While The National Post typically supports privatization, today’s lead editorial correctly characterizes Premier McGuinty’s recent musings as “a desperate government trying to unload assets during a down market.†The following paragraphs note the extreme difficulty in getting anything approaching fair value for the sale of huge, complex assets like electric power systems and the folly of trying to balance the […]
Read moreEarlier this year, the Ontario government introduced a bill to give legal force to recent Agreement on Internal Trade amendments. The usual suspects – the union movement, the Council of Canadians, etc. – requested public hearings. After months of stonewalling, the government announced on December 1 that there would be one day of hearings on December 3. This process was […]
Read moreAs reported on the front page of yesterday’s Globe and Mail, the McGuinty government’s “deficit reduction” strategy involves not only cutting taxes, but also divesting revenue-generating assets. Today’s Globe comment page features three sassy letters on the contemplated privatization. But the editorial strikes a seemingly pragmatic tone, arguing that the Ontario government should sell “if the price is right.†However, […]
Read moreThe national inflation rate jumped to 1.0% in November from 0.1% in October. As Statistics Canada notes, this apparently large increase is “due primarily to gasoline prices.” Specifically, last month’s gasoline prices are being compared to the depressed gasoline prices of November 2008. Given the changed base of comparison, it is not surprising that the headline inflation rate has returned […]
Read moreA TD-Pembina-Suzuki study released seven weeks ago projected that cutting Canada’s carbon emissions by 20% below 2006 levels, or even 25% below 1990 levels, would only modestly reduce overall Canadian GDP. Last week, Jack Mintz critiqued this study for positing a fixed amount of capital investment in Canada. Under this highly dubious assumption, climate policy only shifts capital around between […]
Read morePublic debate in Ontario tends to frame sales-tax harmonization either as an unjustified “tax grab” or as a needed contribution to the deteriorating provincial budget.  Both views incorrectly assume that the HST will increase government revenues. In fact, the original proposal was more or less revenue neutral. Removing sales tax from business inputs and cutting personal income taxes would have offset […]
Read moreAs the communique from the Pittsburgh G20 put it, “it worked.” Unprecedented macro-economic stimulus in the form of ultra low interest rates and large government deficits pulled the global economy back from the abyss. Canada has now joined most countries in exiting the recession, at least very tentatively. But what is next? The official line from the Canadian government, the […]
Read moreThe Twelve Days of Christmas 2009 by British Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy (Published in Radio Times) http://www.radiotimes.com/content/features/carol-ann-duffy-the-twelve-days-of-christmas/ ON THE FIRST DAY OF CHRISTMAS, a buzzard on a branch. In Afghanistan, no partridge, pear tree; but my true love sent to me a card from home. I sat alone, crouched in yellow dust, and traced the grins of my kids […]
Read moreThe following is an extract from the CLC publication “Recession Watch” available at http://www.canadianlabour.ca/sites/default/files/Recession-Watch-03-Fall-2009-EN.html Before the recession, more than one in four (27.9%) of claimants exhausted their benefits (29.9% of women and 26.5% of men) and more than one in three (34.3%) older workers exhausted their benefits. Currently, claimants are eligible for between 19 weeks and 50 weeks of benefits […]
Read moreThe Globe seems rather agitated about the plight of male university students . On top of a front page story by Elizabeth Church yesterday pointing out the now rather well known fact that female undergraduate enrollment now outstrips male enrollment by a margin of 58% to 42%, they editorialize today as follows: “Indira Samarasekera, the president of the University of […]
Read moreNovember’s 79,000 increase in employment combines a 32,000 decrease in self-employment with 111,000 additional positions paid by employers. This job creation is significant and welcome. But there is still no indication of a sustained labour-market recovery. Today’s numbers may just continue the recent seesaw pattern in which employment is up one month and down the next. Because Canada’s labour force […]
Read moreLast Saturday the Globe and Mail (November 28, page B1) ran a multi-page spread on national government debt. It was a mish mash of large titles, large numbers and sensational assertions: “A World Awash in Debt”; “Climbing out of this hole won’t be easy”; “the numbers are staggering”, “debt would climb to about 300 percent of GDP… tweak that and […]
Read moreI’m posting this CSLS media release since the two studies look well worth reading. They can be found at http://www.csls.ca/ CSLS Releases New Estimates of Index of Economic Well-being for Canada and OECD Countries Ottawa, December 3, 2009 – On September 14, 2009 French President Nicolas Sarkozy released the report of the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and […]
Read moreA couple years ago I put out a report for the CCPA that crunched the numbers on health care sustainability. The main finding was that public health care was basically sustainable in that it could handle projected increases in population, aging and inflation as long as GDP continued to grow at a reasonable rate (consistent with what we have seen […]
Read more(The following post is a slightly edited version of the CLC Submission to the House of Commons Human Resources Committee.) Bill C-56 extending EI special benefits to the self-employed looks likely to pass very soon with all party support. It is an important step forward in term sof extending needed benefits to a growing category of workers, but some important […]
Read moreI was surprised to see the IMF highlighting the potential virtues of a Financial Transactions Tax (FTT) on the front page of its website. The Bloomberg news service earlier had a good story about on the background of this idea, tracing it back to Keynes.  This is a proposal that progressive economists and unions have advocated for many years, so it is […]
Read moreThe Economic Policy Institute in the US have released a five point American Jobs Plan which, hopefully, will be a major focus of discussion at the soon to be convened Presidential Jobs Summit. http://www.epi.org/index.php/american_jobs/american_jobs_plan Speaking to a joint CLC/CCPA meeting a couple of weeks ago, EPI President Larry Mishel – who has been invited to the Summit – said that […]
Read moreAt the BC NDP convention over the weekend, Opposition Leader Carole James reiterated calls for a $10 an hour minimum wage. While $10 an hour would certainly be better than BC’s current $8 an hour (lowest in the country), I’m concerned that this campaign is stuck on a round number not what is adequate for improving the livelihoods of the […]
Read moreHere we go with another media frenzy celebrating the official “end of the recession.” Truly, this time. We really mean it. Harken back to July 23 of this year, when Mark Carney made it official the first time, declaring in his monetary policy update that the economy was back in the black. His bold declaration made headlines, but it sure […]
Read moreTen years ago I was in Seattle for the now famous showdown between activists and the World Trade Organization. Those were good times: we stayed downtown at the youth hostel (since converted to high end condos), ate in and around Pike Place Market, and attended an excellent two-day teach-in put on by the International Forum on Globalization. The air was […]
Read moreWhen Jim’s study of the proposed Canada-Korea “free trade†deal provoked a direct and excessive response from the federal government three years ago, he correctly concluded that his study had “hit the pig.†Since I grew up in Saskatchewan and am currently posting from Mississippi, I have at least as much credibility as Jim in invoking farmyard analogies. And it […]
Read moreDuncan Cameron has asked me to post this contribution by Ken Courtis, a recognized authority on Japan and world economics. A Canadian academic turned investment banker, he has been resident in Japan for many years. On 09-11-26, at 19:30, Ken Courtis wrote: The reality of Japan’s fiscal situation is as close to calamitous as any major economy has ever experienced, […]
Read moreAs everybody who reads this blog knows, then Finance Minister Paul Martin brought the federal budget back into balance in the mid 1990s by, in significant part, slashing federal transfers to the provinces and eliminating automatic escalators in the new transfers he created. That cannot and will not be allowed to ever happen again, says Canada’s (now not so) New […]
Read moreThere’s a great op ed in today’s Globe and Mail by Ed Broadbent, marking the twentieth anniversary of the unanimous passage by the House of Commons of his eve of retirement resolution to abolish child poverty by 2000. (Ed did, of ourse, later return to the House.) http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/how-to-end-child-poverty-tax-the-rich/article1374806/ As Ed argues: “We thought an 11-year agenda to virtually overcome child […]
Read moreWhat can be done to halt the damage to jobs and our economy being caused by the excessive appreciation of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar? The Bank of Canada have noted the problem, but appear to think there is no solution. Erin has argued here that the Bank can always sell Canadian dollars, and that it is far […]
Read moreA couple of weeks ago, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released a paper of mine about how Canada’s corporate tax cuts will transfer revenue to the American federal treasury. That day, I debated this issue with Don Drummond on the Business News Network (video clip). Also that day, Jack Layton raised it in Question Period. Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath had raised it at Queen’s […]
Read moreAmerican opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have tried to use Canadian data to make their case against unionization. This past summer, Jim and I posted some initial responses. This week, York University’s Centre for Research on Work and Society released a collection of articles by Canadian economists (including Jim and me) who support the proposed Act. Our work […]
Read moreCanada’s extended summer of deflation ended in October, when the national inflation rate rose to 0.1%. This change reflects a lowered base of comparison: the price of gasoline plummeted between September and October of last year. The return of inflation should not be overstated. Today’s inflation rate is barely positive and falls short of the 0.3% that analysts had been […]
Read moreMy recent post on doubling the CPP - http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/10/26/double-the-canada-pension-plan-benefit/ – prompted some commentary in defence of voluntary as opposed to compulsory savings vehicles. I guess it is reasonable to debate if we should force people – especially those above very low income levels – to save in their own best long term interests. That is, of course, exactly what happens […]
Read moreI blogged recently about the likely pending attack on public service workers. http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2009/11/10/public-sector-workers-the-recessions-next-victims/ This battle will, of course, be fought by right wing (and perhaps not so right wing) governments in the name of “fiscal responsibility”, and justified with reference to the imperative need for “exit strategies” from Great Recession deficits and debt accumulation. The International Monetary Fund staff recently […]
Read more