Canada's wealth gap is getting harder to close
In his now famous book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty argues that there is a strong tendency for wealth to become concentrated in ever fewer hands unless the...
OECD to Canada: tax stock options to combat inequality
The OECD Economic Survey of Canada released today calls for tax reforms which would increase government revenues while also reducing inequality, specifically calling for changes to preferential treatment of stock...
Who wins with income splitting?
If Stephen Harper’s goal was to design a tax policy to make income inequality in this country even worse, he can pat himself on the back. That’s exactly what the Conservatives’ family income-splitting...
Canadian-born visible minority youth face an unfair job future
Data from the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS) which replaced the long- form census indicate that racial status remains a significant factor in shaping advantage and disadvantage in the Canadian...
Race and the wilful ignorance of Margaret Wente
Truth, progress and science. The relationship between these concepts is unwieldy and complex. As media scholars, we read Margaret Wente’s column heralding journalist Nicholas Wade’s new book and cringed, recognizing the...
Thomas Piketty's body blow to conventional economic wisdom
During the ordinary working of capitalism – absent the extraordinary Great Wars and Great Depression of the first half of the twentieth century – inequality, as manifested in the distribution...
Quebec a sign that federalism works
The run up to the recent Quebec election prompted a revival of the argument that only federal transfers keep that fiscally-challenged province afloat. For example, Mark Milke of the Fraser...
Conservatives learn efficiency, not fossil fuels, the path to energy security
On May 1st, the Standing Committee on Natural Resources considered the issue of “Energy Security of Ukraine and the Rest of Europe”. Government MPs likely picked this topic because they were expecting...
Are we nearing "peak women"?
As is well-known, the proportion of women who are active in the paid work force has grown very rapidly since the 1970s, transforming the workplace and society as a whole...
'Economic freedom' and the politics of environmental performance
The Fraser Institute released a report (on Earth Day naturally) claiming that, "air pollution declines as economic freedom rises." PressProgress provided a quick reality check on some of the main idiocies...
