After a decade of corporate tax cuts, the benefits to Canada’s largest corporations are clear but the job creation payoff for Canadians hasn’t materialized, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The study, by CCPA Research Associate David Macdonald, tracked 198 of the 245 companies on the S&P/TSX composite […]

Stephen Harper’s announcement that he is going to reach his deficit elimination goal a year early and do it by lopping $11 billion off federal spending is in effect lifting the veil on his long feared “hidden agenda.” It is hidden no more as the polling numbers, for both his leadership and his party’s support, […]

 The election campaign is less than week old and Stephen Harper seems to be demonstrating that he is even more of a mad hatter than people thought. Despite his superman view of himself – the smartest man in the universe not just in the room – he has looked very shaky and is proving that […]

Would Stephen Harper attack Libya simply to justify spending tens of billions of dollars on F-35 fighter jets? Perhaps. But, add on doing it for major Canadian investors, reinforcing his “principled” foreign policy rhetoric and reasserting western control over a region in flux, and you pretty much have the range of reasons why a half […]

The drama is over and Jack Layton and the NDP clearly did the right thing, very quickly rejecting the Conservatives’ budget and pledging to vote against it “in its current form.” That held out the possibility of voting in favour of an amended budget which Finance Minister Flaherty quickly scotched with a Bush-like – you […]

There is little doubt that a Canadian federal election is in the air as all three national opposition parties condemned the 2011 / 12 budget presented today by the Conservatives. Although both the Liberal and New Democratic (NDP) parties call for more support for Canadian families, less bonuses for corporations and criticized the Conservatives for […]

In trying to anticipate what a federal election campaign will look like — and it seems increasingly likely that we will be unable to avoid one – it is striking that the biggest issues facing humankind are not even on the radar, yet alone being framed as planks in any party’s campaign platform.   This […]

 Twelve years of budget increases have left Canadian military spending higher than at any time since the end of the Second World War, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). According to the study, by Bill Robinson, Senior Advisor with the Rideau Institute, Canada will spend at least $22.3 […]

What has happened to this country? Stephen Harper seems able to carry out the most outrageous acts, week in, week out, and there seems to be barely any consequence. From the breaking the law and lying about it (dismissing charges laid on the election financing case as all about accounting), to publicly condoning (and almost […]

Nearly two years later it would seem that young Canadians are tired of waiting.  Yesterday hundreds of youth from across the country began calling the hill asking to chat with our Prime Minister, calling for an end to the $1.4 billion in public money current given to oil and gas companies each year. The cross-country “phone […]