Tag Archives: Ontario
The Real Minimum Wage
I was a bit surprised that the recent upsurge in unemployment in Ontario in June, which was especially concentrated amongst youth (individuals aged 15 to 24 years), did not generate much discussion about the impact of the minimum wage. Ontario’s adult minimum wage rose 75 cents on June 1st to hit 11 dollars per hour. […]
Ontario Employment: Yours to Discover
Well, the latest Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey numbers paint a rather bleak picture for Ontario with employment dropping by 34,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rising from 7.3 to 7.5 percent. However, Ontario’s employment picture is much more complicated than that and regional numbers suggest that some parts of Ontario – well the GTA […]
Pre Debate Warmup: Ranking Employment Across Ontario Political Regimes
Well, tonight is the Ontario election debate and inevitably job creation will come up as a topic. On the one hand, Tim Hudak will have to deal with the fallout over his Million Jobs Plan. On the other hand, Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath will need to demonstrate what their plans for employment growth in […]
Is Health Care Reform Working?
Health care reform in Canada in the wake of the Romanow Royal Commission and the 2004 Health Accord has often been described as a story of missed opportunity with the increases in federal transfer spending not accompanied by desired results. As the review of the 2004 Health Accord by the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, […]
Canadian Manufacturing Employment: Growth and Decline (But more decline than growth)
Ontario’s budget will be presented today in the wake of new GDP numbers from Statistics Canada showing that Ontario’s real GDP growth was amongst the poorer performers in the country in 2013 (Quebec, NS, & NB were lower). Manufacturing was again singled out as one of the sectors in which Ontario is doing rather badly […]
Differentiating Ontario Universities
Yes, it is April 1st but this post is dead serious. A study was recently done for economics, chemistry and philosophy departments across ten Ontario universities in an effort to gain insight on teaching workloads and research productivity. The reason? Ontario universities are tight for money and the government is looking for productivity gains and […]
Ontario Manufacturing: Not Getting Better Anytime Soon
The Ontario economy’s manufacturing sector was particularly hard hit by the 2009 recession. One measure of whether it is rebounding is to see if there is substantial new investment going into Ontario manufacturing in terms of capital expenditures on construction, machinery and equipment. It does not look very good.
Is Ottawa Shortchanging Ontario? You Decide.
Well it is federal budget time once again and the inevitable political opera around transfer payments is in progress. This time, Ontario is feeling shortchanged and wants Ottawa to restore the 641 million dollar cut in transfer payments it is slated to receive for the 2014-15 fiscal year. Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa argues that […]
One Million Jobs
Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has promised to create one million jobs over eight years and plans to introduce his Million Jobs Act Bill in the Ontario Legislature when it resumes sitting on February 18th. Tim Hudak is presenting a five-point plan in his private member’s bill to create jobs that includes among other things […]
Disaster Compensation
In the wake of the recent ice storm that hit southern Ontario and Toronto particularly hard, the Ontario government decided to provide compensation to those who saw their food spoiled because of the prolonged power outage. Provincial money along with donations from the private sector was used to provide grocery gift cards in Toronto at […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments