With the recent release of the federal government’s fall economic statement, Canadians got their first official overview of the government’s fiscal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments in Canada have implemented or announced $382.4-billion in fiscal measures, according to the federal government’s statement. Numbers of this magnitude are hard to…
Read more
Amazon’s rise from online bookseller to trillion-dollar global logistics, internet, merchandising and entertainment behemoth was fast and ferocious. Behind the same-day deliveries and trend-setting television series is a company committed to ruthlessly destroying productive economic activity and debasing workers. It is helped along in this pursuit by aggressive (but legal) tax…
Read more
Since the birth of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, most member states have had to abide by the Agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which protects patents and copyrights including those applicable to new diagnostics, vaccines, medicines and medical supplies. In early October, India and South…
Read more
A few years ago, the idea of “straight pride” had its moment in the sun. Hetero cis men took to their various soapboxes and asked why, if 2SLGBTQ+ folks had Pride events, were there not equivalent events for heterosexuals? Similar arguments regrettably, but unsurprisingly, have been made comparing Black History…
Read more
I’ve recently co-authored a journal article¹ with Ali Jadidzadeh that asks the question: Do higher social assistance benefit levels lead to greater take-up? The short answer is yes, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t increase benefit levels. Here are 11 things to know about the study. 1. The study looks only at employable adult…
Read more
Fast Facts: Roughly 4 million Canadians were receiving Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) in August and early September. The move from a $400 to $500 weekly amount in Employment Insurance (EI) and Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB) will improve benefits for 1.8 million CERB recipients. 776,000 CERB recipients will receive no…
Read more
“We must not let the legacy of the pandemic be one of rolling back the clock on women’s participation in the workforce, nor one of backtracking on the social and political gains women and allies have fought so hard to secure.” (Speech from the Throne, September 23, 2020) This call…
Read more
Overcoming this pandemic that we’re living in requires the work and resolve of every order of government, every community, and each one of us—throne speech 2020 is a test of that resolve. It sets the stage for whether the federal government is going all in to ensure that no one…
Read more
When you add up the total wealth growth of Canada’s richest 20 billionaires since the March 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, their wealth has ballooned by $37 billion. Data from Forbes’ annual billionaires list and their “real-time billionaires” listing shows that Canada’s top 20 billionaires have amassed an average of just under…
Read more
As the back-to-school terrain and announcements shift, fear and anxiety continue to rise. Second-guesswork, anxiety and wanting what’s best for your child are the great parental equalizers. What parents are able to do to mitigate that, however, is not equal—not by a long shot. It shouldn’t be lost on anyone…
Read more