Bank Economist Proposes Higher Tuition Fees

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A globeandmail.com article posted last night discusses a recent report on post-secondary education in Nova Scotia.  The report itself, released yesterday, was written by BMO’s former Chief Economist, Tim O’Neill.  According to the article, O’Neill’s report calls for “complete deregulation of tuition fees” in Nova Scotia.  Moreover: He believes that higher tuitions are more equitable because they force students, who are disproportionately […]

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Pathway Colleges: A New Kind of P3

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I have an opinion piece out on “pathway colleges,” a relatively new phenomenon in Canada.  In this public-private partnership (P3) model, private companies recruit international students to Canadian university campuses, targeting students who currently do not meet the university’s admissions criteria (usually because they lack the necessary English-language skills).  Once the students arrive in Canada, the company hires instructors (paying them considerably less […]

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Mandryk on Potash: A Union Hack Responds

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Murray Mandryk, CanWest’s seasoned Saskatchewan political columnist, has been writing some pretty sharp columns on potash. In particular, he questions excessively low resource royalties: . . . the messaging from Energy Minister Bill Boyd that his government wouldn’t touch oil royalty rates (even when it was selling at $150 a barrel), and the potash companies should get most anything they […]

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The Rules of Disengagement

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The following will appear in the Hill Times print edition next Monday, September 20, sans the groovy chart and links. Falling response rates and declining voter turnouts are two symptoms of increased disengagement in the mechanisms that inform and channel collective concerns. In such a political climate, the mandatory census long form questionnaire is a tool that can help keep […]

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The OECD Attack on Medicare

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The OECD Economic Survey of Canada (unfortunately only a summary is available on line) was released this week, and its call to impose user fees or deductibles on services covered by Medicare (ie physician and hospital care) received quite a lot of media coverage.  I saw OECD economist Peter Jarrett doing at least two TV interviews here in Canada which […]

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Japan Shows Us The Way

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A week ago, Paul Krugman wrote that Japan’s stable if sluggish economy and low unemployment could start looking pretty good compared to the Voodoo economics advocated by US Republicans. The counterintuitive case for Japan as an economic model just became more compelling with the Bank of Japan’s intervention to lower the yen. As reported on the front page of today’s […]

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The Globe’s Report on Private Schools

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If there was truth in news reporting, the Globe’s “report” on private schools (Sept. 14) would be labeled a “special advertising supplement”. It is essentially a cheerleading exercise for private schools, funded by advertising from private schools, so you’ll find no news in this report. Which is too bad because the topic of private schools merits some real journalism about […]

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In Praise of Export Cartels

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Concerns about the prospect of BHP Billiton leaving Canpotex have prompted a backlash of hand-wringing about Canpotex’s very existence. For example, The Globe and Mail featured an editorial earlier this month that began by suggesting, “Canadian policy-makers should reconsider the status of Canpotex.” But it concluded, “In practice, unwinding Canpotex would be no simple matter. Moreover it would be a […]

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Barrie McKenna’s Three Strikes on Internal Trade

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I appreciate a compelling headline, but “The Walls that Divide Us” in today’s Globe and Mail is way over the top. For building the myth of “internal trade barriers,” Barrie McKenna’s column should have been entitled, “Another Brick in the Wall.” Three claims are especially questionable. First, “A recent back-of-the-envelope calculation by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute puts the tally of internal trade […]

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Jobs Report Worse Than It Appears

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Total employment reportedly increased by 36,000 in August. This increase was entirely driven by 68,400 more jobs in educational services, which simply offset a decline of 65,300 in July. In other words, the educators that Statistics Canada counted as being “unemployed” in midsummer are now “employed.” So, today’s Labour Force Survey confirms that July’s release was less bad than it […]

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EI Premiums Come Full Circle

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For reasons that escape me, the Globe ran a headline front page story today on what all fiscal policy and Employment Insurance wonks have known to be true for some time. Under current legislation, and as announced in the 2009 Budget, the EI premium rate set by a supposedly autonomous but tightly constrained new body will rise by 15 cents […]

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With a thud on my door, it arrived …

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… The Labour Day issue of the Vancouver Courier. It even had a story I was interested in, a lead article on local food, and another on the sustainability of fisheries. Good on small-scale independent journalism, I thought, until the moment I took off its rubber band to reveal an inch-thick pile of glossy inserts. Sure, all newspapers are guilty […]

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Linda McQuaig Thaws Public-Sector Pay

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Linda McQuaig puts the heat on Ontario’s public-sector compensation freeze in today’s Toronto Star. Her excellent column begins by noting that the federal government has fended off proposed financial-sector taxes on the grounds that Canadian banks did not cause the global financial crisis. But Canadian public-sector workers, who are even less responsible for the crisis, are expected to make a […]

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Plan B for Obama

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Here is a good piece by Tom Palley in the FT Economists Forum on where the Obama Administration should be moving in terms of economic (though I am not holding my breath until the economic team is dumped) http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2010/09/plan-b-for-obama-on-the-economy/#more-11616

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What’s Happening to Wages?

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One thing I find a bit annoying over at Statscan is that detailed tables related to a release sometimes appear on the web site a few days after headline numbers are released in the Daily. I was phoned by a couple of reporters seeking comment following the release of wage data (from the Survey of Employment, Earnings and Hours) in […]

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Ontario’s Public-Sector Pay Freeze

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This summer, the Ontario government has been attempting to implement its proposed public-sector compensation freeze. The provincial Finance Minister has essentially promised that he can convince organized labour to comply. But as recent news reports confirm, unions have not been volunteering for a pay freeze, especially since the government apparently has enough spare cash to implement multi-billion-dollar corporate tax cuts. […]

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In Defence of Tuesday’s GDP Numbers

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Jim and I responded somewhat differently to Tuesday’s GDP release. Jim’s Globe and Mail column suggested that it was especially bad: “We’re clearly heading for stagnation at best, and quite possibly another ‘double dip’ downturn.” I perceived a ray or two of hope and told The Toronto Star: “I’m not predicting a double dip.” While I think that we actually […]

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Fix the Labour Market to End the Crisis

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 The ILO and the IMF are holding an important high level conference in Oslo on the “Challenges of Growth, Employment and Social Cohesion” on September 13.  In advance, they have released an important joint discussion paper.  The summary  – highly reflective of the ILO contribution but not contradicted by the IMF contribution – makes a number of the key points […]

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In the Libertarian Deep End

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Michael Hlinka is the notoriously libertarian daily economics reporter on CBC Metro Morning (the flagship morning radio show in Toronto).  Our paths have crossed before; see my previous commentary: http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/07/11/another-economics-journalism-is-possible/ Michael’s segment on September 1 (in conversation with host Matt Galloway) focused on the Statistics Canada GDP release.  It was a sensible and largely uncontroversial discussion, with Michael taking a […]

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Conference Board to Review Potash

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Today, the Government of Saskatchewan announced that it is engaging the Conference Board of Canada to analyze the proposed Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan takeover. My first thought is to hope that the Conference Board does a better job on potash than it did on TILMA. My second thought is, “Doesn’t Saskatchewan have a civil service?” Presumably, the provincial government already […]

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Capitalism vs State Capitalism and Potash

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The Government of Saskatchewan wants nothing to do with a state (read China) corporation takeover of Potash Corp.  The Globe reports: “The Saskatchewan government signalled Wednesday that it is unlikely to support a takeover of the Saskatoon-based company by a sovereign wealth fund or other state-owned firm from China or other large potash-buying nation. The fear is that the new […]

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What are the Game Changers?

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For those involved in social change work, these days can be frustrating ones. Just as the neoliberal order of tax cuts, deregulation, resource extraction and free trade seems to be maxed out, like the Energizer bunny it keeps coming back. Meanwhile, progressive forces (academics, unions, NGOs and political parties) can give a good fight from time to time, but overall […]

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Capitalism, Upside Down

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Yesterday’s GDP numbers were worse than they seemed.  And they highlighted a curious feature of modern capitalism.  Nowadays, non-financial businesses have become major net lenders to the rest of the economy.  Instead of borrowing money (in various forms: debt, equity, etc.) from other sectors to finance real investment, non-financial businesses are not even reinvesting their own cash flow.  The surplus […]

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GDP: Canada Gets Its Head Above Water

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UPDATE (September 1): Quoted in The Toronto Star. Canadian Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew modestly in the second quarter, but that modest growth returned GDP to a level not seen since before the economic crisis. Recent Developments: The Second Quarter Canada’s output expanded at a quarterly rate of 0.5%, which corresponds to an annual rate of 2.0%. Such growth would […]

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Recession Reduces Health Care Utilization

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Here’s a fascinating finding from an NBER study: “The Economic Crisis and Medical Care Usage,” by Annamaria Lusardi, Daniel Schneider, and Peter Tufano (NBER study #15843). They undertook a broad public survey across 5 countries (the U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, and France) on the economic and social impacts of the recession.  The survey covered over 6000 individuals (over 2000 in […]

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Don’t Know Much About Canpotex

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A key issue arising from the proposed potash takeover is BHP Billiton’s musing about leaving Canpotex, the agency that has long marketed Canadian potash offshore. (Growing up near the railroad tracks in Regina, Canpotex train cars were a familiar sight.) Perhaps BHP believes that it alone has sufficient clout to manage supply and negotiate overseas prices without Canpotex. But other […]

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The New ABC: Abitibi Bowater Conservatives

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As sometimes happens, I started writing a comment on Jim’s excellent post and then realized that there was enough material for a new post. I agree with Jim that Ottawa’s $130-million settlement with AbitibiBowater deserves more attention, but I have been waist-deep in potash. I think that my initial take on Abitibi’s NAFTA challenge still holds up pretty well. But here are three […]

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