Read the full 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture

This edition of the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was held on Tuesday, May 23rd at an event in partnership with Toronto Metropolitan University’s Faculty of Arts. A special thanks to TMU Dean of Arts Pamela Sugiman for hosting this Broadbent Institute event.

Ellen Meiksins Wood was one of the left's foremost theorists on democracy and history, and often promoted the idea that democracy always has to be fought for and secured from below, never benevolently conferred from above. The Institute founded the annual Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize & Lecture to honour Professor Wood’s legacy as an internationally renowned scholar and to bring her work to new generations of Canadians.

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize is given annually to an academic, labour activist or writer and recognizes outstanding contributions in political theory, social or economic history, human rights, or sociology.

Each year’s recipient also delivers the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture.

From left to right: Clement Nocos (Director of Policy, Broadbent Institute), Ed Broadbent (Chair Emeritus, Broadbent Institute), Armine Yalnizyan (2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize recipient), Pamela Sugiman (Dean of Arts, Toronto Metropolitan University), Jennifer Hassum (Executive Director, Broadbent Institute).

The 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was delivered by economist Armine Yalnizyan—a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene.

Her lecture, entitled Progress vs. 2023: A Guide to the Fight Ahead, presented her sweeping vision of what it means to be a progressive in 2023, taking us on a tour of the evolution of progressive ideas, and its constancy. She showed how context has shaped strategy, and lay out the push and the pull of the moment: the challenges facing the progressive agenda and the momentum building for it.

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.