Heading into Ontario’s June 7 election, the three major political parties have made distinct expenditure promises and revenue announcements. Let’s look at these fiscal plans in historical and comparative context (see note 1). Ontario governments have traditionally supplied a comparatively low level of public services (e.g., health, education, etc.) and…
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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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Just how likely is it that a NAFTA deal can be concluded this year? Last week, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan entered the fray, saying that this Thursday (May 17) is the drop-dead date for the Trump administration to notify Congress that a NAFTA deal has been reached, if there…
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This year’s Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) has just been released. I was proud to be part of this year’s effort, coordinated by staff of the National Office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Here are 10 measures proposed in this year’s AFB: Create 470,000 new (full-time equivalent) jobs….
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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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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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On November 22, the Trudeau government unveiled its much-anticipated National Housing Strategy. While much of the Strategy’s content and funding levels had already been broadly outlined in the most recent federal budget, the Strategy provides further detail on the content of a renewed federal role in affordable housing. Here are 10 things…
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I was really hoping the recent release of Census data would bring good news: wage gap closed! Racial discrimination gone! Equality achieved! Not so much. Gaps in pay for women and racialized groups persist. Ditto for immigrants and Indigenous peoples. Consider Toronto, Canada’s largest city and one of its most…
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It has now been two years since world leaders created the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. At those meetings, the Canadian delegation joined a broad coalition aiming to keep “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the…
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