Are there good alternatives to the mandatory census long-form questionnaire to collect the information that we need? Last Saturday CBC’s The House had a sparkling section on the census which offered some thoughts from a Danish statistician and the views of Canada’s longest serving Chief Statistician, Ivan Fellegi. On Tuesday Tavia [...]

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) edged up 0.1% in May. Annualized output was $1,231 billion, still below the pre-crisis peak of $1,241 billion in July 2008 but well above the trough of $1,186 billion in May 2009. Canada-US Comparison American GDP figures released this morning indicate an annual growth rate of 2.4% in the second quarter (April - [...]

Professor Emeritus at University of British Columbia, William Stanbury, has produced a handy treatise on coercion, published online in the Hill Times this week. Stanbury focused his career as a professor of economics on strategic decision-making in business, including government relations, competition rules, regulations and other public policies that strengthen business performance. His [...]

It has been a while but this week climate change is back in the news cycle. The front page of today’s Globe reports on the latest climate impacts tally: The report …  concluded 2000 to 2009 was the warmest decade ever, and the Earth has been growing warmer for 50 years. Each of the past three [...]

Anybody that has been watching the unfolding of the census dust-up could be forgiven for no longer knowing where to place their bets. Are the Conservatives really going to go through with this disruptive measure, or are there still ways out? The answer is yes, a successful resolution is still possible (read on). [...]

Graduate Assistantships are remuneration for graduate students who are engaged in research and/or field development oriented projects contributing to their academic and professional development. Gas are unionized positions represented by CUPE 3907 (Rm 8-104). At OISE there are 45 GA awards available during the September-April academic year to students outside of the Graduate Funded cohort. [...]

July 29, 2010 Final wage rates for the facilities subsector Rehabilitation Assistant, Program Coordinator I (formerly Activity Worker III) and Program Coordinator II (formerly Activity Worker IV) benchmarks have been determined by classification arbitrator John Kinzie. Language and wage rate changes were negotiated during the “Page 209” benchmark series review in 2008 and 2009 for [...]

Once again Stephen Harper has charted a course for the nation that drops the ball in the provinces’ and territories’ lap. Since forming government in 2006, the Harper Conservatives have withdrawn federal presence from social policy, health policy, and climate change while ramping up defence, security and trade. The cut to the GST [...]

* Iraq bans unions in the electrical sector

* A strike at a Honda supplier in China ends with a victory

* 900 dockworkers are locked out in Montreal, Canada

* Iran releases a union activist but more are in jail

* 100,000 garment workers on strike in Pakistan

* Hyatt hotel workers in the United States protest

This past June a study was released by the Commonwealth Fund – a US organization that promotes evidence-based quality health care there – that compared the American health care system with that of six other nations, including Canada. Not surprisingly, it ranked the United States last or close to last in almost every category.

Steve Nasby and Jyalmen Sidhho of ILWU Canada together with Mark Keserich of ILWU Local 500 represented the Longshoremen at Local 40′s rally on Thursday July 22nd at 5pm in front of the Hyatt, downtown Vancouver.  The hotel workers’ local was speaking out against the unfair working conditions and practices that the multibillion dollar corporation [...]

Back in June, the TD Economics group released a major report co-authored by Don Drummond: “The Productivity Puzzle. ” It provides a comprehensive overview of major studies and the empirical evidence, and should help spark some critical reflection. Progressive economists should agree with Drummond that productivity growth is vitally important to the growth of living [...]

At about 11:00 am EST this morning, the United Nations General Assembly voted to recognize the right to water and sanitation. The resolution passed overwhelmingly. The unofficial vote count was 124 yes, 42 abstentions, 0 no. Canada abstained. Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow, Blue Planet Project organizer Anil Naidoo, and national water campaigner Meera Karunananthan were at the General Assembly session for the historic vote. More on this to come shortly. For more...

Read this report on the CHAN website at: http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/node/498 WASHINGTON DC–Today, Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health and Chair of the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and Loune Viaud, [...]

Attention all fishermen!  The Prince Rupert 100 Year Celebration is coming up in September and due to the area’s phenomenal fishing, we are holding a fishing derby!  On Sunday September 5th at 6:00am the boats will be taking off from the Rushbrook Floats.  If you are interested in joining the crew call Steve Nasby at [...]

Thanks to those who came out to the General meeting last night.  To those of you who couldn’t be there, you missed out on some nice door prizes.  The quorum was met and fun was had by all.  See you in September.

ttp://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/840493–caribana-lives-despite-ottawa Published On Tue Jul 27 2010 // Email"); } else [...]

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, is an important book. It is not a huge tome, as one might expect from such a broad topic, weighing in at just 265 pages of text (including lots of figures mapping inequality against some health and social [...]

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters/article/839991–caribana-a-victim-of-cultural-racism Published On Mon Jul 26 2010 Re: Caribana to dazzle, on a budget, July 19 It is very unsettling, yet not unexpected, that Caribana is being treated like a cultural outsider and a barbarian at the gate by the different levels of government. Why is it that the largest festival in this country with [...]

The following statement was released this morning. The key point is that the mandatory long form census should remain for 2011, and some changes are proposed moving forward including removing the never-used penalty of prison for non compliance. Seeking Solutions The National Statistics Council, the senior, external advisory group appointed by the government of Canada to advise [...]