Jim’s recent mini-study emphasized that profits now occupy gargantuan shares of GDP in the oil-rich provinces. He and The Jurist have noted the total disconnect between corporate profits and personal income in two of those provinces: Saskatchewan and Newfoundland. To explore this issue further, I have pulled some figures out of the recently-released 2007 Provincial and Territorial Economic Accounts (in […]
Read moreAlong with John Edwards, the United Steelwokers union has endorsed Barack Obama for the US Presidency. Those paying attention may recall that, a month ago, the Steelworker President indicated that it would be inappropriate for super (ex-officio) delegates to vote against pledged (elected) delegates in selecting the Democratic nominee. This position rejected Hillary Clinton’s strategy of asking super delegates to […]
Read moreToday’s Toronto Star continues the War on Poverty with a front-page report on an emerging coalition among unions, environmentalists, and social activists.
Read morePremier McGuinty and other commentators like to emphasize that federal revenues from Ontario exceed federal spending in Ontario by about $20 billion annually. Although this total partly reflects the overall federal surplus and federal spending outside Canada, it is usually presented as a transfer of expenditure from Ontario to other provinces. A standard story is that, back in the days […]
Read moreThe lead editorial in today’s Toronto Star essentially restates McGuinty’s case more coherently than yesterday’s reports. The supposed problem identified is that, if Ontario becomes a “have-not” province, it would continue to pay more into Equalization than it would get out. This scenario is not nearly as strange as The Star makes out. Equalization has always been funded by all […]
Read moreFor a while, the Ontario Premier was looking quite reasonable in his dispute with the federal government. As Jim Flaherty charged that Ontario’s economic woes reflected a lack of provincial corporate tax cuts, Dalton McGuinty correctly responded that a lower rate of tax on profits would entail a large fiscal cost and provide little assistance to Ontario’s currently unprofitable manufacturing […]
Read moreMy take on today’s Labour Force Survey follows: Rising Unemployment For a third consecutive month, more Canadians entered the labour market than found jobs, pushing the number of unemployed workers above 1.1 million for the first time since November 2006. In April, all of the modest increase in employment was self-employment. One must ask whether Canadians are becoming self-employed voluntarily […]
Read moreAlthough it was probably overshadowed by the census release, Ralph Goodale appeared to jump on Marc’s deficit bandwagon last week. Some paragraphs in the early portion of his National Post op-ed seemed like they belonged on this blog: He [Harper] has taken this nation to the brink of a deficit – the first in more than a decade. And it’s […]
Read moreIn contrast to last week’s Census release highlighting stagnant individual earnings, today’s Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) release trumpets rising family income. The political right critiqued coverage of last week’s release for emphasizing individual rather than family income and for not capturing the tax-and-transfer system’s equalizing effects. In particular, the Prime Minister indicated that his government had cut […]
Read moreA great tragedy for the political left has been that, although we represent most of the population’s economic interests, we have only occasionally garnered majority support in the electoral arena. The US Democratic primaries have recently become focussed on the main segment of the American population that has often voted Republican even though its economic interests would be better served […]
Read moreIn his latest Maclean’s column, Paul Wells suggests that the Prime Minister’s apparent anger toward various public officials and agencies reflects not his personality, but his ideological crusade against government. Of course, as Wells observes, the Canadian state was greatly diminished during the years preceding Harper’s government. However, Harper undoubtedly aims to continue the trend and is on record arguing […]
Read moreMarc recently trumpeted this blog for being ahead of the public debate on several economic issues. However, we have perhaps been slightly behind the curve in commenting on yesterday’s release of income statistics from the 2006 Census. It indicated that, from 1980 through 2005, the median income among full-time Canadian workers remained flat. The median income of the top fifth rose by […]
Read moreAn editorial in today’s Calgary Herald begins with the usual praise for TILMA, but ends by suggesting a new interprovincial deal on healthcare: Yet, for Ottawa to attempt to remedy matters by intruding itself into relations between the provinces would not only provoke reflexive opposition but, even if carried through by force majeure, be unlikely to work. Certainly, the Canada […]
Read moreThis morning, the Bank of Canada lowered its key target interest rate from 3.5% to 3%. This welcome move was widely predicted. Perhaps more interestingly, the Bank stated that “some further monetary stimulus will likely be required to achieve the inflation target over the medium term.” Since December, the Bank has begun following the advice that the labour movement provided […]
Read moreYesterday’s Toronto Star contained an interesting article on Leo Gerard, “the most influential Canadian-born Democratic power broker in the United States.”
Read moreNotwithstanding the newish Saskatchewan government’s public rejection of TILMA, the Canadian Press recently reported: The [Alberta] premier says Bill 1 will be framework legislation to facilitate a sweeping 2007 trade deal with British Columbia known as the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA). “We have to move on it,” says Stelmach. “There are other provinces now waiting to see […]
Read moreThis morning’s Consumer Price Index release reveals that, in March, annual inflation fell to 1.4% and annual core inflation fell to 1.3%. The fact that both rates are well below the Bank of Canada’s 2% target gives it ample room to cut interest rates next week. Even the two highest-inflation provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, are no longer much above the […]
Read moreAs foreshadowed by Andrew, TD Economics has addressed the concerns raised on this blog about its April 15 report by replacing this document with a revised April 16 version. The new endnotes cite the CLC publications and acknowledge that they were “inappropriately left out of the original verson [sic] of the report.” TD has also amended its figures. The April 15 […]
Read moreToday, TD Economics released a very interesting paper on the Canadian labour market in 2007. I was pleased to see it highlight many of the same general trends that Andrew and I emphasized: the sharp decline in manufacturing jobs, the increase in part-time work, the rise of self-employment, and wages barely outpacing inflation in Alberta. Parts of the TD paper […]
Read moreAs Andrew, Marc, Toby and I pointed-out at the time, despite the low up-front cost of Tax-Free Savings Accounts, they will become exponentially more expensive over time. To obnoxiously quote myself, “this measure could burn a significant hole in future government revenues.” It is worth noting that Jack Mintz, a huge fan of Tax-Free Savings Accounts, suggests essentially the same […]
Read moreToday, Statistics Canada released an excellent paper concluding that the rate of return on investment in Canadian public capital is around 17%. This paper builds on another Statistics Canada paper from a few years ago that Marc cited a few days ago on this blog. If anything, the paper’s text somewhat understates its mathematical findings. The author’s hypothesis was that […]
Read moreJim Prentice appears to have done what no previous Liberal or Conservative government had been prepared to for more than two decades under the Investment Canada Act. As the NDP has noted, preventing the takeover of MDA is a small victory for progressives.
Read moreWhen the United Steelworkers ended the recent drive to organize Dofasco, Steve Arnold of The Hamilton Spectator posted the following: Today’s decision by the United Steelworkers to back off from the Dofasco organizing effort closes, at least for now, a bitter and divisive debate in the company. It’s clear before the USW comes back to Dofasco it has to mount […]
Read moreWhile driving down the 401 recently, I listened to some upstate New York radio and heard a great ad from New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness. This organization resembles the CCPA’s alternative budget initiatives, although its Better Choice campaign is reminiscent of the CLC.
Read moreAndrew will undoubtedly post a more comprehensive analysis of today’s Labour Force Survey. What strikes me is that, despite all of the gloomy news about an impending recession, Canadians continue flooding into the labour market in search of paid work. In March, the creation of only 14,600 new jobs drew 57,100 more people into the labour force. As a result, […]
Read moreOn the anniversary of TILMA coming into force, nine national business associations and the professional association representing non-chartered accountants have demanded “bold action” on inter-provincial trade. The press release alleges that “the emergence of new trade barriers threatens to further balkanize the Canadian economy” without naming a single “new trade barrier”. It repeats the unfounded claim that “it is often […]
Read moreAs Joe Kuchta points out, Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix (SP) newspaper has essentially reversed its position on TILMA without any acknowledgement that its previous position was mistaken. The other SP, the province’s governing Saskatchewan Party, did the same thing. At least the StarPhoenix printed the following op-ed from Joe: SP’s TILMA stance hypocritical Joe Kuchta Special to The StarPhoenix Thursday, March 27, […]
Read moreIn my experience, flights are often delayed in Pearson airport. I always wonder whether there is some particular problem with the management of Pearson or whether delays just tend to happen there because air travel is somehow prone to delay and so many flights go through Pearson. A recent Canadian Press story seems to support the first possibility.
Read moreThe United Steelworkers are currently trying to organize Dofasco. I encourage progressives to vote “yes” in The Hamilton Spectator’s online poll. UPDATE (March 24): The Dofasco poll no longer seems to be on The Spectator’s website.
Read moreStatistics Canada revealed today that, in the fourth quarter of 2007, we ran a current account deficit for the first time since 1999. It is difficult to get a handle on what pushed us into deficit because the raw and seasonally-adjusted numbers paint quite different pictures of quarterly changes. The raw numbers indicate that, from the third to the fourth quarter, […]
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