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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As we continue to dig into university and college finances in Ontario, what becomes apparent is not only the change in revenue sources these institutions are experiencing (which we discuss here). There are also shifts in how and where institutions choose to spend their money. The current strike by college…
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Now that the dust has begun to settle on the federal government’s train wreck of a tax reform initiative that would have limited the ability of wealthy Canadians to use special provisions for small business to reduce their taxes, it is worth sifting through the ashes for clues as to…
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A lot of numbers are circulated during the coverage of a strike. But in the current strike by Ontario college faculty, two in particular stand out. The first number, 70, is the percent of college faculty who are on contract (these include partial-load, part-time, and sessional faculty—and 70% is the…
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Business in skewed economic assessments of Ontario’s move to a $15 per hour minimum wage has been brisk this week. Only a day before the Chamber of Commerce released its full (of holes) study, the economics department of TD Bank published its own dire predictions about job losses. The gloomy…
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It’s no secret that university and college revenues are shifting, with the public component of funding largely in decline. It’s also no secret—or coincidence—that the tuition and other fees charged to students are up. In most cases, way up. After all, the money has to come from somewhere. And as…
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Earlier this year, the Liberal government passed legislation in the House of Commons that paved the way for the full ratification of the Canada–EU Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). Today, it is celebrating the provisional coming into force of that agreement, stealing some thunder from the Conservatives who negotiated…
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When MPs head back to the Hill next week, we can expect an already heated debate about tax fairness to go up a few more degrees. At the heart of the matter is a decade-old tax loophole accessible to very few people and with very few spinoff benefits to the…
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