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Webinar on New Report: A Sequel We Don’t Want
The Centre for Future Work recently hosted a webinar presenting results from its new report, A Sequel We Don’t Want: What the 2026 Oil Price Shock Will Cost Canadians. The webinar featured presentations from Jim Stanford (Centre for Future Work Director, and author of the report), Atila Jaffar (Canada Country Manager from 350.org, sponsor of a campaign for an excess profit tax on petroleum companies), and DT Cochrane (Senior Economist at the Canadian Labour Congress).
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Oil Price Spike Causing More Trouble for Canada’s Economy
Centre for Future Work Economist and Director Jim Stanford was recently interviewed on CBC News Channel regarding the outlook for Canada’s economy. He stressed that growth has been near-zero since U.S. president Donald Trump launched his trade war through big tariffs on Canadian exports. He also explained how high oil prices resulting from Trump’s attacks on Iran and the resulting disruption in global oil supplies would affect inflation in Canada, citing findings from the Centre’s recent report on the inflationary impacts of the war.
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Senate Testimony on the Canadian Economic Outlook
Centre for Future Work Economist and Director Jim Stanford was recently invited to testify before the Senate of Canada’s National Finance committee, regarding the economic and fiscal outlook for the country. The testimony was part of the committee’s hearings regarding certain aspects of budget implementation (including measures announced in the recent Spring Economics and Fiscal Update).
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Political Drama Over Technical Recession Not Justified
Canada’s economy has been growing very slowly for the last year, since Donald Trump launched his trade war against Canada’s exports. The side-effects of Trump’s attacks against Iran (including high oil prices and accelerating inflation) have further undermined growth in Canada. Recent Statistics Canada data indicate that real GDP in Canada (adjusted for inflation) declined very slightly (by 0.036%) in the first quarter of 2026. Coming on the heels of a larger decline in real GDP in the final quarter of 2025, this signifies that Canada is experiencing a ‘technical recession” – traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction in real GDP. There is no doubt that Canada’s economy…
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The K-Shaped Economy
Millions of Canadians continue to struggle to pay the bills for the necessities of life, and with Donald Trump’s trade war and his new conflict in the Middle East, things are getting worse. Meanwhile, the stock market sets record highs and financial wealth become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small minority. Based on income tax data, the richest 1.5% of Canadians own over half of all net financial wealth (based on distribution of capital gains).
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A Sequel We Don’t Want: What the 2026 Oil Price Shock Will Cost Canadians.
The war in the Persian Gulf has caused the biggest disruption in oil supply in world history, and is driving up costs and inflation around the world – including in Canada. New research from the Centre for Future Work, published through the False Profits project, shows how damaging this latest oil shock will be for affordability and inflation in Canada. It also proposes policies to protect consumers and workers.
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CBC Sunday Morning Feature Interview: Trump’s War and the Macroeconomic Outlook
In this CBC national radio interview with host Piya Chattopadhyay, Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford discusses the impacts of the war (on top of the disruptions from Trump’s tariff policies) on Canada’s economy, in the lead-up to the federal government’s spring fiscal update.
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Speculation and Greed Explain the Price of Gasoline, not Supply and Demand
The economic impacts of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran were felt by Canadians within hours of its launch. Prices for gasoline, diesel, and home heating oil (widely used in Atlantic Canada) shot up very quickly. This is both surprising and infuriating—since those products were produced, refined, and delivered long before the war started. Why do consumers have to pay more, given the war had no impact on the cost of production?
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Annotated Bibliography on the Net Employment Benefits of the Energy Transition
Investments in sustainable energy and energy conservation are larger than investments in fossil fuel energy systems. Moreover, the work involved is more labour-intensive than fossil fuel projects (which have very small labour inputs relative to the scale of capital investments or GDP). For both reasons, the shift from fossil fuels to sustainable alternatives will definitely create far more jobs than are lost in fossil fuel industries as the economy transitions to net-zero.
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Symposium on Promising Practices in Scholar-Union Collaboration: Lessons for Building Effective Research Partnerships
Academics and trade unions can do great research together, to the benefit of both sides. This special symposium of articles discusses how to do it right.