Regina — The Saskatchewan office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is releasing University of Regina business administration professor S. Muthu’s study, Restoring the Bargain: Contesting the Constitutionality of the Amendments to the Saskatchewan Trade Union Act, a thorough analysis of the constitutionality of the province’s labour legislation. This study represents an important contribution to the current debate over the extent to which legislatures can limit workers’ rights and freedoms.
Employment and labour
There is a shadow side to this recovery that may undo it in the end. Uncertainty is fast becoming the new normal in the labour market, and that has long-term implications for aggregate demand, household indebtedness, and the rate of defaults on mortgages and credit cards.
The latest Labour Force Survey results show that -- though there are still 253,000 fewer jobs than when the recession began in October 2008 -- employment growth continues its slow path upward. This month’s rising head count is driven by part-time jobs.
Opposition to Bill 44's proposed changes to labour legislation, led by a handful of business lobbyists and echoed by Free Press editorials, takes two main lines: that the legislation will harm the province by driving business away, and that it is basically undemocratic. Even given the hostility to labour typically found on these pages, these are remarkably disingenuous arguments.
As the Manitoba government prepares for this year’s budget, the air of equanimity evident in last year’s budgetary deliberations has given way to hyper-timidity, if not panic. Government leaders seem preoccupied with the fact that the deficit could reach $500 million and talk relentlessly about the need for restraint.
This opinion piece was featured in Canadian Business, April 12, 2010 edition.
The Harper government just pressed the wrong panic button — prematurely tackling the budgetary deficit before resolving the jobs crisis, Canada's worst in a generation.
Over the past year and a half, the most forceful global economic downturn since the Great Depression has destroyed half a million full-time jobs in Canada. They tell us the recession is over, but we’re still short hundreds of thousands of permanent jobs.
An economic recovery that is mainly reliant on consumer spending is unavoidably fragile, since most Canadian consumers are now deeply in debt. Going into the Great Recession, the average Canadian household owed $1.40 for every dollar of disposable income. By mid-2009, that figure had reached $1.45, placing millions of households in jeopardy should they lose a job or be hit by rising interest rates.
Speech Presented to the Strategic Partnership Public Policy Symposium St. John’s, Newfoundland and LabradorNovember 27, 2009
Almost a decade ago the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) institutionalized the classic approach to partnership, bringing business, labour, and government together. Ongoing committees were tasked with charting the way forward on strategic areas of public interest that affect all citizens of the province.Quite common in Europe, this approach to decision-making is very rarely done in Canada.
OTTAWA – The Harper government’s budget fails to measure up to its own job creation promises, says the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), a progressive think tank.
Instead of fixing the job crisis as it promised in yesterday’s Throne Speech, the Harper government appears to be coasting on last year’s stimulus budget, offering no meaningful new initiatives to get Canadians working again.