The best measure of the political saliency of expanding public pensions might be the progression of conservative think tank studies purporting to show that there is no need for an expanded CPP or for the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan. In the past few months, we have heard: CPP expansion is…
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Over the past few weeks, an OECD infographic has been making the rounds on social media. The image shows the number of weekly hours needed at minimum wage to move out of poverty in certain of countries. The infographic suggests that in Canada, one needs to work 38 hours per…
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When Alex first arrives at the drop-in computer class at his local neighbourhood house he’s never used a keyboard or surfed the Internet before. But he’s determined to learn so he can apply for government services he needs as a recently unemployed person with disabilities. Alex attends the weekly drop-in…
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In a televised exchange with Michel Nadeau of the Institute for gouvernance of private and public organizations (IGOPP), I stated that public corporation executives’ level of compensation functioned just like a ransom. The discussion heated up, and I did not have the chance to explain what I meant when I…
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Two separate instances (in June 2014 in the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and February 2015 in the Ottawa Catholic Board) of students with autism being restrained with handcuffs at school to try and “diffuse” their respective situations underscore the public’s limited understanding of disability and impairment in Ontario’s education system…
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On June 27, a column by Tom Brodbeck in the Winnipeg Sun called out the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and myself for allegedly “[trying] to scare Canadians.” He said we were wrong when we predicted higher numbers of prison inmates and higher costs as a…
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Yesterday, the CCPA released our second annual report, The Best and Worst Places to be a Woman In Canada 2015, which ranks Canada’s 25 biggest cities based on the gaps in how men and women are faring in five key areas: economic security (as measured by gender gaps in employment, pay and the…
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In the spring of 2013, we studied the economic trajectories of Canada and Quebec following the 2008 crisis. I decided to update the data from this previous study to see how the situation has evolved. Two years ago, the concept of the “austerity trap/stagnation” seemed to best describe the economic…
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It’s only been a couple of weeks since Disney, that most iconic of American companies, moved to displace all its home grown techies with low-cost foreign temporary workers. But the company had to beat a hasty retreat in the face of an outpouring of criticism. Amid the deluge of commentary…
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Quebec’s government claims it has an economic strategy—cutting in the public sector and turning to extractivism. The scenario laid out for resource regions is particularly clear: to pave the way (quite literally!) for foreign mining companies so that they come to invest and to create jobs, or else to give…
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