Turning goals into results

In a country of many competing interests and multiple governments, getting them all to co-ordinate their activities to achieve the ambitious goals outlined at the beginning of this piece will be complicated and difficult.

Donald Trump as a George Orwell ‘nationalist’

Donald Trump has clearly shown whose side he is on: the powerful and the unethical, domestically, and the aggressors, internationally. We now know who he is. It is for the American people to decide who they are.

Looking beyond productivity stats will improve outcomes for Canadians

Having a bad short-term productivity performance since 2020 is a problem. Avoiding it at the cost of a continuing decline in the employment rate and increased inequality in the distribution of labour income would have been far worse.

A recipe for Conservative defeat

Not only is the party’s national vote not efficiently distributed, but it has also become less efficiently distributed in the byelections since Pierre Poilievre became leader.

This just in: high poverty rates and inequality are not inevitable

Disposable income inequality peaked in 2004. And the overall relative poverty rate, using a common international definition, peaked in 2015. Between 2004-2015, little progress was made in reducing disposable income inequality. But since 2015, there has been a remarkable reversal in these trends.

The appropriate federal fiscal policy? You be the judge

On balance, the government’s choice to risk a rise in inflation to protect the living standards of the most vulnerable and minimize the number of businesses thrown into bankruptcy was the right one.

Choosing the party leader: should it be left to the caucus?

While a party’s parliamentary caucus may be the best body to decide when a leader should go, its members are not necessarily the best group to decide who should be the next leader. For one thing, they may be more interested in choosing someone who will help them get re-elected personally than in winning nationally.

Charest could win the next election for the Conservatives, Poilievre can’t 

A Guaranteed Basic Income is tempting, but there’s got to be a better way

Poverty rates are falling: has anybody noticed? 

U.S. urgently needs full employment

Lessons from New Brunswick’s pandemic election

The Conservative dilemma

Is the federal government still running a deficit? It depends

Liberals’ 2015 economic and fiscal plan: did they deliver? Yep

Eliminating poverty with a universal basic income: the devil is in the details