Tags – Economy
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Crisis in care
Ontario pioneers the privatization of long-term care
As the pioneer of privatized care in Canada, Ontario has opened the doors for a corporate takeover of long-term care homes, resulting in chronic understaffing by profit-seeking multinational providers.
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Fair trade and empire
An anti-capitalist critique of the fair trade movement
Fair trade marketing and advocacy rely on the idea that fair trade increases connectedness between Global South producers and Global North consumers. But while fair trade does reduce the number of intermediaries in the supply chain as compared to the free trade system, it also serves to reinforce racist and colonial distinctions between the poor Global South farmer and the benevolent Global North consumer. While it may channel slightly more income into agricultural communities, it ultimately fails to address the colonial capitalist structures that produce the impoverishment of farmers on an ongoing basis.
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‘Play in the Hay’ and other agricultural ventures
Agri-tourism responds to urban ignorance
While there is a long history of some agri-tourist ventures like pick-your-own fruit farms, contemporary agri-tourist ventures are responding to specific contemporary realities: urban ignorance about food production and the economic need to instill a love and appreciation for local food in local customers.
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Turning the tide
A conservative majority and the coming wave of austerity
The Conservatives won a majority in the recent federal election with a very simple core message. On the basis of their economic agenda and tough-on-crime program, Stephen Harper presented his party as the safe choice in difficult times.
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Living behind the uranium curtain
The dubious legacy and dangerous future of Saskatchewan’s uranium industry
Saskatchewan is quickly joining Alberta in the continental corridor supplying oil and gas to the United States. This deepening integration with the resource-intensive U.S. economy, which leaves a toxic legacy on indigenous and Canadian lands, has its roots in a shift that began in the 1960s.
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Dirty deeds done dirt cheap
Saskatchewan’s multi-billion dollar resource giveaway
High resource prices have expanded Saskatchewan’s economy above the national average, but have left the incomes of Saskatchewan people below the national average. A major challenge for the province is to translate its economic prosperity into higher living standards for provincial residents.
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Haiti and the Canadian labour movement
Building the Haiti Union Solidarity Fund
Trade union activists in Canada have initiated a project to deepen ties of solidarity with the people of Haiti and popular Haitian organizations. The Haiti Union Solidarity Fund was launched in January of this year by union members in the Canada Haiti Action Network.
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Northern exclusion
Who benefits from Nunavut’s boom?
Nunavut, “our land” in Inuktitut, was the result of more than 30 years of negotiations and planning by the Inuit of the Eastern and Central Arctic. So why are these original inhabitants, the overwhelming majority of people in the territory, not the principal beneficiaries of their land’s economic development?
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Economics for everyone
Book review
Book review of Jim Stanford’s Economics for everyone: A short guide to the economics of capitalism.
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Letter from the editor
Drinking deeply from a half-empty glass
What happens when large numbers of people give up on the paradigm of “progress”—the idea that each generation will invariably live in greater material comfort and prosperity than the generation before?
