On behalf of the Broadbent Institute, we would like to acknowledge and congratulate the Senate for voting in favour of Senator Hugh Segal's amendments to Bill C-377 and for standing up for the rights of millions of Canadian workers.  

The Census — replaced by the National Household Survey in 2011 — is our key source of information for “visible minority” persons, best known as racialized persons (since race is a social rather than biological concept) and since “minorities” make up close to the majority of the population in the large urban centres of Toronto, Montreal,  and Vancouver.

In 2011, one in five (19.1%) of all Canadians belonged to visible minority groups, up from one in six (16.2%) in 2006. Almost one quarter of young people age 20 to 24 belong to a visible minority group.

Harvard University economist Gregory Mankiw, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under United States President George W. Bush and, more recently, a key economic adviser to Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, mounts a spirited defence of the very rich in an article to be published in the next issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Mankiw’s central argument, recently highlighted by Chrystia Freeland, is that very high incomes reflect exceptional productive contributions by highly talented individuals which benefit the rest of society.

Barack Obama’s new climate change plan could significantly shift the landscape for Canadian economic and climate policy. It should really invite reflection on the Canadian side of the border about the direction in which we should be heading as a country.

Lots of questions remain about the details and implementation of the U.S. plan. What will the Environmental Protection Agency’s power plant regulations look like?  Will the White House be able to bypass Congress and coordinate with cities and states? What are the implications for Obama’s eventual decision on the Keystone XL pipeline?