Search results for “site/human rights”

  • Labour Matters
    Trade Union Research Collective

    Saskatchewan: A beachhead of labour law reform?

    Sweeping changes to Saskatchewan’s labour relations and employment standards legislation are on the verge of being passed. Bill 85, the Saskatchewan Employment Act, will dramatically transform the laws governing trade unions and industrial relations in the province. The Saskatchewan Party government, led by Premier Brad Wall, insists that the changes…

  • Ontario Budget 2013: Four More Years of Austerity

    By Hugh Mackenzie and Trish Hennessy All budgets are political in nature, but Ontario’s 2013 budget – tabled by a minority government with a new leader – stands out as a case in point: it is carefully designed to survive a non-confidence vote. It extends a few olive branches to…

  • Why BC’s lower-wage workers are struggling: The case for stronger employment standards

    BC has acquired the “distinction” of being home to Canada’s largest income gap, highest poverty rate, and second highest child poverty rate.  It also has greater employment insecurity and lower wages than the national average, even though BC is the province with the highest cost of living in Canada. How…

  • Saskatchewan Alternative Provincial Budget

    Addressing Poverty and Inequality during a Time of Prosperity READ THE FULL REPORT HERE. Economic growth is supposed to benefit everyone, right? That’s not the case right now in Saskatchewan but it doesn’t have to be that way, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which released its Alternative Provincial…

  • BC’s publicly funded legal aid is in crisis

    Imagine you are a woman who recently left your husband because he was assaulting you. Without a lawyer, fighting for the custody of your two children requires you to cross-examine your ex-husband in court about the sexual and physical abuse you experienced in your relationship with him. Unless your net…

  • TFSA analysis in Budget 2015 does a number on Canadians: report

    CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT OTTAWA—The federal budget’s claims regarding who would benefit from doubling the Tax Free Savings Account (TFSA) annual contribution ceiling exclude key contextual data thereby leading to erroneous conclusions, says an analysis released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The analysis,…

  • December 2006: Facing Some Hard Truths

    Progressives need to relearn how they “frame” their message The first time you come across them, it doesn’t seem to make any sense. They could be family members, co-workers, neighbours, or friends–and yet you can’t understand them: the sometimes NDP, sometimes Conservative voter. The kind of people who give generously…

  • Alternative Federal Budget

    Think tank projects federal deficit in 2015-16

    Alternative Federal Budget advocates for stimulus to boost economic growth CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT OTTAWA—The 2015 Alternative Federal Budget (AFB), released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), demonstrates that the federal government’s continued obsession with austerity and balancing the budget comes at the cost…

  • Shale gas: “Chapter 11” steps in

    Both in Québec and in the United States, public authorities have legislated to protect populations from shale gas industry-related risks. These precautions could however come up against controversial NAFTA provisions within the infamous chapter 11 regarding investor protection. In the States, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an Department…

  • September 2006: A Short History of Radiation in Ontario

    Uranium refinery boosted economy, not workers’ health Veterans of the Second World War were given a better chance to succeed than were the veterans of World War I. They received cash gratuities and job training in an economy that was galloping along delivering new fridges, stoves, washing machines, cars, and…

  • Right-to-Work: The (Ayn?) Rand Formula

    There’s reluctance among Canadian proponents to call for it by name. But Right-to-Work (longer, harder, without representation or recourse, for less money and fewer sick days or pee breaks) seems to be the flavour du jour amongst…ahem…politicians of a certain age. (By which I mean the Age of Dickens. Pip-pip, cheerio, y’all.)…

  • December 2005: Monitoring Medicare’s Murder

    Public awakens to assassination of Medicare, but is it too late? The slow, very public murder of Medicare as a universal, publicly-funded, single-tier health system has been going on for 20 years. The public failed to awaken fully to the murder because the assassins, even as they slowly throttled Medicare,…