The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has confirmed that the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) crackdown on charitable political activity has been an arbitrary and unjustified infringement upon freedom of expression. It’s time for the federal government to act swiftly to close the book on a dark time in Canada’s democratic…
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Ontario’s new Progressive Conservative government is rejigging OHIP+, a modest but promising pharmacare policy introduced by the previous Liberal government, allegedly to make more efficient use of tax dollars. Where the short-lived program covered most prescription drug costs for people under 25, OHIP+ will now only cover people without individual…
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The Supreme Court gave Canadians cause to celebrate this April in its R v Comeau decision. However, because of the way the ruling was covered in the media, most people will not know how much was at stake and what we might have lost had things gone the other way….
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The Invisible Heart, a documentary film exploring social impact bonds (SIB), is currently debuting in theatres across Canada. CCPA Senior Economist David Macdonald and board president Larry Brown were both interviewed for this project. While both spoke of the inherently problematic nature of SIB, we’ve heard from some supporters that…
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Ontario PC Leader Doug Ford has proposed a $2.8-billion “middle class tax cut,” despite the fact the province is facing a deficit. Promoting tax cuts as “middle class tax cuts” is the latest fad in election-time politics. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to cut middle class taxes in the 2015…
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The following remarks are excerpted from the 2018 Alternative Federal Budget press conference, featuring Gauri Sreenivasan, David Macdonald and Peter Bleyer (February 22, Parliament Hill). Today we are releasing the CCPA’s 23rd annual Alternative Federal Budget. Our Budget is a roadmap for policymakers; a set of realistic, fully costed proposals based…
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Don’t leap to conclusions from January’s job loss numbers in Ontario. We can’t draw conclusions from one month’s worth of data; The lion’s share of job losses were not concentrated in minimum wage sectors; It will take time for this increase in the minimum wage to work its way through…
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Discussions about raising the minimum wage for workers often generate maximum rage from business. But is there any truth to the arguments and fear mongering? Let’s take a look. 1) The fear mongering is overblown It’s hard to miss the reports predicting job losses as a result of the minimum…
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Over a million workers in Ontario just got a big raise thanks to tireless, bottom-up organizing, but to hear the media tell it, this is a bad news story. The same, tired headlines are back. Wednesday, the CBC ran a story titled, “Minimum wage hikes could cost Canada’s economy 60,000…
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For most working people, environmental concerns have historically been a bit like Harvey Dent—two faced. One face says that poisoned water supplies and changing weather patterns threaten our health, our way of life, and our planet. The other face says we do not entirely understand human-environment interaction and cannot endure…
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