News and Blogs

Find the latest news from the Institute, and policy ideas from the Broadbent Blog, Canada's hub for Canada's leading progressive voices.
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Institute.


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David McNally: Addressing Inequality by Rebuilding the Labour Movement

While growing social inequality is the product of a multi-pronged economic, political and cultural offensive by corporate power across the neoliberal era, the systematic weakening of trade unions looms especially...

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Andrew Jackson: The Distribution of Wealth: Implications for the Neo Liberal Justification for Economic Inequality

Nobel Prize winning economist and political theorist Amartya Sen points out that “every normative theory of social arrangements that has at all stood the test of time seems to demand...

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Why there is little satisfaction to be found in Canadian manufacturing

On January 16, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute published a study by former Statistics Canada analyst Philip Cross, entitled “Dutch Disease, Canadian Cure.” It argues that “after 10 years of a muscular...

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Martha Friendly: Why high-quality universal child care is part of a more equal Canada for all of us

If anything positive has emerged from Canada's rising inequality, it is that a bona fide discussion about "the Canada we want" is becoming a mainstream staple of political dialogue. Not...

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John Stapleton: A Ball Player, a Cop, a Janitor, and a Welfare Recipient

To whom do we compare ourselves when we think about reducing inequality? On June 6, 2012, former Toronto mayor John Sewell and conservative MPP Peter Shurman had the following exchange...

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Why taxing pollution deserves serious discussion

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his party have recently attempted to demonize Opposition Leader Tom Mulcair for his alleged advocacy of a “job-killing carbon tax.” As has been widely noted,...

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Colleen Davison: Adding Nuance to our Discussions of Inequalities in Canada: Urban-Rural Health Differences

If you woke up this morning and put your feet on the floor in Moosenee, Iona, Bella Coola or Longlac, then the chances are that your health is poorer than...

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Peter Graefe: Fitting Federal Equality into a More Equal Canada

Any project for social and economic equality in Canada faces a challenge: our primary collective lever for change, the state, is a confusing and complicated machine of federal-provincial relationships.  Most...

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Daniel Wilson: Income Inequality and Indigenous Peoples in Canada

Canadians are awakening to the fact that income inequality is a seriously problematic trend that marginalizes large segments of society and threatens social harmony and progress. However, for Indigenous people,...

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Frank Cunningham: Some Thoughts Inspired by “Toward a More Equal Canada”

Towards a More Equal Canada nicely summarizes three recent discussions about equality: the question of why people should endorse egalitarian policies, or, as I would prefer to put it,  why they...