-
Federal Budget 2025: Unpacking the New Capital Budgeting Framework
Leading into this budget, the Carney government made much of a new distinction between operational spending and capital spending: between “spending” and “investing”. However, in practice this distinction was mostly optics – and did not reflect any meaningful change in budget accounting and reporting.
-
Fighting for Fair Work
For decades, David Fairey has served as an outstanding researcher and advocate on a wide range of labour and trade union issues. He served for 23 years as Director of the former Trade Union Research Bureau, based in Vancouver, B.C., legendary for the high-quality, practical, but inspiring research it performed for a vast range of union and other clients. Later he founded Labour Consulting Services to continue this work – along with numerous voluntary commitments (including founding the B.C. Employment Standards Coalition). David also generously serves as a voluntary Director of the Centre for Future Work.
-
Stellantis Shows Canada’s Industrial Economy is On the Line
Automaker Stellantis recently announced it would shift production of a new vehicle from an assembly plant in Brampton, Ontario (which has been closed for re-tooling) to Indiana, in order to escape the effects of Donald Trump’s 25% tariff on Canadian-assembled vehicles. This decision seems to confirm the worst fears of Canadian economists regarding the long-run impact of Trump’s trade war: by weaponizing access to the U.S. market and pressuring global companies to relocate long-run investments to the U.S., Trump would shatter the viability of continued production in Canada and other countries.
-
This Is Not An Ordinary Federal Budget
As the federal government prepares to table its next budget on November 4, most of the public debate has centred on how big the deficit will be – as if that is the only metric of significance to Canadians. This is predictable and disappointing. At a moment when Canada as a country faces unprecedented challenges to our prosperity and sovereignty arising from Donald Trump’s trade war and other threats, a much more important question is how will the budget equip Canada to protect itself against Trump’s attacks, reorient away from so much dependence on the U.S. market, and invest in the things (including physical and social infrastructure) necessary to a…
-
Happy Minimum Wage Day, Canada!
Half of Canada’s provinces all increased their minimum wage on October 1: Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. So this is a good occasion to celebrate the importance of higher minimum wages as a powerful tool for improving incomes and reducing inequality.
-
Bringing Capital Home Would Boost Canadian Growth, Reduce Trade Imbalance with U.S.
Donald Trump claims his aggressive trade actions are justified because of ‘unfair’ trade practices by other countries, that result in big U.S. trade deficits. But the real cause of those perpetual U.S. trade deficits is ongoing capital inflows to the U.S. from other countries – including Canada. In this commentary originally published in the Toronto Star, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford shows that Canada is now a huge net lender to the U.S., with a positive foreign investment balance there of $1.6 trillion. Bringing some of that capital back to Canada would not only help to finance the major projects we are undertaking to protect our economy against…
-
Enormous Jobs Potential from Energy Transition Investments
Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford recently collaborated with the Centre for Civic Governance and the Canadian Building Trades Unions (CBTU) on a new report cataloguing the future job-creation for building trades workers that will result from upcoming investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures, in order to meet Canada’s commitment to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050.
-
Elbows Up for Canada’s Economy
On September 15, 40 progressive economists and policy experts gathered in Ottawa for the ‘Elbows Up Economic Summit.’ The Summit was co-sponsored by the Centre for Future Work, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), and several other national civil society organizations. It was co-chaired by Centre Director Jim Stanford and Peggy Nash, Executive director of the CCPA.
-
Financial Disclosure not Enough to Steer Investment in the Energy Transition
In the following commentary, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford looks back at a landmark speech given in 2015 by Mark Carney – at the time the Governor of the Bank of England, now Prime Minister of Canada. The speech was a powerful expose of how private financial investors tend to have too short of a time-frame (seeking to maximize immediate stock market returns or quarterly profits) to properly account for the long-run consequences of certain investments (such as investments in fossil fuel production). Carney termed this financial myopia the ‘tragedy of the horizon’, and advocated for more explicit voluntary financial disclosure by financial institutions and corporations in the…
-
The Role of Industrial Policy in Defending Canada Against Trump’s Attacks
There is growing awareness of the importance of targeted supports for key high-value industries, as part of the effort to protect Canada’s economy in the wake of Donald Trump’s trade war. His tariffs have deliberately targeted Canada’s most important value-adding, high-tech manufacturing industries – including auto, aerospace, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, machinery, trucks, and manufactured wood products. The goal is clearly to undermine the viability of those industries, to the advantage of U.S.-based locations. That would reinforce Canada’s growing (and precarious) reliance on unprocessed natural resource products to pay our way in world trade.