As Canadian governments at all jurisdictional levels engage in what can only be called Disaster Budgeting, it’s time to inject a voice of reason into the debate. The world economy isn’t looking good, and the political penchant in Canada to return to business as usual – dutifully following an extreme…
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Rabble.ca is running a series of reflections on the tenth anniversary of the New Politics Initiative, which sought to create a more democratic politics in Canada ideally as part of a revitalized NDP. The vision statement is here; my piece follows, and there are also contributions from Judy Rebick and Jim Stanford. Altogether these…
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On Sunday, CTV leaked Canada’s intentions to pull out of the Kyoto treaty process on climate change. What is significant about Kyoto is that it is a legally binding international treaty, and one that puts the onus of emission reductions on the countries that have done the most to cause the problem…
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Today, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives-Nova Scotia releases its 2011 Report Card on Child and Family Poverty in Nova Scotia written by CCPA-NS Research Associate, Lesley Frank. It evaluates Nova Scotia’s progress toward Canada’s 1989 goal of eradicating child poverty by 2000. According to the After-Tax Low Income Cut-Off,…
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With all the hoopla about climate change and global warming, it’s hard to be a capitalist these days. At least, that was the theme of the Heartland Institute’s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change (and judging from some of the opinions voiced at this event, I can only imagine the…
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The Harper government is set to cut spending on public services and social programs in the name of deficit reduction, but implemented mainly to increase reliance on the market, to create new sources of profit for the private sector, and to finance future tax cuts. This ideological agenda will take…
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Over a year ago, I posted “What are the Game Changers?“, an attempt at sparking some strategic thinking for the broader left. Now that we’ve had a month of Occupation, building on the original Occupy Wall Street action, I’ve been wanting to put these ideas back on the table, so…
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The Mowat Centre final report on Employment Insurance (EI) released today has won a fair bit of media attention, and will serve to deepen the national debate over Canada’s most important income security program for working age adults and families. The Task Force has commissioned and published a number of…
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A friend recently said she supported the Occupy movement but felt their activities were inconveniencing others. I thought of this while watching police clearing Occupy Nova Scotia from Victoria Park in Halifax. Drenched protestors wrestled to the ground, handcuffed, and dragged through mud into waiting paddy wagons was hardly an…
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CCPA released a new report today by myself and Amanda Card that makes the links between inequality and carbon footprints. We look at the distribution of greenhouse gas emissions for Canada, building on an analysis of BC emissions. While it was not planned this way, the analysis is timely given the Occupy movement’s…
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