The arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 triggered the introduction of public health measures that would close large sectors of the economy and send millions of workers home. In two short months, the unemployment rate reached 14.1 per cent—the highest level since 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression. In all, 2.7 million workers lost their job outright, while another 2.2 million lost all or half of their working hours. Many more would be affected in the months ahead as the economy recovered in fits and starts.

Le nouveau rapport fait l’état des lieux de la vaste infrastructure existante et proposée pour l’exploration, l’extraction, le transport, le raffinage, la distribution et la consommation des hydrocarbures dans les quatre provinces de l'Atlantique et au Québec.

Les autrices et auteurs soulignent que:

In partnership with the CCPA-British Columbia and the Corporate Mapping Project, this report highlights fossil fuel lock-in in Eastern Canada mapping the extensive existing and proposed fossil fuel exploration, extraction, transportation, refining distribution and consumption infrastructure in the four Atlantic provinces and Québec. Despite Eastern Canada being highly invested in oil and gas production, the region is often left out of energy policy discussions typically focused on Western provinces. 

The authors highlight:

Alors qu’une vague de services de garde à l’enfance à 10 $ par jour déferle au Canada, on se bute à une pierre d’achoppement majeure : il n’y a tout simplement pas suffisamment de places en garderie pour répondre à la demande.

Click here to read the full report.

As $10-a-day child care is rolling out across Canada, one of the major remaining stumbling blocks is that there simply aren’t enough child care spaces to meet the demand.

Between March 25 and May 9, the federal government consulted the public on Canada’s participation in a U.S.-led trade negotiation called the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). The hemispheric scope of APEP has naturally drawn parellels with the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a failed attempt between 1994 and 2005 to extend NAFTA to the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. But in this case, it’s not clear what kinds of trade and investment disciplines APEP will include or if they will be enforceable through state-to-state dispute settlement.