A couple of months ago, my colleague Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood considered five ways in which Canada’s climate policy might be affected (hopefully for the better) by the Biden-Harris presidency. Inauguration day now safely behind us (phew), I thought I would perform a similar thought experiment with Biden’s proposed worker- and climate-centred…
Read more
“Buy Sustainable” policies are the best way forward for Canadian workers and the environment.
The U.S.–Canada trade war is far from over. Whether it resumes hinges in large part on the outcome of this presidential election.
On July 21, the Alternative Federal Budget (AFB) Recovery Plan was released. The document aims to provide public policy direction to Canada’s federal government, in light of the current COVID-19 pandemic (more information on the AFB Recovery Plan can be found here, while an overview of the AFB’s history is…
Read more
By Chris Parsons and Christine Saulnier Nova Scotia’s Auditor General Michael Pickup calls the government’s decision to use a P3 model (public-private partnership) for the $2 billion Queen Elizabeth II redevelopment “reasonable and appropriate.” The problem is, we don’t know how he arrived at his conclusion. At a minimum, the…
Read more
It is reasonable to think there will be no return to normal after this crisis. First of all, because the health crisis is already changing our relationship to the community, to public services, to governments, to supply chains, to borders and to relations among nations. And then because, even before…
Read more
Canada and countries across the globe face a daunting challenge with the advent of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a pandemic, as countries the world over try to contain the spread and health authorities race to treat casualties under incredible pressure. These are not…
Read more
The 2020-21 Alberta budget was tabled on February 27, just four months after the previous post-election budget. Jason Kenney’s United Conservative government is cutting public spending while also cutting corporate taxes, and thousands of public sector jobs are expected to be lost over the remainder of his term. Here are…
Read more
Indifference, said Antonio Gramsci, is “the mainspring of history.” By that he meant it is not the active few who determine what comes to pass, for better or worse, but “the absenteeism of the many.” The indifferent masses, he said, “allow the knots to form that in time only a…
Read more
The Ontario government is once again touting the wonders of using public-private partnerships (P3s) to build infrastructure. In an update released September 10, Infrastructure Minister Laurie Scott said the province has $65 billion worth of projects in the pipeline to build new transit, expand hospitals and construct a new correctional…
Read more