Winnipeg falls further behind other cities with proposed budget cuts The City of Winnipeg’s preliminary operating budget for 2013 cuts spending on poverty reduction, housing, and neighbourhood initiatives at a time when government leadership and resources are desperately needed to address economic and social inequality. The document indicates that the…
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL REPORT Ottawa – The proposed Canada-EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and other trade and investment treaties threaten the sustainability of fisheries and fishing communities, says a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Globalization, Trade Treaties and the Future of the…
In the beginning of December, the Harper government gave its approval to two takeover deals in the energy sector. Nexen is involved in offshore production operations around the world and in oil sands in western Canada. It will now be the property of CNOOC, a Chinese corporation. The second deal…
National pride, to endure, must have a strong foundation The tidal wave of patriotism unleashed by our country’s performance in the Olympics is subsiding, but in most Canadians the euphoria lingers. Memories of our athletes’ feats at Vancouver and Whistler will be a wellspring of national pride for some time.…
You get what you pay for OTTAWA–The Romanow report is a clear rejection of the status quo and a pragmatic step in the right direction to secure the future of public health care, according to CCPA economist Armine Yalnizyan. Yalnizyan applauds Romanow’s recommendation that the CHST be scrapped in favour…
Mark Carney’s tenure as Governor of the Bank of Canada overlaps some challenging economy history. Appointed in early 2008 just as the US housing bubble was popping, Carney took the helm in time for a financial crisis that brought the global economy to its knees. We are still living that…
The federal government released its annual fall update on the country’s finances today. Despite the upbeat messaging around the “Update of Economic and Fiscal Projections” there are concerning underlying trends with the country and its finances. For regular Canadians, there is no explosive growth expected in the job market to make up…
Here is a piece I wrote for today’s Globe Economy Lab re the Department of Finance report on the costs of an aging society. The key point is that the mainstream doom and gloom projections of the costs of falling labour force growth ignore the positive impacts which can be expected as…
In a Vancouver Sun article (Market wages would make a difference to city’s taxes, December 28, 2009) Philip Hochstein argues Vancouver civic workers who make a living wage should be made to suffer the fate of those in the private sector whose employers get away with paying under $15 an hour for…
Promoting Equitable Community Revitalization in Winnipeg Currently, Manitoba is one of only two provinces in Canada that utilizes Tax Increment Financing (TIF) as a means for financing community revitalization projects in municipalities, although it has a long history of use in the United States. In a TIF financing scheme, the…
Adopted in 1933, it’s a Manifesto that could be written today During the Depression of the 1930s, the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR), a progressive think-tank, emerged in Eastern Canada, while a new political party, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was born in Calgary. The Regina Manifesto and its 14-point…
Corruption, corporate power, inequality must all be curbed India’s poor rural majority has benefited little from the country’s economic boom, and in fact has seen its position worsen. The same pro-free-market economic reforms that have made India attractive to Western capital and benefited the urban-based middle and upper classes have…