Today, Statistics Canada reported an inflation rate of 1.2% for June, validating the Bank of Canada’s recent decision to keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future. The rationale to raise interest rates would be to curb inflation, which is already under control and well below the central bank’s 2% target. But even at 1.2%, inflation eats up more than […]
Read moreStatistics Canada reported today that 12,290 fewer Canadians received Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in May compared to April. EI benefits are shrinking far faster than unemployment. In percentage terms, the number of EI recipients declined as much in just the last month as unemployment declined over the past year. Between April and May, the number of unemployed Canadians decreased by […]
Read moreThe federal government never tires of boasting that Canada’s labour market has performed better than most other countries through the financial crisis and subsequent recession, and that the number of Canadians working today is greater than it was before the recession hit. That means we have fully recovered from the downturn, and the Tories are good economic managers, right? Wrong.
Read moreUpon being appointed Minister of the newly renamed “Employment and Social Development” (formerly HRSDC), Mr. Kenney tweeted his view on the Canadian labour market: “I will work hard to end the paradox of too many people without jobs in an economy that has too many jobs without people. #shuffle13“ Coincidentally, perhaps, the most recent Statistics Canada numbers on job vacancies […]
Read moreStatistics Canada recently released new data on the incomes of Canadians and it shows two worrisome trends continuing through the economic recovery: BC has the highest poverty rate in Canada and the highest child poverty rate (tied with Manitoba); and Ordinary families haven’t had a raise since 2008 – family incomes in the middle continue to stagnate (more on this […]
Read moreToday’s job numbers are remarkably similar to last month’s figures. Total employment as well as employment in most sectors and industries was virtually unchanged. Stagnation is bad news given our growing population and that 1.4 million Canadians remain unemployed. There were also some notable shifts beneath the headline numbers. Total employment stayed the same because 32,200 additional part-time positions masked […]
Read moreLast week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released my policy brief on Saskatchewan job-creation. Using Statistics Canada figures, it demonstrated that “workforce growth has been almost identical during the premierships of Brad Wall and Lorne Calvert.†Unsurprisingly, the main explanatory variable for Saskatchewan employment appears to be commodity prices rather than the party in power. The governing Saskatchewan Party […]
Read moreToday, I had the following commentary posted on The Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab: The loonie is overvalued and the Bank of Canada has room to act On Tuesday, Christopher Ragan characterized the notion of an overvalued Canadian dollar as a “seductive myth†that the Bank of Canada should not act to address. I have made the case that we should […]
Read moreSo, the National Household Survey’s Portrait of Canada’s labour force is out, and I can’t help but think of Donald Rumsfeld’s known unknowns. We know that we don’t know anything about those who didn’t respond to the survey, or how they might be different from those that did. We also know that there are some discrepancies in terms of labour […]
Read moreThe Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has released my policy brief (PDF) on Saskatchewan employment growth. It generated front-page coverage in today’s Saskatoon StarPhoenix and Regina Leader-Post business sections as well as this snazzy online infographic. The press release follows: Premier Wall’s Employment Record Lags Calvert and Blakeney Regina – A new policy brief from the Canadian Centre for Policy […]
Read moreToday I gave a presentation on Canadian housing policy at the annual conference of the European Network for Housing Research. Points raised in the presentation include the following: -Fiscal context, more so than which party has been in government, appears to have shaped federal housing policy in Canada over the past two decades. Program expenses by the federal government (as […]
Read moreThere has appropriately been a lot a criticism about Bill C-377 at House of Commons committees and the Senate. Â Hugh Segal has been particularly eloquent as have the many submissions. Graham Cox has a good selection of them on his Citizens’ Press website. Here’s a short summary with a dozen reasons why it’s so bad: Twelve Reasons why C-377 is […]
Read moreI attended a lovely memorial service this week for Hugh Lukin Robinson, long-time labour economist and progressive activist in Ontario who passed away a few months ago at the ripe old age of 96. The memorial service was organized by his family (including his son Michael) at the Park-Hyatt Hotel, and was attended by friends and colleagues from Lukin’s very […]
Read moreThe Institute for Research on Public Policy has published a very interesting overview study on the resuscitation of “industrial policy” in economic policy circles. It points out that industrial policy levers are used widely by countries around the world–despite hypothetical efforts (through trade deals and other institutions) to limit their application.Â
Read moreInterestingly, the day after the new Bank of Canada Governor gave a speech distancing himself from his predecessor’s “dead money†comments, Statistics Canada released a significant downward revision to the usual measure of corporate cash accumulation. The cash holdings of private non-financial corporations reached $594 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012, so I was curious to see if they […]
Read moreSo Erin talked about falling EI benefits last month, which got me thinking about the longer term trend here. Comparing seasonally unadjusted data for the last five Aprils, we see a steady decline in the proportion of unemployed workers that are receiving EI. Â Since April 2009, unemployment in Canada has fallen by nearly 150,000, which is about a 10% decline […]
Read moreToday’s CBC Edition Business Panel focused on the proposal by Fraser Surrey Docks to build a new coal terminal on the Fraser river to export US thermal coal (if you missed it, here’s the recording starting at 1:50). This may seem like a local issue for the West Coast, but the arguments stand for most of the debates on new […]
Read moreThere’s a hilarious piece in today’s National Post by Dean Beeby, who cleverly used an access to information request to ferret out a copy of the training manual they use for the summer students who guide tourists around Parliament Hill. Anticipating critical questions about the role of the Senate in our modern-day democracy, the students are primed to highlight its virtue […]
Read moreThis is the title of a recently published biography of Albert Hirschmam by Jeremy Adelman, a Canadian who teaches history at Princeton University. Hirschman’s life as an economist – which spanned so much of the 20th century – is worth learning about for it makes us think hard about what has happened to economics over those years and what it […]
Read moreWith Prime Minister Harper making the diplomatic rounds in Europe, media interest has heightened this week regarding the potential free trade agreement which his government is trying to negotiate with the European Union. Several deadlines to reach that deal have come and gone, but the Conservatives are still heavily committed to reaching a deal as a centrepiece of their economic […]
Read moreStatistics Canada reported today, “Manufacturing sales fell 2.4% in April to $48.2 billion — the fourth decline in five months and the largest monthly percentage drop since August 2009.†That gets the second quarter off to a bad start. Strong economic growth in the first quarter of this year (January, February, March) was underpinned by the manufacturing sector’s swing into […]
Read moreAs Erin alludes to in an earlier post, the PEF organized events at this year’s Annual Conference of the Canadian Economics Association (CEA) in Montreal (May 30 – June 2). All told, the PEF organized (or co-organized) eight panels/sessions, in addition to holding its annual general meeting, announcing the winners of our annual student essay contest (whose names and papers […]
Read moreThe PEF marked our 15th anniversary at last weekend’s Canadian Economics Association conference in Montreal. Guillaume Hébert from the Institut de Recherche et d’Informations Socio-économiques (IRIS) delivered the following keynote address in French. Thanks very much to Mathieu Dufour for translating it into English. **** Thank you very much for inviting me to give this keynote address. I am honoured. […]
Read moreStatistics Canada reported today that GDP grew by 0.6% in the first quarter. The volume of energy and mining exports expanded by more than 5%, offsetting lower exports of many manufactured goods as well as a weak domestic economy. Consumer spending growth slowed to 0.2% in the first quarter of 2013, its lowest rate of growth since the first quarter […]
Read moreL. Ian MacDonald wrote a defence of the Senate in today’s Montreal Gazette. He makes the familiar argument that it provides useful study of policy issues. However, his first example is the 2002 Senate report supporting bank mergers. In the wake of the global financial crisis, we should be glad that opposition MPs like Lorne Nystrom provided a sober second thought […]
Read moreAfter analyzing “research reports†issued by the Fraser Institute or the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), I usually end up shaking my head in disbelief. Do they really need to so grossly distort and manipulate the statistics to make their arguments? The answer is invariably “yesâ€. That’s because the underlying facts are often so at odds with their claims, […]
Read moreToday’s payroll figures indicate that, while average weekly earnings rose, the number of employees on Canadian payrolls declined by 22,100 in March. This decline was concentrated in Quebec, where payroll employment fell by 20,900. Ontario also suffered a decline of 9,200, which was partly offset by gains of 3,300 in Manitoba and 1,900 in Nova Scotia as well as smaller […]
Read moreI was invited to appear before the House of Commons Industry Committee this week on the subject of Bill C-60, this year’s omnibus budget bill. 18 paragraphs of that long bill describe proposed amendments to the Investment Canada Act, aimed at codifying the policy changes announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper late last year (in the wake of his government’s […]
Read moreStatistics Canada reported today that 5,200 fewer Canadians received Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in March, even though 6,800 more Canadians filed EI claims. The Labour Force Survey indicates that 42,100 more Canadians were unemployed in March. In other words, the federal government provided benefits to fewer workers despite a spike in unemployment and more applications for benefits. As a result, […]
Read moreRegina City Council has voted to proceed with a 30-year public-private partnership (P3) in which a private company would design, build, finance, operate and maintain the city’s new waste water treatment facility. The municipal administration’s rationale has been that, although a P3 will be more expensive than traditional public financing, it is required to access federal money from the P3 […]
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