The Broadbent Institute joined with Canada's labour movement at the Canadian Labour Congress' 2023 Constitutional Convention in Montréal.

This year's convention featured PressProgress' Emily Leedham, having conversations with workers about her labour journalism at the Broadbent Institute booth on the expo floor, with Institute development coordinator, Kat Mockler.

Emily Leedham and Kat Mockler at the PressProgress booth. Photo via UFCW Canada.

The Broadbent Institute's Jen Hassum moderated the CLC Convention's headline panel on the affordability crisis for the working-class with Canada's leading progressive economists. The panel featured CUPE economist and Broadbent Fellow Angella MacEwen, Centre for the Future of Work's Jim Stanford, as well as Atkinson Fellow and 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize recipient Armine Yalnizyan.

You can listen to the full conversation from the CLC panel on Harbinger Media's Unpacking the News podcast.

Jen Hassum moderates a conversation on inflation and affordability with Jim Stanford, Angella MacEwen, and Armine Yalnizyan. Photo via Canadian Labour Congress.

The new 2023 budget commits to $13 billion in funding over five years for the New Canadian Dental Care Plan, expanding public healthcare to provide dental coverage for middle- and low-income families. Dental care was the first item on the list of terms and conditions laid out between the federal NDP and the Liberal government in the Supply and Confidence Agreement made just a year ago in March 2022.

Among the promises made for a better healthcare system, dental care, along with commitment to passing a Canada Pharmacare Act by the end of 2023 and a Safe Long-Term Care Act, was made to be a condition of upholding the Parliamentary agreement. With the largest expansion of public healthcare in recent memory, to help us explain how this program came to be, we speak with Don Davies, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Kingsway, and federal NDP health critic. Listen to the full conversation.

The federal Liberal government’s budget touts $56 billion in tax credits to spur investments in climate change measures. These come in response to the US Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, which similarly leaned on private sector investment to move towards a so-called green economy. Some have commented that these tax credits and subsidies towards big businesses, to incentivize greener business transformation, electrification, and tech development, constitute a new green industrial policy for Canada.

But is this a real green industrial policy?

To help us understand this Budget 2023 highlight, we’re speaking with Brendan Haley, Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University, and Broadbent Institute Policy Fellow. Brendan is also the author of a recent essay published by the Broadbent Institute that asks ‘Will the Response to the US Inflation Reduction Act Reveal Canada’s Lack of Green Industrial Policy?’ In it, he looks at Canada’s lack of capacity on Green Industrial Policy and why American climate actions need a more robust Canadian industrial policy response than weaker tax credits. Listen to the full conversation.

It’s Federal Budget Day 2023, and it’s tax season, and among the spending and revenue measures being proposed by the Liberal government are changes to capital gains taxes. Director of Policy and Engagement Clement Nocos chats with Professor Jonathan Rhys Kesselman, reacting to changes and missing measures in Federal Budget 2023 for a fairer capital gains taxation system. 

Ahead of Budget 2023, much speculation had been made about capital gain reforms, and to help us make sense of this, I’m joined by Broadbent Policy Fellow Professor Rhys Kesselman, Professor Emeritus at Simon Fraser University.

Professor Kesselman is a frequent commentator on issues of public finance, taxation, and economic policy, and wrote a new paper in March 2023 for Finances of the Nation, a Canadian Tax Foundation publication, looking at pathways to reform of capital gains taxation in Canada. Listen to the full conversation.

Read his latest paper, Pathways to reform of capital gains taxation in Canada, published March 2023 in Finances of the Nation.