I regret to see that the Canadian Policy Research Networks (CPRN) are closing down. This further narrows the scope and space for civil and rational public policy discourse in Canada, and is a not accidental by product of cuts in federal government support for independent policy research combined with lack of business support for think tanks other than those of […]
Read moreLast week, the City of Vancouver’s task force, the Greenest City Action Team, issued a plan for the city with short and longer-term goals and policy advice on achieving them. The report covers more than climate change, a good thing as it is important to identify win-wins that lead to improvement on other environmental, health and social objectives as we […]
Read moreI have always grudgingly admired the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s ability to manufacture news, but last week’s op-ed by Kevin Gaudet takes the cake. It launches an attack on Equalization from an utterly false premise: Next year, federal equalization payments to the provinces are expected to decline anywhere from 10 to 15%. As a result, some premiers are demanding that the […]
Read moreDepending on who you talk to, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is either the face of climate salvation or the height of delusional behaviour associated with our favourite hallucinogenic drug, fossil fuels. I have read both cases and suspect that the truth is somewhere in between, but I’m not an engineer either so it has been hard to make up […]
Read moreToday’s Employment Insurance (EI) figures indicate that, in August, 23,000 more Canadians filed EI claims but 19,000 fewer received EI benefits. The most optimistic possibility is that all of the workers who stopped receiving benefits got jobs. Indeed, the Labour Force Survey indicates that total employment rose by 27,000 in August. However, that is not the end of the story. […]
Read moreIt remains unclear whether or when Canada-US negotiations on “Buy American†policies might produce a deal. While such a bilateral agreement could serve both countries well, Canadians should resist pressure to have our provincial and municipal governments sign onto the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Government Procurement. A Canadian exemption from Buy American requirements makes sense given the integration of […]
Read moreKonrad Yakabuski wrote a good final piece on Saturday to cap the interesting and informative Globe series on the pensions crisis. In it he touches on several possible policy solutions, including a universal pension plan. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/retirement/canadas-gathering-pension-storm/article1323513/ Unfortunately, he does not cite the Canadian Labour Congress proposal to double the CPP as part of a three pronged effort to fix pensions, […]
Read moreLast week, I posted about how several chartered-bank economists have been denying the Bank of Canada’s capacity to lower the Canadian dollar. While I think that the chartered banks generally prefer a high loonie, it is important to note that not all of their economists are signing from the same songbook. CIBC’s Avery Shenfeld advocates intervention by the Bank of […]
Read more(Notes for my presentation to a recent workshop on the concept of a basic income.) Over the years, we have put in place an effective income security system for older Canadians – CPP plus OAS/GIS have come close to providing an adequate basic income for the elderly. And we have the instrument we need to address child poverty – namely […]
Read moreDebate is heating up about whether the Bank of Canada should or will intervene in currency markets to lower the Canadian dollar (as I have been proposing for three months). Today’s two-cent drop in the exchange rate may indicate that currency traders are anticipating this possibility. Over at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, Stephen Gordon objected to recent comments from RBC’s Patricia Croft on […]
Read moreThe Bank of Canada seems to have at least left the door open to taking unorthodox measures to take some of the steam out of soaring loonie. Today’s interest rate announcement – http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/fixed-dates/2009/rate_201009.html – to be followed by a full Monetary Policy Report on Thursday – expresses concern that the strong Canadian dollar will hold back recovery… “The current strength […]
Read moreI recommend reading at least the executive summary of the Stiglitz Commission. The Commission was appointed by President Sarkozy of France to look at statistical measures of economic performance and social progress. It brought together most of the leading international experts in the area – including Amartya Sen who served as Adviser to the Chair – and is a highly […]
Read moreA couple of days ago, I took part in a TV Ontario panel about sales-tax harmonization. I emphasized a couple of points that will be familiar to readers of this blog. First, harmonization is unlikely to have much effect on capital investment because many capital goods are already exempt from the existing provincial sales tax. Second, if the principle is […]
Read moreI put this post out for comments and discussion since this is an important question for which I don’t have an answer. A 2005 Citigroup report – apparently cited in Michael Moore’s new movie, which I have not yet seen – argues that “plutonomy” – the extreme concentration of income and wealth in the hands of the very affluent – […]
Read moreWhile some prices rose slightly and others fell slightly between July, August and September, the total Consumer Price Index has remained exactly the same through these months. The annual inflation rate declined by 0.9% in September, tying July for the largest rate decline since 1953. All provinces but Saskatchewan now have negative inflation. While the main story continues to be […]
Read moreFrom the on line issue of the Financial Times, Sunday. A Second Great Depression Is Still Possible Copyright Thomas I. Palley Over the past year the global economy has experienced a massive contraction, the deepest since the Great Depression of the 1930s. But this spring, economists started talking of “green shoots†of recovery and that optimistic assessment quickly spread to […]
Read moreThe loonie’s spectacular flight toward parity with the greenback (and likely beyond) seems to know no bounds. It’s climbed by over 25 percent in 7 months; its flight began the same day global stock markets turned the corner back in March. There’s no reason why this appreciation, the steepest in our history, should stop at mere parity. Exporters, beware. Economists agree […]
Read moreBack in my home province, a legislative committee has begun a public inquiry on meeting future electricity demand. Written submissions and video of oral presentations are available online. Saskatchewan’s traditional reliance on coal-fired electricity is challenged by concerns about climate change and the prospect of federal charges for carbon emissions. The debate has recently been polarized between proponents of nuclear […]
Read moreOn Thanksgiving, Canadians can be thankful that public stimulus spending propelled a surprisingly strong labour-market rebound in September. This morning’s release shows full-time employment up and the unemployment rate down. However, the jobs picture is not as rosy as these top-line numbers imply. Stimulus Working? The improvement in Canada’s labour market should not be taken as an indication that government […]
Read moreUPDATE (October 20): The transcript of the hearing described below is now available. . . . Late this afternoon, I had the pleasure of serving on a Parliamentary panel composed entirely of members of the United Steelworkers union. My co-panellists before the Human Resources committee were Ken Georgetti, CLC President, and Rosalie Washington, a laid-off worker who would qualify for […]
Read moreI just saw Michael Ignatieff on TV warning that Canada could hit “the deficit wall.†I assume he means “debt wall.†(I would not fault a slip of the tongue, but the written text of a recent speech also incorrectly calls it “the deficit wall.â€) The concept is not that a country hits the wall because a particular annual deficit […]
Read moreI recently questioned whether Tim Hortons’ reorganization as a Canadian corporation would bring any additional jobs or tax revenue to Canada. Aaron Wherry since did something that journalists covering the Prime Minister’s photo-op on this issue should have done: he asked the company directly. Its response is now available on the Macleans blog. Of course, Tim Hortons hopes to expand […]
Read moreI had been girding my loins yesterday, with the release of StatsCan’s July GDP numbers, for another orgy of triumphalist headlines: “The Recovery Is Nigh! All is Good! Stop Worrying! Nothing to See Here, Folks!  Just Go About Your Business!” After all, Chrysler’s two humongous Canadian assembly plants went back to work in July (after a 6-week shutdown as Chrysler went […]
Read moreThere’s a bit of a mystery in the stats Erin and I have been puzzling over. According to the Labour Force Survey, the number of employees in Canada fell by 79,000 in July. According to the Survey of Employment, Earnings and Hours, the number of employees rose by 74,000 in the same month. The methodology of the surveys is quite […]
Read moreFlat Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures for July provide a sobering reminder that the technical end of a recession may not imply a rapid recovery. Output appears to have stopped shrinking, but this morning’s release suggests stabilization rather than growth. Rounding to the nearest billion, all-industry GDP has been $1,184 billion for three months. It had peaked at $1,241 billion […]
Read moreLast week the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published an update for the G20 Summit on its call from earlier this year for a Global Green New Deal. Â This update showed that Canada is close to the bottom in the stimulus funds it is committing to green economic areas. According to the UNEP, only 8% of Canada’s stimulus spending is […]
Read moreThe first chart in today’s Third Report on the Economic Action Plan (Chart 1.1, page 8 ) appears to show that Canada is tied with Japan for the largest stimulus package in the G-7. Exactly the same bar graph appeared in the Second Report back in June (Chart 1.2, page 12). While this seemingly impressive chart has been promoted to […]
Read moreUPDATE (September 29): Quoted by The Globe and Mail, National Post, Toronto Star, and Canadian Press . . . A recent inquiry for a NOW Magazine article has inspired me to use the July Employment Insurance (EI) figures, released this morning, to examine how this program serves Canadian cities. However, I begin with a national overview of the numbers and […]
Read moreSummary The main result of the Pittsburgh summit was to institutionalize and modestly extend the global economic governance role of the G-20 which arose as a necessary response to the global economic crisis. There is talk of medium-term co-ordination of national macro-economic policies, and a “re-balancing†of the global economy. However, while this is welcome, there is little of real […]
Read moreLast week, the Minister of Finance announced his aspiration to unilaterally eliminate Canada’s few remaining tariffs on imported machinery and equipment. Saturday’s Globe and Mail quoted me doubting this proposal given the severity of Canada’s offshore trade deficit in that area. I elaborate my case in the following op-ed, which is printed in today’s Financial Post with Terry Corcoran making […]
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