Search results for “site/economics of childcare”

  • BC government using affordability excuses to underfund education and health

    Affordability is becoming the new buzzword of the BC government. In the dispute with teachers, for example, the Minister of Education has repeatedly argued demands for lower class sizes and improved class composition, as well as fair wages, are unaffordable and unrealistic (see here). When parents and businesses make the…

  • For the Sixth Year in a Row, Students are Struggling to Find Summer Jobs.

    There is something great about summer in Canada; it’s hot but also full of promise with places to visit, camping, travelling, cottaging, trips to the beach and various summer events and festivals. For many of Canada’s students, however, summer has not been so great. New data from Statistics Canada’s Labour…

  • More People Chase Fewer Jobs

    Statistics Canada reported today that unemployment jumped by 25,700 in June because of shrinking employment and a growing labour force. Canada’s labour force expanded because of population growth, even though the participation rate did not increase. The combination of less employment and a larger working-age population depressed the employment rate to 61.4%…

  • Defending rights from corporate power

    The case for a Peoples’ Treaty On April 24, 2013, an eight-storey building known as Rana Plaza collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing more than 1,100 garment workers and injuring thousands of others. The victims, mostly women, worked in factories owned by a number of companies (New Wave Bottoms, Phantom, Ether…

  • Labour Matters

    Work Life: Failure to act fails us all…Manitoba income supports needed during COVID

    First published in the Winnipeg Free Press May 1, 2020 Manitoba must help those being clobbered financially by the COVID-19 pandemic: it is the right thing to do, we can afford it and, as a diverse array of economists have noted,  public spending is needed in a time of crisis.…

  • Women in the Canadian Economy

    Last weekend, I spoke at a community event celebrating International Women’s Day in Vancouver. It got me thinking about the status of women in the Canadian economy, reflecting both on the successes over the last half century and on the areas where work is still needed to achieve gender equality.…

  • Climate Justice Project

    New paper warns of global “ecological overshoot” and rising inequality

    UBC professor publication highlights policy alternatives to achieve true sustainability in CCPA publication CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT (Vancouver) In a new paper entitled Avoiding Collapse: An agenda for sustainable degrowth and relocalizing the economy, UBC Professor Emeritus William E. Rees, the originator of “ecological footprint analysis”, explores…

  • BC should transition to 100% non-profit and public delivery of seniors care post-crisis: researchers

    READ THE REPORT HERE. VANCOUVER — The coronavirus pandemic has shone a light on serious problems in Canada’s seniors care system and after the crisis the BC government should begin to transition away from its reliance on contracting with for-profit companies, say two Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives research associates.…

  • Fast Facts: You Get What You Pay For

    Winnipeg’s mayoral race is now officially underway. Any serious contenders are going to have to convince a very skeptical public that they can turn around what really has been a winter of discontent with City services. Unfortunately, problems that have taken years to accumulate are unlikely to be addressed overnight.…

  • TFWs Give Firms the Incentive to Create the Wrong Kind of Jobs

    The recent controversy over Temporary Foreign Workers (TFWs) highlights that companies can be profitable with very different approaches to wages and worker turnover. On one side of the spectrum are companies such as Lee Valley Tools, which treats its employees well in terms of wages, benefits, and training, and has…

  • Don’t believe the (LNG) hype

    Today we released a new report, Path to Prosperity? A Closer Look at British Columbia’s Natural Gas Royalties and Proposed LNG Income Tax, about liquefied natural gas (LNG ) development in BC, and the public revenues that might be expected. So far, LNG has lacked a real public debate. On…

  • Climate Justice Project

    BC government urged to lower expectations for LNG-based “Prosperity Fund”

    New report shows that $100 billion from liquified natural gas “not likely to be realized given real world conditions” READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. Vancouver-–A report released today finds that the BC government’s projection of a $100 billion “Prosperity Fund” from LNG exports is based on assumptions that are, in…