Am I happy with the 2018 federal budget? Well, many of the items in it can be found in this year’s and past Alternative Federal Budgets (AFB), which of course is a good thing. But in general I’d say this is an ambition constrained budget. The government had the fiscal…
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New 2016 Census data shows an increasing share of the population comprises racialized, immigrant, and Indigenous people in Canada but the income gap between them and the rest of Canadians remains stubbornly high. The gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is high There were 1.7 million Indigenous people in Canada…
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Can the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) be redesigned as a progressive trade deal? Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland seems to think so. Under her guidance, Canada has entered the NAFTA renegotiations with an eye-catching set of objectives. Not only does Minister Freeland promise that Canada’s negotiators will push…
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Ontario announced plans in May to boost the minimum wage to $15 an hour by January 2019. In my recent report, Ontario Needs a Raise, I calculated who would benefit most from this overdue wage hike, but Indigenous workers were not included because the Labour Force Survey (LFS) public use…
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In a particularly repugnant move, the Fraser Institute chose National Aboriginal Day (June 21) to release a report by Tom Flanagan claiming that a sharp increase in people with Registered Indian status will drive up government costs. The methodology employed by Flanagan is remarkably shoddy, as I explain below. I’m…
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We all want to feel good about what Canada stands for. From progress on LGBTQ rights, to communities coming together to support new immigrants, to modest steps toward reconciliation, there are reasons to be proud of how far we’ve come in 2017. But are we prepared to move beyond pride—to…
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Photo via Evan Guest / Flickr It’s been a little over a week since we were jolted by the profoundly disturbing reality of a Donald Trump US presidency. We’ve all found ourselves in many discussions about how such an abhorrent and blatantly racist and misogynist candidate could have won the…
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Photo: Justin Trudeau and Christy Clark at the United Nations COP 21 Climate Change Conference. Source: Province of BC / Flickr.com For decades, the urgent need for climate action was stymied by what came to be known as “climate denialism” (or its more mild cousin, “climate skepticism”). In an effort…
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Given the tragic youth suicide crisis in Attawapiskat this spring, and the constant cycle of media reports about the abject poverty on reserves, you’d think that tracking poverty in those communities would be a no-brainer for the Canadian government. Turns out, not so much. Did you know that Statistics Canada…
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First Nations communities face some of the most distressing levels of child poverty in this country. A history of colonialism, racism, residential schools, and the inequitable distribution of resources has resulted in a range of devastating social and economic inequities for Indigenous communities—and the impacts of these inequities can be seen in the…
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