A summary of Tom Flanagan’s remarks at the First Annual Alberta Economic Summit convened by Alison Redford, the premier of Alberta, and held at Mount Royal University on February 9, 2013. Flanagan compared Alberta’s fiscal situation today with the situation Ralph Klein and Jim Dinning dealt with 20 years ago.
Workplace
Cutting Red Tape
This week the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) is hosting its fourth annual Red Tape Awareness Week™ 2013. In the spirit of the “Red Tape Revolution” here is a poem about red tape reduction initiatives.
The Celtic Workforce (Linda West)
PowerPoint slides which accompanied Linda West’s speech The Celtic Workforce that she gave in Winnipeg, September 20, 2012.
Hey, Mitt, Voters Aren’t the Obstacle: Understanding where the opposition to change really comes from.
Voters are not the primary obstacle to reform. Forty-five-year-olds don’t rise in revolt because somebody proposes raising the retirement age decades from now. One of the fastest growing federal liabilities is the Social Security disability system. Advocates for the disabled actually criticize the program for not doing more to get recipients back into jobs and off the dole.
Featured News
Our Health Ministers Need to Take a Lesson from Hockey Coaches
Those of you who are tired of my rants about the demise of our once great health system will be pleased to know that this is my last editorial. I am retiring from the BCMJ Editorial Board; currently, I am the longest-serving member (more than 20 years). I have been a...
Zinchuk: Oilpatch Only Spending Half What It Spent in 2014
Back in the lofty, pre-Justin Trudeau government days of 2014, back when oil was booming, pipelines were planned to east and west coasts, and Alberta and Saskatchewan were swimming in money, around $81 billion was spent in capital expenditures (CAPEX) in the Canadian...
Manitoba: The Supplicant Society (Part 1 of 8): Province in ‘negative feedback loop’
Manitoba has evolved into a supplicant society based on equalization payments that have the unintentional effect of limiting the province’s freedom and prosperity.
Terrific NYT Piece on The “Green Economy”
It hints at why subsidies for “green industries” are so attractive to politicians and to the public and why the potential for these industries to create scads of good jobs for unskilled workers in countries like Canada and the United States is probably limited in the long-term.
Economics and Compassion from Saskatchewan Federation of Labour President
Is there no economic value in having people do their work in the province of Saskatchewan? I think there is and I think that it’s wrong-headed for business and industry to ship these jobs offshore or outsource them to low wage ghettos.
Or so said Saskatchewan Federation of Labour President Larry Hubich in a recent radio interview with Roger Currie on CKRM. Hubich was referring to decision by Post Media News to have circulation calls answered in the Dominican Republic.
Rarely does anybody raise so many questions or offend so many senses in two sentences. Is there “no economic value” in outsourcing and trade, and if there is then when? Who does he refer to as “low wage ghettos” and, assuming the people living wherever that is are human too, perhaps they need the business even more considering their low wages? Should our greatest compassion be for workers in developing countries or the high wage, low unemployment environment of Saskatchewan? Or is that a false question, because workers in Saskatchewan are more likely Post Media services’ consumers than its employees so the costs and benefits for the people of Saskatchewan cancel each other out?
The coming battle: delivering better services, not cutting resources
The coming battle should be about delivering better services, not about cutting resources
What’s Causing Big CEO Pay Increases?
I just finished reading a report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) describing growth in the compensation for the highest paid CEOs in Canada in recent years. The author clearly think very high levels of CEO pay are a problem. He also hints that high rates of CEO pay are the result of unfair mutual back-scratching when he writes that everyone involved in decision-making on salaries is “in the club” and part of the same “community of interest” even if there is not a direct conflict of interest.
Others who are worried about executive compensation have made very similar points. Linda McQuaig, a Toronto Star/Calgary Beacon columnist (and, full disclosure, a personal friend) makes a similar point when she writes that CEOs have pushed up their own salaries through “their control of corporate boards.” The idea here is that since the board members are often corporate executives themselves, they benefit by giving another CEO a higher salary because this will raise the standard for executive pay, which will help them get a bigger raise when their turn to negotiate comes around.
Government ‘Fixes’ Only Worsen Problems
“Songs that are “golden oldies” have much less pleasant counterparts in politics — namely, ideas and policies that have failed disastrously in the past but still keep coming back to be advocated and imposed by government.”
Cuba to Cut State Jobs in Tilt Toward Free Market
“Cuba will lay off more than half a million state workers and try to create hundreds of thousands of private-sector jobs, a dramatic attempt by the hemisphere’s only Communist country to shift its nearly bankrupt economy toward a more market-oriented system.”
Canada’s New, Culture-Driven Abuse Of Women And Girls: Honour killings come from problems in culture
Back in June, in an “honour-killing” murder trial now known across Canada, Muhammad Parvez and Waqas Parvez pleaded guilty to the 2007 murder of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez (their daughter/sister respectively). According to media reports, not one of the twelve people...
Anti-Social Union Practices Can’t Hide Behind Greater Good: Tolerance of unsavoury organizing practices shouldn’t rest on public good arguments
Unsavoury union organizing seems to get more of a pass than it deserves in Saskatchewan, analysing the economics of union labour suggests it shouldn’t.