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Spill-overs from Good Jobs.

  This paper from Beaudry and Green seems highly relevant to the currently hot issue of community economic impacts from manufacturing job losses.  Manufacturing jobs generally pay above average wages,...

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Reynolds on Manufacturing

Neil Reynolds has discovered that a fraction can be increased by reducing its denominator. Because labour productivity equals output divided by employment, he claims that “In manufacturing, you measure...

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Bill C-30 – Climate Change Policy and Impacts on Workers

Bill C-30 – the Clean Air Act – is a strange beast – a government bill which was fundamentally re-written by the three opposition parties to finally move Canada towards a real national action plan to...

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New report links economic success, investment in training

http://www.ccl-cca.ca/NR/rdonlyres/F6226BEA-0502-4A2D-A2E0-6A7C450C5212/0/connecting_dots_EN.pdf Based on the Executive Summary, this report seems worth a read. It seems to go beyond the common...

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The China Syndrome

The following, from today’s Toronto Star, includes some commentary from yours truly: The China syndrome: A new condition characterized by the apparent reluctance of a certain national government to...

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Hewers of Minerals, Drawers of Oil and Gas

Yesterday’s International Merchandise Trade Annual Review from StatsCan confirms the Mel Watkins thesis that Canada is rapidly reverting to its historical role as a commodity producer for the global...

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Our Economy – The Real Story and the Plan We Need

http://canadianlabour.ca/index.php/Our_Economy__The_rea Here’s the link to a popular pamphlet produced by the CLC for a series of community forums leading up to a national event at the end of the month,

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The Dubious Quality of New Jobs

I spent the better part of this morning sifting through the latest release of Statcan’s Employment, Earnings and Hours release to get a bit of a fix on what’s happening to all of those displaced...

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There’s blood on the factory floors: where’s Ottawa?

For once the headline-writers at the Globe gave my latest column (on continuing job losses in manufacturing) a better headline than the one I suggested (which in this case was a bland one: “Why...

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How can the feds support innovation?

Asks David Crane in today’s Toronto Star. Between the lines I read that the feds need to stop listening to whining corporate elites, whose cries inevitably come back to tax cuts, deregulation, more...

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Industry Canada Promoting Out-Sourcing of Canadian Jobs?

From my morning e mail – bold added. <<Picture (Metafile)>> Le français suit On behalf of Chummer Farina, Director General, Policy and Sector Services Branch, Industry Canada Dear Sir or...

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The Keystone Pipeline

The National Energy Board is holding hearings into the proposal to ship Alberta tar sands bitumen to the US for further refining – something of a reductio ad absurdum in terms of resource-led...

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TILMA: A Report from the Front Line

On Tuesday, I testified before the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly’s Standing Committee on the Economy, which is holding public hearings on joining TILMA. The Legislative Assembly is broadcasting the...

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An Update on Canada’s Two Economies

What follows is a revised and extended version of the comments I made at a panel on the Canadian economy organized by the Bank of Canada and the IMF at the recent Canadian Economics Association...

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Spill-overs from Loss of Good Jobs

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=978399 A new NBER Working Paper from Beadry, Green and Sand of UBC looks interesting.. Spill-Overs from Good Jobs PAUL BEAUDRY University of British...

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Alberta Distortions

I am big on big investment spending.  I’ve argued for years that weak business investment undermines our job creation, our productivity, our incomes, and our competitiveness.  I’ve proposed lots of...

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Exchange Rate Appreciation and Manufacturing Investment

An interesting article just published by my friend Robert Blecker (American University) reinforces our concerns regarding the long-run impact of the loonie’s recent appreciation on the size and...

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The Commodity Price-Exchange Rate Transmission Mechanism

Well, it happened. The petro-fueled loonie broke parity with the greenback yesterday, and is headed higher still. I can’t believe that so many people still interpret this as a symbol of our national...

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Manufacturers Call for “Buy Canadian” Policies

Neo liberal orthodoxy is crumbling in the wake of the ever-deepening manufacturing crisis. Witness yesterday’s call from the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters Association for domestic procurement...

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Structural Regression, the Energy Boom, and Deindustrialization

I want to encourage folks to look through the CAW’s detailed submission to the federal government’s panel on competition policy (headed by Red Wilson).  Here is the link:...

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The Pitfalls of the “Service Economy”

In working on the CAW’s recent submission to the Red Wilson panel, I did a bit of work to debunk the common argument that the growth of the “services economy” can somehow offset the damage that is...

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Ottawa’s Automotive Tax Grab

Even Jim Flaherty’s “We Don’t Pick Winners” Conservatives were under pressure in this budget to do something for the auto industry.  The fact that at least a dozen swing ridings in southwestern Ontario...

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Canada’s Manufacturing Crisis in International Perspective

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has just released a comparison of manufacturing output, employment, productivity, and unit labour costs in 16 different industrialized countries.  Here’s the link:...

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Ticket rage: a national solution

It is so nice to see the backlash against Ticketmaster’s monopolistic practices. Two class action suits have been filed in Canada over the past weeks, and south of the border anti-trust alarm bells are...

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Steelworkers and the Auto Bailout

As has been widely reported, Ron Bloom from my union’s Pittsburgh headquarters will serve on President Obama’s Task Force on Autos. One might ask why a Steelworker is involved in crafting the...

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The Case Against Ticketmaster

Anti-trust lawyer David Balto, with the Center for American Progress, recently made the case against Ticketmaster’s proposed merger with LiveNation in testimony to the US Congress. The testimony also...

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Stock options, the buyback boondoggle and the crisis of capitalism

As if there weren’t already enough reasons to eliminate the egregious stock option tax loophole, a column by Eric Reguly in this month’s Report on Business magazine highlights yet another.  This reason...

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Stanford vs Watson on Industrial Policy

Bill Watson might just be my very favourite right-wing economist.  (He might disagree with that moniker.  Or he might not.  He probably thinks he’s just being ”rational.”)  Prof at McGill, punchy...

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A hip hop version of the Keynes vs Hayek debate

Here’s a new take on bringing economic theory to the masses — a rap battle between Keynes and Hayek. What’s amazing about it is the amount of solid (if not plain nerdy) content this video packs into...

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The Sell-Off of Corporate Canada

The announcement this week that Prime Minister Stephen Harper is not going to intervene in the sale of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan to the Australian conglomerate, BHP Billiton Ltd., speaks volumes...

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Climbing Down the Value Ladder

There’s a shockingly honest and accurate article about Canada’s deteriorating trade performance in today’s Globe and Mail by Barrie McKenna. It notes that Canada’s trade balance improved dramatically...

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Another Indicator of Canada’s Deindustrialization

I recently came across a fascinating working paper from the good folks at the Levy Institute, which provides some new data on Canada’s rather subservient role in world commerce: “Product Complexity and...

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Use University Research to Increase Manufacturing Jobs

Manufacturing jobs have been declinining as a percentage of total jobs in most OECD countries for several decades, with Ontario being especially hard-hit as a jurisdiction. At the end of the Second...

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How To Fund Innovation

Just over a year ago, I wrote an opinion piece about the federal government’s “innovation strategy” and its impact on the post-secondary education sector. In the piece, I argue that the strategy has...

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Federal R&D Panel Report

In a week when business lobby groups are appearing before the House of Commons Committee on Finance and calling for more tax breaks, the federal R&D Panel appointed a year ago released a very good...

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Drummond’s Productivity “Puzzle.”

Don Drummond confesses that he has been wrong to believe that changes in public policies – such as free trade, cuts to corporate taxes, low inflation, the  introduction of the GST, balanced budgets and...

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Upstream Supply Chain as Sector Development Strategy

My column in Wednesday’s Globe and Mail suggested that Canada implement a “Buy Canadian” strategy associated with major natural resource developments, with the goal of enhancing Canadian content in the...

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A Green Industrial Revolution

Today the CCPA released a new big picture report by myself and student researcher Amanda Card calling for a Green Industrial Revolution. The report builds on work done for the BC-focused Climate...

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Clean electricity, conservation and a zero-carbon future

Today we released a new Climate Justice Project report, Clean Electricity, Conservation and Climate Justice in BC: Meeting our energy needs in a zero-carbon future, co-authored by John Calvert and...

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Canada: Land of Mines and Banks

Just in time for Canada Day, the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business issued its annual Top 1000 rankings of the thousand largest publicly traded companies (by assets) in Canada (ranked by profit).  I...

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Closing the Loop: Zero Waste, GHG Emissions and Green Jobs in BC

Below is the summary for our latest Climate Justice Project report, Closing the Loop: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Creating Green Jobs through Zero Waste in BC (I recommend checking the much...

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Industrial Policy, Manufacturing Employment, and the Loonie

The Institute for Research on Public Policy has published a very interesting overview study on the resuscitation of “industrial policy” in economic policy circles.  It points out that industrial policy...

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The Entrepreneurial State

 In her important new book “The Entrepreneurial State” which got a rave review from Martin Wolf in the Financial Times, University of Sussex economist Mariana Mazzucato attacks the conventional view...

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The Staple Theory @ 50: Jim Stanford

Winter is now officially upon us, and so it is time to conclude our autumn-long series of special commentaries marking the 50th anniversary of Mel Watkins’ classic article, “A Staple Theory of Economic...

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Indigenous Workers in Canada

Labour market data in Canada is easily available by sex, age, and region. We spend a great deal of time talking about these factors. More recently Statistics Canada made labour market data available on...

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Trudeau, Carbon Pricing, Regional Politics, and Technology Policy

Yesterday, Justin Trudeau appeared to be backing away from a national carbon price. He says some of the provinces have already implemented carbon pricing, so the federal government will be left to...

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Political Reality and Climate Policy: A Response to Mark Jaccard

Mark Jaccard’s article in Policy Options has generated a lot of interest. It is a provocative article that challenges the economic orthodoxy that prioritizes carbon pricing above all else. Jaccard...

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Foundations for an Alberta Alternative Budget

An Alberta-based volunteer working group, of which I’m a part, recently released a document titled Foundations for an Alberta Alternative Budget (for media coverage, see this Metro article).  Working...

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Ten Things To Know About The 2017 Federal Budget

I’ve just written a blog post in which I review the recent federal budget. Points raised in the blog post include the following: -The federal government is projecting deficits in the $20B-$30B range...

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Fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces

I’ve just written a blog post about the fiscal situation of Canada’s ‘oil rich’ provinces (i.e., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador). It consists of a summary of key points raised at a...

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