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...
Balanced Budget Law is Poor Economics
The balanced budget legislation introduced as part of the federal budget is based on dubious economic principles that should raise the eyebrows of even fiscally conservative economists.
Five challenges for bending the health care cost curve in Canada
Greg Marchildon and Livio Di Matteo Canadian economists received a pleasant surprise this year: expenditure growth on public health care in Canada finally appears to be slowing down. However, it...
Inequality and Inter Generational Unfairness
There has been a great deal of recent media commentary on inter generational unfairness, much of which misleadingly argues that affluent older Canadians are benefiting from current economic and social...
Confessions of an idealist democrat
I taught Canadian government for 30 years and over that time the course content traced the growing shift of power from Parliament to the executive branch and increasingly to the...
