With today’s 20-cent minimum wage increase, BC temporarily escapes its bottom-of-the-barrel ranking as one of the lowest-paying provinces in Canada. But come October 1, when five provinces raise their minimum wages, we will once again trail the rest of the country.
Employment and labour
Are you willing to do physically demanding work for $12.50 -$13.50/hour, for a 1 month contract?
One hundred and four inner-city young men and women are. In fact, these men and women lined up before 8:00 am in front of the North End Community Renewal Corporation to apply. As per the instructions in the job advertisement put out by Manitoba Green Retrofit (MGR), they had their steel-toed boots on and their resumes in hand.
After years of relative progress in Canada’s labour market – where unionization helped turn jobs like mining and manufacturing into good, middle class jobs – by early-1990s a seismic shift began to unfold.
“Jobs for life” were being replaced with concepts like downsizing, the 1990s word for mass layoffs, and golden handshakes, the euphemism for early retirement, which morphed into “Freedom 55” – the promise that you could be your own consultant and enjoy new work freedom in the golden years.
The Social Research Planning Council, a Divison of United Way Perth-Huron, collaborated with the CCPA-ON to produce this report detailing the living wage calculations for the Perth-Huron region of Ontario.
This report builds on the previous living wage work published by the CCPA and the Canadian Living Wage Framework, and uses this methodology to determine the living wage of $16.47 per hour for Perth and Huron in 2015 for two adults working full-time with two children.
This brief examines the BC government’s claim that 100,000 jobs will be created from liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in this province. CCPA-BC Senior Economist Marc Lee finds that this claim is not credible and that potential employment impacts have been grossly overstated.
(Vancouver) A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives offers a reality check on government claims about massive job creation to come from a BC-based LNG industry.
As recently as last week, Premier Christy Clark stated that the Pacific NorthWest LNG project headed by Petronas would create 4,500 jobs, and that the LNG industry as a whole would create 100,000 jobs.
LNG and Employment in BC reviews LNG proponents’ own employment estimates, and finds them to be substantially lower than government claims.
Since the Nova Scotia Liberal government was elected in October 2013, it has brought down a breathtaking barrage on labour, restricting the right to strike, curtailing collective bargaining rights, demonizing public sector workers, gerrymandering bargaining units and picking favourites among unions. This report examines the current government's anti-labour record, and sheds light on the lasting consequences of these calculated attacks on labour rights—for workers, unions and the province.
For families with school-aged children, summer is one of the most stressful and expensive times of the year as they scramble to find and pay for child care.
But for parents of younger children, that’s a year-round struggle. At about $10,000 a year, four years of child care can easily add up to more than the cost of a university degree. And that’s if you’re lucky enough to find a spot, since BC only has enough regulated child care spaces for 27% of children under six.
This study shows how BC can implement a $10 a day child care plan, either as a federal-provincial partnership or as a BC-only program. The province can easily afford it, and it will provide huge benefits for families, communities and the economy.
The study uses the $10 A Day Plan, developed by BC child care experts, as its basis. More information about the plan here: 10aday.ca.
(Vancouver) A $10 a day child care program in BC would largely pay for itself through the considerable boost to provincial and federal government revenues from more women participating in the workforce.
“Universal child care is entirely affordable for BC, either as a federal-provincial partnership or a BC-only program like the one in Quebec,” says Iglika Ivanova, a senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and author of Solving BC’s Child Care Affordability Crisis: Financing the $10 A Day Plan.