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Important to note: The provisions against ‘inciting protest’ would apply to tweets and posts online. For background, via StudentActivism.net: Key provisions of the bill as presented to the legislature: All classes at campuses currently participating in the student strike will be immediately suspended, with the remainder of the spring semester delayed until August. It would become a [...]

A new bridge will help help Kamploopsians get together. Kamloops reconnects, Road safety? Ontario Northland subsidy 23 cents more per passenger than GO Train, Costs of going underground. Inter-city bus service returns to NB and PEI and more in today Transport Action Hotline.  Transport Action Atlantic, Bus service and seniors housing among top issues in St. Andrews "Voters in Charlotte County's shiretown say bus services, housing for seniors and employment for young people are...

Hot off the Twitter presses, courtesy of @NieDesrochers of Radio Canada, comes this letter from the Gatineau Chamber of Commerce: NOTICE OF A GATHERING OF MORE THAN 10 PEOPLE The letter is a notice to the Gatineau police force, pursuant to the Special Law that the Quebec Government has quickly passed to block student protests. [...]

According to today’s Globe, the government says that the major target of pending changes to EI is frequent claimants, who are disproportionately to be found in  the high unemployment regions. This focus seems to reflect the common belief that supposedly “overgenerous” EI benefits stop some people from moving from high to low unemployment regions. Interesting [...]

Here are the most recent Statscan job vacancy data by province. There were six unemployed workers for every reported job vacancy in Canada in the three months ending in January, rising to about ten unemployed workers for every open job slot in Atlantic Canada. Note that there is no information on what wages employers were [...]

Today, Statistics Canada reported an annual inflation rate of 2%, precisely in line with the Bank of Canada’s target. With inflation under control and renewed risks to the global economy, there is little rationale for the central bank to raise interest rates anytime soon. In fact, the Bank of Canada should now be more concerned [...]

Tonight in the Assemblée Nationale, Quebec Premier Jean Charest is pushing through a law that would seek to end the Quebec student protests (the #GGI, or the #manifencours). The law would prohibit “demonstrations” in a “venue accessible by the public” unless the organizers of the demonstration had provided at least eight hours written notice to [...]

Beside our dramatic play centre, I placed one of our smaller tables, near the windows with my signs for the flower shop.  In the centre of the table, I put a basket of pencils and markers and some blank paper.  When I introduced the centre to the children, I told them the flower shop needed [...]

After 83 days on the picket lines, striking animal workers from the Lincoln County Humane Society will return to work sometime next week, pending ratification by both parties of the tentative agreement reached on May 16, 2012.

Social service workers at St. Stephen’s Residences of Ottawa joined CUPE to improve their working conditions, including fairer treatment and better job security in their workplace.

Members of CUPE Local 966, Ontario Works Unit, voted on Wednesday night to reject an offer from the Region of Peel.

I’ve commented on federal job cuts many times before (here, here, here & here) and in the interests of beating this particular horse good and dead (no animals were harmed in the writing of these reports), the CCPA today is releasing my latest update on the matter: Clearing away the fog: Government Estimates of job [...]

Canadian Press writes, “Mr. Mulcair’s analysis of what ails Canada’s economy is contradicted by a new independent study produced by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.” Really? What does the study conclude? As quoted by Canadian Press, “On balance, the evidence indicates that Canada suffers from a mild case of the Dutch disease, which [...]

Now that the children have shown interest in flowers, we decided to change our dramatic play centre from a Veterinarian’s Office to a flower store. I went to a store and bought a few bunches of artificial flowers, a small plastic shovel, green foam blocks, and small plastic plant pots.  We had some plastic containers [...]

Premier Brad Wall was Tweeting about today’s Statistics Canada report of an uptick in national manufacturing sales in March. It is an odd report for him to trumpet, given that it found a decline in Saskatchewan’s manufacturing sales that month. Another recent Statistics Canada report, Friday’s Labour Force Survey, indicates that Saskatchewan lost 400 manufacturing [...]

A tentative agreement was reached late last night between Ontario Works employees who have been on strike for 13 days and the Region of Peel.

The federal government has changed the rules surrounding the Temporary Foreign Worker Program to now allow corporations to pay skilled migrant workers 15% less than their Canadian counterparts.Companies have been pushing this agenda for years, trying to extract more labour for less.  What they couldn’t extract at the bargaining table, they are now attempting to obtain by manipulating our immigration system through deeply discriminatory rule changes.With the help of the federal government,...

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