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The BC government could start with local purchasing to build jobs in our communities
The BC government has been heavily promoting its “jobs plan” over the last week on television, radio and on the internet. On twitter they invited people to come on line to give their ideas about what could be done to promote more jobs in communities. But there is one idea…
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Fast Facts: The Education Property Tax Rebate
Do we seniors really need it? This commentary was also published in the Winnipeg Free Press on Oct 17, 2013. The opposition’s unproductive filibuster of the provincial 2013 budget increase in the PST has left many aspects of the budget undebated. One is its failure to provide for improvement in…
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Budgets more than numbers
The Nova Scotia Department of Finance recently launched an interactive “Back to Balance” website, giving community members an opportunity to try their hands at government budgeting. The site is technically sophisticated and informative. Users can move sliders to adjust the levels of various taxes and expenditures, and pop-up bubbles provide…
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PEI and the CETA
Remarks by Scott Sinclair, to a public meeting on the Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) in Charlottetown, PEI Introduction No one questions that international trade is vital for the Canadian and PEI economies. But there are legitimate questions that need to be asked about who benefits from trade…
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The Perils of CETA
Proposed Canada-EU trade deal a bad deal for most Canadians As its name suggests, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (or CETA) is intended to be an ambitious agreement that will affect matters beyond international trade. In every bilateral trade negotiation since NAFTA, Canada has been the larger party, able…
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IPCC: Time for a Global Carbon Budget
Political commitments on climate action, to the extent they exist, are usually pitched in terms of targets and timelines. BC, for example, has a legislated target of 33% below 2007 levels by 2020; Canada’s official target is a 17% reduction by 2020 relative to 2005 levels. Neither target will be…
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Challenging capitalism: a 12-step program
Over a year ago, I posted “What are the Game Changers?“, an attempt at sparking some strategic thinking for the broader left. Now that we’ve had a month of Occupation, building on the original Occupy Wall Street action, I’ve been wanting to put these ideas back on the table, so…
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A Progressive Alternative to the Harper Agenda
The Harper government is set to cut spending on public services and social programs in the name of deficit reduction, but implemented mainly to increase reliance on the market, to create new sources of profit for the private sector, and to finance future tax cuts. This ideological agenda will take…
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Ontario’s income gap at all-time high
READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. TORONTO – Ontario’s after-tax income gap between the richest and poorest 10% of families raising children under 18 has reached an all-time high, according to a new study released by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The richest 10% of families now earn 75…
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My Welfare Food Challenge: Day 7 – The End
Well, I’ve made it to the end of my week eating only what I could buy for $26. But eating the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner for seven days is no damn fun. I can’t wait to eat something different and fresh. Did a final weigh-in this morning.…
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My welfare challenge: Days 4 and 5
Fascinating to see all the comments on these blog posts. I want to highlight Dale’s comments in response to my Day 3 post in particular. Some may read these posts and point out that people with a recognized disability (those with PWD status in our welfare system) receive marginally more…
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Of fat cats and men
We need to re-examine how we value work Many Canadians woke up on Jan. 2 to the sobering news that by the time they’d had their morning coffee and settled into another year of work, the average of Canada’s best-paid 100 CEOs had already earned what the rest of us…