The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vital importance of collective responses via governments at all levels. The Canadian context of federalism, with a division of powers between federal and provincial/territorial governments, also highlights key differences in approaches to the pandemic. At its best, federalism is an advantageous arrangement, with the…
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In a column published on the IRIS blog (and translated for Behind the Numbers), Guillaume Hébert says that the COVID-19 crisis marks a point of no return on a global scale that could definitively change “our relationship to the community, to public services, to governments, to supply chains, to borders and…
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It is reasonable to think there will be no return to normal after this crisis. First of all, because the health crisis is already changing our relationship to the community, to public services, to governments, to supply chains, to borders and to relations among nations. And then because, even before…
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When we talk about housing affordability the focus is usually on home ownership and high housing costs. Less discussed is the affordability crisis faced by the third of Canadian households (4.7 million families) who rent their homes. This paper looks at the extent of the problem by determining the hourly…
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The urgency of the global climate crisis could not be more obvious than in India right now, where a 50ºC heatwave is causing “heavy casualties” both directly through heat-related deaths and indirectly through water and food shortages. Canadians have been spared that kind of heat so far, but it’s little…
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Between 2010 and 2015, no less than $20.2 billion in budgetary restrictions were imposed by the provincial government in the hopes of attaining zero deficit. During this period, it increased its revenue by $6.2 billion and cut back its spending by $14 billion. Ironically, we learned in the last CAQ budget that the…
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Premier Scott Moe tweeted this graphic on equalization yesterday. The tweet continues the Saskatchewan government’s long record of misrepresenting how equalization works in the hopes of ginning up anti-Quebec and anti-Ottawa sentiment among the Saskatchewan electorate. However, this time the misrepresentation goes one further, as it implies the graph is…
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While much of the conversation on Canada’s new Census income numbers focuses on the sustained nature of income inequality, little attention has been paid to what’s been happening to the richest 1% compared to the rest of us. This is the first time that a Canadian Census includes information about…
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Québec nage dans les surplus. Le bilan de la dernière année financière nous apprend que pour l’exercice qui s’est terminé au 31 mars, c’est 4,5 G$ en surplus qui se retrouvent dans les coffres du gouvernement. Gérald Fillion, dans un texte publié la semaine dernière, résume bien comment nous en…
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The cost of living keeps going up, but new Statistics Canada data shows that slow earnings growth means pay raises aren’t keeping up with inflation. The latest Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours (SEPH) tells the story of slow earnings growth in Canada. Average weekly Canadian earnings have not changed…
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