Some myths are just so hard to debunk. For instance, people in Québec generally assume that they are the most taxed in North America. IRIS tackled the well-rehearsed allegation in a recently published socio-economic notice. The reply resounded of what Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky have presented in Manufacturing Consent as flak.…
L’élimination de l’écart salarial entre les sexes transformerait notre monde pour le mieux, tant pour les hommes que pour les femmes. Imaginez avoir plus de temps pour faire ce que vous aimez, avec les gens qui vous sont chers. Imaginez avoir un travail sûr et décent dans une économie en…
Last year, the BC government introduced legislation expected to bring ride-hailing to the province, but many questions remain about what that will look like in practice. One of the bodies responsible for working out the policy details is BC’s Passenger Transportation Board (PTB), an independent tribunal that has been handling…
Opposition to U.S. drone attacks rises globally and in U.S. Joe Lombardo is co-coordinator of the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC), the largest anti-war coalition in the United States. He is also a founding member of Project Salaam, a group that helps Muslims persecuted (mainly by the government) in the…
Where does the Saskatchewan government stand on the privatization of provincial Crown corporations? You’d be hard pressed to come up with a definitive answer after the government’s partial privatization of Information Services Corporation (ISC), the introduction of new private liquor stores and Premier Wall’s end-of-year comments that privatization deserves a “rational, pragmatic…
This past December 27th, the appeals court of the Yukon Territory gave an important ruling regarding the rights of First Nations in relation to Yukon’s free-entry mining policy. The plaintiff in the case, the Ross River Dena Council tribe, considers that Yukon’s government cannot allow quartz production on its territory…
There are important new developments regarding the proposed frac sand operation adjacent to Hollow Water First Nation on the east side of Lake Winnipeg that will have a large impact on the entire project. Canadian Premium Sand (CPS), a publicly traded and Canadian-owned mining company, received an Environmental License from…
OTTAWA—Canada’s largest publicly-traded companies could have eliminated their defined benefit (DB) pension deficits five times over with the value of what they chose to pay out to shareholders instead in 2017 alone, according to a new report released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Put another way, these companies could…
Private pension plan deficits and shareholder repayments in Canada Download 519.7 KB22 pages This report updates research published by the CCPA in 2017, and compares the pension deficits of the roughly 90 companies on the S&P/TSX Composite Index with defined benefit (DB) pension plans to shareholder payouts between 2011 and 2017. These…
Protests in Greece expose failure of capitalism in Europe During November 2012, Europe erupted in anti-austerity demonstrations, with protestors clashing violently with police in Spain and Portugal, where general strikes were declared. Millions of EU workers participated in the demonstrations, which have spread to Italy, France, and Belgium. Greece has…
Doha, Qatar — The 18th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is now underway in Doha, Qatar. This year’s president is His Excellency Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiya, chair of Qatar’s Administrative Control and Transparency Authority. Al-Attiya said the conference is “a turning…
In fewer than five years, three major dam collapses have occurred in the Americas—the most recent of which killed more than 230 people, and likely killed up to 260; many of the dead have never been recovered from the toxic mining sludge in which they were buried. The disasters that…