Austerity and the Decline of the Collective
(Notes for Second Annual Arnold Amber Memorial Lecture, Toronto, May 29, 2019) I am honoured to be celebrating the life and values of Arnold Amber. Celebrating social justice and human rights and a...
View ArticleAfter the Pandemic
First Policy Response has brought together diverse views (including my own) on how the pandemic recession differs from previous recessions and what we need to do to get through this and come out...
View ArticleHow to Pay for a Just and Green Recovery
Some colleagues and I published this piece on how to pay for “building back better”. The Broadbent Institute published this longer version here.
View ArticleReview of Hugh Segal’s Bootstraps Need Boots
Hugh Segal has written an engaging personal and political memoir and plea for basic income. Here’s my review in Alberta Views.
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Don’t Panic: Debt Can Build a Better World
This is an updated version of an article that first appeared in Alberta Views (December issue). COVID-19, this microscopic bug, seems to have upended just about everything. History provides no perfect...
View ArticleA Cure for Deficit and Tax Phobia
It started as a FB post, morphed into this CCPA blog, and who knows what’s next: the case for an approach to public finance that enables the level of ambition these times require: The upcoming federal...
View ArticleThe Case for Deficits and Higher Taxes
Rather than wringing our hands about if and when the federal government plans to balance the budget or about the lack of a fiscal anchor to discipline federal spending, we should take the opportunity...
View ArticleWhat would a transformational budget look like?
Reactions to this week’s federal budget have been all over the map. Is it too much, too little? Is it the shock the country needs or a missed opportunity to set a new course? As expected, a number of...
View ArticleInvesting in Care, Not Profit
Central to building the care economy is reversing our dependence on for profit delivery. Here is a position paper by a number of colleagues and I on addressing the tragedy of long term care....
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Thoughtful Thursday: something to think about (from Jane Fritz blog)
Thoughtful Thursday: something to think about
View ArticleBIG CHANGE
Big change is hard though of course big change is just what’s needed. The experts warn and our leaders confirm that we are in the midst of a climate emergency, an existential threat. Every day we see...
View ArticleMAKING BIG CHANGE
I recently posted a piece I did for CCPA’s The Monitor recommending five readings on big change. Here I will try to distill some of what I gleaned about what it might take. Know the barriers: Big...
View Article“Hope and Enlightenment in Dark Times”
https://modernpoetryintranslation.com/alla-gutnikovas-speech-from-court-friday-8-april-2022/ Alla Gutnikova’s speech from the Russian court as she is to be sentenced for standing for peace, for our...
View ArticleInterregnum: finding hope and solidarity in times of crisis and division
Notes for a CCPA (national) planning session, April 25, 2022. I chair or sit on a number of boards all of which have been going through exercises much like this one. I must say taking stock in this...
View ArticleInflation: austerity is not the solution, it’s the problem
SURELY WE HAVE ENOUGH TO worry about without renewed warnings about runaway inflation. But even amid all our various crises, inflation continues to make its way into the headlines: “Canada’s inflation...
View ArticleCanada needs proportional representation
Here are both sides of the debate on electoral reform, the right one (written by me) and the one opposed. Electoral reform is not a side issue: it goes to the heart of who and what government is for,...
View ArticleThe Politics of Inflation
If democracy is always a battle for who decides, the powerful few or the many, inflation is the current battleground. And what we are getting is what we have been always been getting at least since...
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View ArticleFault Lines
I was honoured to chair the Council Of Canadian Academies panel on misinformation. How can we hope to agree on where we are going if we can’t even agree on where we are? How can we solve those...
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What Does a Prudent Budget Look Like in these Uncertain Times?
I have been trying to sort out why I so dislike the recent federal budget. The loudest critics – the Conference Board, bank economists, much of the mainstream media – have complained about too much...
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