Broadbent Institute congratulates Gillard, looks forward to her participation in the Summit

OTTAWA—The Broadbent Institute is delighted by the news that former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard was named yesterday to lead the Global Partnership for Education, an international initiative to provide quality childhood education in developing countries. Gillard is giving the keynote speech at the Institute's Progress Summit in Ottawa on March 29th.

Gillard will be joined as a keynote speaker by economist and author Mariana Mazzucato, Canadian-born French MP Axelle Lemaire, and Human Rights Campaign's Director of Marketing Anastasia Khoo. A dynamic roster of panel speakers will also add their voices to the debate on fairer and more sustainable approaches to building a prosperous 21st century Canadian economy.

"Progressives like Julia Gillard will offer unique perspectives on cutting-edge ideas," said Broadbent Institute Executive Director Rick Smith. "The summit is all about bringing together top-notch policy experts to provide an innovative and tangible contribution to the Canadian public policy debate."

The Progress Summit will take place from March 28-30 in Ottawa. The latest speakers list, including keynote speaker biographies and photos, is available online at www.broadbentinstitute.ca/en/summit.

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For more information, or to request media accreditation, please contact:

Mike Fancie, Broadbent Institute
613-866-3606 or mfancie at broadbentinstitute dot ca

How long would you be willing to wait to be paid for your work?  A normal paycheque may be held back for a couple of weeks or a month, but most of us can be pretty certain when it will arrive.

Not so in for many contractors and their subcontractors in the Ontario construction industry. They often have to wait months or even years for payment, even though they are out of pocket for the labour and materials costs of keeping up their end of the bargain.

Presumably, Jim Flaherty considered the same economic picture of the country as the rest of us when planning the 2014 budget.

That picture is not rosy.

Almost one and half million Canadians are currently out of work. The unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 7% and the employment rate (the proportion of the working age population with a job) has yet to recover since the great recession. For youth, the unemployment rate is almost double that, at 13.9%.

Recessions are always harder on young workers, but we are nearly five years out from the end of the last recession and there is still no recovery in sight for this important demographic.

Between October 2008 and January 2014, there was an increase of 100,000 unemployed young workers (15-29), so that there are now some 540, 000 unemployed. Even more startling, over 350,000 young workers left the labour force entirely over that same period.