Budget 2018 is being advertised as a truly comprehensive gender budget, with two key pieces of that being use-it-or-lose-it paternity leave, and action on pay equity. Last year’s gender budget implemented the Liberal campaign promise to extend EI parental leave from a total of 12 months to 18 months, despite the fact that the idea was universally panned by feminists, […]
Read moreI’ve written a blog post about this year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB). Points raised in the blog post include the following: -This year’s AFB would create 470,000 (full-time equivalent) jobs in its first year alone. By year 2 of the plan, 600,000 new (full-time equivalent) jobs will exist. -This year’s AFB will also bring in universal pharmacare, address involuntary part-time […]
Read moreHere is a short research paper I wrote for the Broadbent Institute. https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/broadbent/pages/7073/attachments/original/1519312305/Canada’s_Working_poor_and_the_Working_Tax_Benefit_-_Report.pdf?1519312305 And here is a short summary: The Liberal government have promised to make progressive changes to the Working Income Tax Benefit (WITB) in next week’s budget. Let’s hope that they deliver. The increased insecurity of work and low hourly wages for many workers mean that many Canadians […]
Read moreIn anticipation of tomorrow’s provincial budget in British Columbia (BC), I’ve written a blog post about the state of homelessness in that province. Points raised in the blog post include the following: -Public operating spending by BC’s provincial government has decreased over the past 20 years. -Even after controlling for inflation, average rent levels across the province increased by 24% […]
Read moreYesterday I spoke on a panel discussion on economic inequality, along with Andrew Jackson and Armine Yalnizyan. We were guests at the federal NDP’s policy convention in Ottawa. The panel was moderated by Guy Caron. Topics covered included the minimum wage, basic income, affordable housing, the future of jobs, gender budgeting, poverty among seniors, Canadian fiscal policy in historical perspective, […]
Read moreThat is the well chosen title of a marvelous new book by Gerry Helleiner, sub-titled Memoirs of a Life in International and Development Economics. Helleiner, from his home base at the University of Toronto, tells us in this most readable book, in his own modest way, the stories, notably from Africa, of how he devoted his life as an economist to […]
Read moreStephen Clarkson The following is a contribution in the blog series on the exceptional contribution of Stephen Clarkson to Canada. Stephen Clarkson died in 2016. The substantial work he undertook on Canada and international trade is particularly relevant today as negotiations on NAFTA and other trade agreements occur. Stephen Clarkson receiving the Order of Canada Daniel Drache Daniel […]
Read moreThe consensus forecast of just about everybody – the IMF, the OECD, the Bank of Canada, the Canadian banks – is that Canada will share in a global recovery from the stagnation which followed the financial crisis of a decade ago. All of the major economies – the US, the EU, China, Japan – are growing; business investment is finally […]
Read moreThere was little or no media coverage of the release of data on the distribution of the wealth of Canadians in 2016 last week, perhaps because there has been little or no change since the last Survey of Financial Security in 2012. The top 20% of Canadians own 67.3% of all net worth (assets of all kinds minus liabilities), almost […]
Read moreOver at the website of the Calgary Homeless Foundation, I’ve written a blog post about the Trudeau government’s recently-unveiled National Housing Strategy. Points raised in the post include the following: -One of the Strategy’s stated objectives is to reduce chronic homelessness in Canada by 50% over 10 years. -The Trudeau government claims that this is Canada’s “first ever” national housing […]
Read moreOn November 17, the working group of the Alberta Alternative Budget (AAB) sponsored a one-day workshop at the University of Alberta. The event’s main purpose was to discuss recent developments in Alberta public policy, as well as expectations for the upcoming Alberta budget. Twenty speakers presented in total. In light of what was discussed at the event, here are 10 […]
Read moreFor a new CCPA blog post on housing (un)affordability, I dove into the latest Census data for Metro Vancouver. I used two series on shelter cost and shelter-to-income ratio, and found that 32% of households were paying more than 30% of income on shelter (all households, owners and renters) and 16% of households more than 50% of income on shelter. […]
Read moreStephen Clarkson The following is a contribution in the blog series on the exceptional contribution of Stephen Clarkson to Canada. Stephen Clarkson died in 2016. The substantial work he undertook on Canada’s relationship to Mexico is particularly relevant today as NAFTA negotiations occur. Laura Macdonald is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Institute of Political Economy […]
Read moreThe following is a contribution in the blog series on the exceptional contribution of Stephen Clarkson to Canada. Stephen Clarkson died in 2016. This piece is by Louis W. Pauly who is the J. Stefan Dupré Distinguished Professor of Political Economy at the University of Toronto. He is cross-appointed to the faculty of the Munk School of Global Affairs. His publications include […]
Read moreThe following is a contribution in the blog series on the exceptional contribution of Stephen Clarkson to Canada. Stephen Clarkson died in 2016. This piece is by Andrew F. Cooper, who is a Professor at the Balsille School of International Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo. He is also the Director of the Centre […]
Read moreMy first, second and third posts on the Ontario electricity sector described how policy and administrative decisions by different Liberal Governments gave rise to excess electricity generation with an inflated cost structure, leading to higher electricity prices. In anticipation of June 2018 elections, the Liberal Government recently implemented a costly and first-in-Canada financial scheme to fund its “Fair Hydro Plan” […]
Read moreDr. Colin Phillips is an up-and-coming scholar in Canada’s homelessness sector. He has an opinion piece in today’s Toronto Star titled “Why Toronto needs a national housing strategy.” Points made in the opinion piece include the following: -The City of Toronto has worked hard to develop good practices on the ground to address homelessness. -But, like all of Canada’s major […]
Read moreThe 2017 Economic and Fiscal Update provides some detailed data (see pp. 51-53) on who will be impacted by the government’s plan to limit how much passive investment income can be earned in a private corporation. Income from investments held in a private corporation is taxed at a lower rate than investments held by a person in a non registered […]
Read moreIt’s been over a week now since I challenged the authors of 5 business-friendly economic reports to a friendly wager over the future trajectory of employment in provinces that are raising their minimum wage to $15 per hour. The challenge was issued in my Globe and Mail column of October 3. I was responding to the several business groups and […]
Read moreI’ve recently reviewed a new book on homelessness among Indigenous peoples. The book, published by the University of Manitoba Press, was edited by Evelyn Peters and Julia Christensen. My review can be accessed at this link.
Read moreStephen Clarkson: Political Economist with a Global Vision (1937 – 2016) Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Daniel Drache Stephen Clarkson died early in 2016 in Freiburg, Germany and Canada lost someone very special. Stephen was a Professor in Political Science at the University of Toronto and engaged in teaching, research and writing until his death. He has contributed, in an extraordinary […]
Read moreThis is a guest post from Rod Hill, a Professor of Economics at the University of New Brunswick, Saint John campus. A previous version of this post first appeared in the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal. In a report this month for the Halifax-based Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS), entitled “An Alternative to Employment Insurance”, Justin Hatherly proposes replacing the […]
Read moreIn this second of a series of housing-related posts I analyze the income and geographic distribution of renter-occupied households in the City of Toronto. My first post focussed on affordability and inequality trends by analyzing time series (2001-16) data for Ontario by household income quintiles. As a complement, this blog studies the income and geographic distribution of low-income and other […]
Read moreThe Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO)—an independent, arm’s length, non-partisan research institute—released a paper on September 12th outlining the likely economic impacts flowing from the pending minimum wage increase (see here). The FAO’s findings are already garnering significant media attention and will almost certainly be used by the opponents of Bill 148 as further proof that the Ontario Government […]
Read moreYou wouldn’t know it from today’s headlines about impending job losses, but an analysis of the impact of Ontario’s move to a $15 minimum wage from the province’s Financial Accountability Office shows a net benefit for Ontario workers. Overall, this is a much more cautious report than what the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and its allies had furnished, noting both the costs […]
Read moreOxford University Press has recently released the second edition of Social Policy in Canada, co-authored by the father-daughter duo of Ernie Lightman and Naomi Lightman. I recommend this book as an excellent resource for students of social policy. It will be useful for classroom instruction, while also being a handy reference for researchers, persons who design and administer social policy, […]
Read moreI dedicate this post to the memory of Bonnie Briggs, who died earlier this month, in honour of her lifelong and tireless work on housing and homeless issues in Toronto. In this first of a series of housing-related posts I analyze rental housing expenditures for low-income households in Ontario. Rent is the single largest expenditure element for renters in the […]
Read moreOn Monday, the Keep Ontario Working coalition spearheaded by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce released an analysis of the impacts of Bill 148 in Ontario, which will introduce a $15 minimum wage by 2019 and a host of other employment standards improvements. The analysis raised many red flags: it focused only on costs, predicting very large negative impacts out of line […]
Read moreWith Alberta and Ontario raising their minimum wage to $15 per hour, and BC possibly following suit soon, the usual suspects have begun their predictable howling about how this is a bad time, or it’s happening too fast, or how it will simply hurt those we are trying to help. It is true that increasing the minimum wage may result […]
Read moreI’ve just written a blog post about social assistance in Alberta. Points raised in the post include the following: -It’s very difficult to quality for social assistance in Alberta (this is also the case in all other provinces and territories). Reasons why are discussed in this previous blog post of mine. -In the 1990s, there were changes to the rules […]
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