weir, Grady, and Shrybman material discussed on this blog.
Read moreA lovely counterpoint to last week in Canadian politics on greenhouse gas emission reductions, Kyoto and Minister Baird: Norway Plans to Go ‘Carbon Neutral’ April 20, 2007 — Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday proposed to make Norway the first “carbon neutral” state by 2050 and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020. “We are committed […]
Read moreLike many people, I admire the entrepreneur. Risk-taking, hard-working, value-adding, employment-creating – such are the virtues of entrepreneurs. I wish our schools taught people more about how to be entrepreneurial, as opposed to “business” degrees that teach people to be middle-managers in big corporations. We too often are lectured about the need to impose supply-side remedies to boost entrepreneurship – […]
Read moreOther than the occasional call for Canada to adopt the US dollar, discussion of Canadian monetary policy mainly consists of the C. D. Howe Institute and the Bank of Canada praising inflation targeting. As Thomas Palley reminds us, another perspective exists: The Case Against Inflation Targeting A few months ago the Federal Reserve seemed to be inexorably moving toward adopting […]
Read moreAl Gore has famously and correctly characterized the scientific consensus about global warming as “An Inconvenient Truth”. In today’s Financial Post, Buzz Hargrove identifies another “inconvenient truth” for Canadian progressives: “it is impossible to achieve Kyoto targets in the time frames spelled out in Kyoto.” Canada’s Kyoto commitment was relatively modest and achievable. However, after signing it, the Liberal government […]
Read moreFrom today’s FP – I’ve dropped the misleading headline – this is a much more reasoned piece than some recently and widely circulated short quotes from Buzz on the implications of Kyoto for workers. Friday, April 20, 2007 Â As the president of the Canadian Auto Workers Union, I often find myself taking controversial positions, usually with a strong opinion […]
Read moreSome good points in this piece. I just love Baird’s argument that “275,000 Canadians would lose their jobs, gasoline prices would jump 60 per cent and natural gas prices would double.” Sounds like just what has happened over the past couple of years as the result of the oil boom. Did 250,000 manufacturing workers lose their jobs because of […]
Read moreThe framing of the Kyoto Accord by the Harper government, that is. I suppose this is progress for Harper, who had essentially dismissed climate change a year ago, but as the polls moved he has had to follow. I’m not as pessimistic about the economic fall-out if we are creative in developing just transition strategies for affected workers and are […]
Read moreOTTAWA — Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution will continue rising for several more years and remain well above Kyoto targets beyond 2020 if government plans leaked to Canadian Press and reviewed by the Climate Action Network Canada/Réseau action climat Canada (CAN-RAC) are implemented. The organization expects the federal government’s proposal for a new national GHG target to be […]
Read moreApparently following Andrew Coyne’s advice, Dion seems to be positioning himself to the right of Harper on tax policy. This move casts further doubt on Dion’s promise of a progressive alliance with the Greens. When the Conservatives cut the GST, the Liberal response was not that this move would take money away from important public services, but that it would […]
Read moreA report by Felix Salmon from the front lines of Columbia University on some issues arising out of the Stern review. I’d love to see a transcript of this session. Stern, Sachs, and Stiglitz on the Economics of Climate Change … I managed to ask Stern the question I’ve been wanting to ask him for a couple months now … […]
Read moreThe Globe and Mail deserves full credit for continuing to publish stories on environmental toxins. After being in circulation for decades, many chemicals are now (slowly) being put to the test, and some may even be taken out of circulation some time in the next decade. A first step being taken by the feds is labelling of what is in […]
Read moreAt the conference a couple of weeks ago where Elizabeth May mused about income trusts, she also committed to make opposition to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) the centrepiece of the Green Party’s forthcoming election platform. The SPP is an arrangement between Canada, the US, and Mexico that seeks to accelerate tar-sands development, among other objectives. It is very […]
Read moreEveryone knows globalization is an irresistible worldwide process enveloping every economy, including Canada’s, in its market-driven tentacles. Right? Wrong. In fact, since 2000, Canada’s economy has been curiously de-globalizing before our eyes. The importance of global markets to our employment and production has been diminishing, not increasing – and at a remarkable pace. Year-end GDP numbers for 2006, recently released […]
Read moreCanadian Aid Performance Declines in 2006: The OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) released preliminary statistics for ODA for 2006 and Canada is near the bottom, tied with Australia for 15th position among 22 donors.  At 0.30% of our Gross National Income (GNI) in 2006,  Canada is down from 0.34% in 2005. In both years, Canadian aid, along with other […]
Read moreBudget 2007 made interest on funds borrowed in Canada to finance foreign business operations nondeductible from Canadian corporate taxes. Finance Canada suggested that this arcane reform would raise relatively little revenue and, initially, business barely seemed to notice. More than a week after the budget, a Globe editorial and a Financial Post op-ed criticized the change as a huge ‘tax […]
Read moreIn Thursday’s Financial Post, the Canadian Association of Income Funds articulated the argument suggested by Elizabeth May: the devaluation of income trusts has made them vulnerable to takeovers by foreign private-equity. Certainly, many enterprises that paid little tax as income trusts will continue to pay little tax by converting to new organizational forms, such as private equity or publicly-traded corporations. […]
Read moreStéphane Dion, who is not progressive, has allied with Elizabeth May, who is not progressive, ostensibly to prevent progressive vote-splitting. As Andrew Coyne notes in tomorrow’s National Post column, this maneuver is clearly directed against the federal NDP, which is progressive. It is worth recalling the 2006 election results in Central Nova, the riding where Dion has pledged to prevent […]
Read moreToday’s Ottawa Citizen has a good editorial on the existence of two publicly-funded school systems in several provinces. The original concept of one system for Protestants and another for Catholics has evolved into a “public”, secular system and a “separate” system that teaches some Roman Catholicism but is also attended by many non-Catholics. Many schools cannot afford needed supplies, many […]
Read moreI’ve pasted below an excellent column from the Toronto Star by Carol Goar. The CLC’s analysis of the issue and policy prescriptions are avaialable from: http://www.canadianlabour.ca/index.php/Salimah_Valiani/1117 As I’ve noted earlier, its pretty hard to square the “shortage of Canadian workers” story from employers with the avaialable data on (flat) wage growth. There are clearly some shortages of specific skills (eg […]
Read moreTwo Canadian macro articles diverted me from my best laid plans today. Side by side, the two make for some interesting observations on the state of the Canadian economy, as well as some fodder for thinking about what drives investment. The first, a Statscan piece by Phillip Cross, is a demand-led investment story, with most attention on the resource sector, […]
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