Higher education no silver bullet in fight against inequality
Young people are constantly told that a post secondary qualification is the key to getting a good job, and tens of thousands of students are graduating this year in search...
Corporate Tax Cuts, Lost Revenues and Lagging Business Investment
Corporate tax cuts have been central to the Harper government's economic agenda. The result has been a huge loss of public revenues for negligible economic gain, suggesting that we need...
Statement by Rick Smith on passage of Bill C-377
Today, Bill C-377 passed Third Reading in the Senate after the Conservative government shut down debate. If there was any doubt this anti-labour “Private Member’s Bill” didn't have the...
Fiscal Austerity Causing Long Term Economic Damage
While Canada's short term economic prospects are pretty gloomy, longer term projections are even worse. A major reason is that policy-makers here and in all of the advanced industrial countries...
Good labour relations key to educational achievement
Recent tensions in relationships between provincial governments and teachers, especially in British Columbia and Ontario, deserve to be understood in a wider context. Good labour relations in education and positive...
The lasting legacy of the 60s and 70s Scoop
On a hot summer July afternoon, a social worker handed me over to a young Saskatchewan farming couple. I was three months old, and my adoptive mother tells me I...
Can Pope Francis change the climate on climate change?
Pope Francis has set out to transform the issue of climate change into a moral imperative, not just for the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, but for everyone. He is unambiguous...
The Paradox of Redistribution
The issue of how to deal with rising inequality and the squeezed middle-class has recently moved to the centre of political debate, with the various parties proposing significant policy changes....
Conservative's new law creates second class citizens
The Canadian government passed Bill C-24 this week, giving itself the power to revoke citizenship of dual citizens convicted in Canadian courts or abroad of committing "acts against Canada,"including terrorism,...
Fun, games and inequality
“You can do anything you put your mind to” is a message that has been instilled in the minds of North Americans. People are taught that if they work hard...
