I used to be skeptical of fixed election dates, as an American intrusion into our Canadian parliamentary ways. But having them in BC (introduced in 2001, with the last election mandated for May 2005 and the next for May 2009), I like them. It means that the opposition parties can prepare for an election in advance rather than waiting on […]
Read more   The rich world’s policy on greenhouse gas now seems clear: millions will die Our governments have set the wrong targets to tackle climate change using outdated science, and they know it George Monbiot Tuesday May 1, 2007 The Guardian Rich nations seeking to cut climate change have this in common: they lie. You won’t find this statement in the […]
Read moreThe Globe and Mail has run three major stories about Alcan in the past few days: Act I: “Alcan says tax makes it takeover bait” (April 27) Act II: “B.C. town may fight Alcan” (April 28) Act III: “$7-billion project deepens Alcan’s Gulf ties” (May 1) Alcan is a major Canadian-based multinational that produces aluminum. Bauxite, the basic raw material, […]
Read moreA new edited volume, Whose Canada?: Continental Integration, Fortress North America, and the Corporate Agenda, by Ricardo Grinspun and Yasmine Shamsie, has just come out, featuring many of your favourite left-wing writers. The full book is out from McGill-Queen’s University Press, and can also be purchased through the CCPA. The table of contents can be viewed here. The synopsis follows: […]
Read moreSays Lawrence Martin in his Globe column: In the 1970s, the activists, their views vindicated on Vietnam, were in the vanguard. In this decade, the activists, their views vindicated on Iraq, not to mention global warming, have no such standing.Speak out back then and you were cool. Speak out today and some fount of wisdom with a Fox News mentality […]
Read moreNew from McGill- Queen’s Press, this collection of Mel’s writings – edited by Hugh Grant and David Wolfe with an introduction by Wally Clement- is Canadian political economy at its very best. http://mqup.mcgill.ca/book.php?bookid=2001 Not only is Mel the leading post Harold Innis exponent of Canadian political economy, he was a key architect of the important synthesis between this intellectual tradition […]
Read moreFor more on the themes highlighted below by Jim, my note on trade balances and jobs is now available through the CCPA.
Read moreWell, I finally got my name into the Australian papers. So I guess I can come back to Canada now. (We’re flying home, sigh, in another few weeks.) I worked with the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (sister union, sectorally and politically, to the CAW) to produce a critique of the proposed Australia-China free trade agreement. We used a similar “job […]
Read moreThe Harper government enacts yet another policy from the CCPA. Ross Klein, social work professor turned cruise industry watcher at Memorial University deserves a big round of applause for his efforts to shine a light on this problem. A cynic might comment that this is just an easy reform that beefs up Harper’s green credentials prior to the next election. […]
Read moreCrawl Across the Ocean, which has infrequent but excellent posts, features an amusing and accurate critique of the Fraser Institute’s “Consumer Tax Index.† MORE (April 29): In particular, this critique points out that the political right defines “essential” very narrowly when measuring poverty or railing about taxes, but very broadly when limiting the right to strike.
Read moreThe Canadian Football League’s season does not begin until June, but debate is already underway about TILMA’s potential effect on its franchises, most of which are for-profit businesses that receive government subsidies. The last federal budget proposed a new Canadian Heritage Sport Fund to promote three-down football, but also proposed to expand TILMA to more provinces. In response to my […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson has a good column in today’s Globe on the new Conservative climate-change plan. He makes the same point that I did about the impossibility of meeting Kyoto’s first-round targets and the importance taking our second-round targets seriously. He also points out how thin all of these climate-change “plans” have been. To me, a “plan” is a set of […]
Read moreIs this mischief on the part of the Globe’s editors or a simple mistake? The way I read the headline below is literally: that Harper’s newest climate change plan would “cut emissions 18 per cent by 2010”. Sounds good, right? The Tories must have seen the light and, while they would still miss the Kyoto targets, are aiming for a […]
Read moreI’ll be sorry to see Governor David Dodge leave the Bank of Canada. To be sure, I’ll take a good deal of critical distance from his and the Bank’s view that we are operating “above capacity” when real wages for at least the bottom half of the work force are flat, and I think monetary policy as a whole should […]
Read moreOne of the more arcane rituals of global economic governance is the annual meeting between G-8 labour leaders and the host of the annual G-8 summit (only Dubya refused to conform to the convention.) The statement to be presented to German Chancellor Merkel in a couple of weeks by CLC President Ken Georgetti and colleagues is, as as per past […]
Read moreToday, the Government of Saskatchewan initiated a process of legislative consultations on TILMA and released the Conference Board’s assessment of this agreement’s potential impact on Saskatchewan. This document is the sequel to the Conference Board’s BC assessment, which Marc and I critiqued on this blog and in our paper. I have not yet read through the 55-page document, but will […]
Read moreThis is a fascinating story arising out of BC’s newfound religion on climate change. It seems to me that the devil is in the details when it comes to carbon trading. A hard cap must be set and must be enforced with strong penalties. Allocating emission rights based on past performance is problematic, as it rewards those who are the […]
Read moreThe first cut at 2006 GDP data for the provinces is out today from Statscan. What blew me away was Alberta, with real GDP growth of 6.8%. That is not a typo, so let me repeat, 6.8%, as in, Chinese style growth, and more than double the national average of 2.7%. And I thought the past two years were blistering […]
Read moreThis was referred to by Ezra Klein at the very bottom of the last post, and it deserves its own. Abstract and the concluding “discussion” section are pasted below: A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States Gordon H. Guyatt, P.J. Devereaux, Joel Lexchin, Samuel B. Stone, Armine Yalnizyan, David Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, […]
Read moreIn the American Prospect, Ezra Klein compares five countries’ health care systems (hat tip to Mark Thoma). in spite of his general defence of Canada, there are a few areas where I think he gets it wrong and I have added in some comments in those places. The Health of Nations Here’s how Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and our own […]
Read moreA number of key critical points on the federal government’s “analysis” of the economic impacts of Kyoto – http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/media/m_123/toc_eng.html – have already been made, including by Erin. http://progecon.wordpress.com/2007/04/20/inconvenient-truth/ A lot hinges on whether continued adherence to the protocol means that very large cuts have to be made to domestic emissions in a very short period of time – a key […]
Read moreA Saskatchewan Federation of Labour Vice-President has reported back from a meeting on TILMA organized by the C. D. Howe Institute.
Read moreAndrew Coyne makes several good points in today’s column on the economic-nationalist case for income trusts. He is skeptical, but for different reasons than the other Andrew and I. Like most of Coyne’s economic commentary, this column displays what I would characterize as excessive faith in the efficiency of free markets. Interestingly, he does not mention that Dion and May […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot summarizes the case for a world parliament, drawing on a new campaign being launched this week. I’ve always thought this to be a far-sighted and much-needed, if politically impossible, idea. Dare to dream, I suppose. Perhaps by the time I die the world will have something like a truly global parliament. (And if they could have those levitating […]
Read morehttp://www.ccl-cca.ca/NR/rdonlyres/F6226BEA-0502-4A2D-A2E0-6A7C450C5212/0/connecting_dots_EN.pdf Based on the Executive Summary, this report seems worth a read. It seems to go beyond the common rhetoric on the need for more ‘human capital development in a knowledge-based economy’ to take a serious look at economic returns to firms from training – though the scale of the suggested benefits seems rather high. I’ve always leaned to the […]
Read moreYesterday’s Tyee article by Horner and Orchard provides a good historical overview of the Wheat Board, but does not mention the recent plebiscite based on which the Conservatives propose to remove the Board’s barley monopoly. It is worth explaining why this flawed plebiscite does not give the Conservatives much of a democratic mandate, rather than ignoring the plebiscite altogether. Of 80,000 ballots sent […]
Read moreThe annual G8 meetings often result in a group hug (aka the “summit declaration). Much of the time, when the goals are laudable, they fail to achieve the desired result, as Sachs comments below on the MDGs, or they misrepresent what they are doing in the first place (remember the 2000 release that “ended” third world debt?). The Millennium Development […]
Read moreThis article from The Tyee reviews the history of the CWB and recent attacks by the Harper government: Harper’s Hit on Grain Farmers: Tories will aid US firms by gutting Canadian Wheat Board By Albert Horner and David Orchard TheTyee.ca For a year the Harper government has been threatening to destroy the power of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). Agriculture […]
Read moreLarry Hubich has sent an open letter to the Premier of Saskatchewan on TILMA. The letter cites much of the Lee, Weir, Grady, and Shrybman material discussed on this blog.
Read moreA lovely counterpoint to last week in Canadian politics on greenhouse gas emission reductions, Kyoto and Minister Baird: Norway Plans to Go ‘Carbon Neutral’ April 20, 2007 — Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday proposed to make Norway the first “carbon neutral” state by 2050 and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020. “We are committed […]
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