Inequalities, Trade Unions and Virtuous Circles: The Scandinavian Example

PDF version by Errol Black and Jim Silver In a recent post on this site, Thinking Alternatives, we suggested that the Scandinavian countries – Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden – provided examples of more collective, egalitarian and inclusive societies that …

Canadians Deserve “A Budget for the Rest of Us”

PDF version Read the full Alternative Federal Budget. Lire l’Alternative Budgétaire Pour le Gouvernement Fédéral by Shauna MacKinnon As the federal government begins to reveal tidbits about what Canadians can expect in the 2012 federal budget, many of us …

Connecting Aboriginal people to ‘good’ jobs

PDF version by Shauna MacKinnon and Ray Silvius Manitoba has among the highest Aboriginal populations in Canada and it is growing at a faster rate than the non-Aboriginal population. Fifteen percent of Manitobans and 10 percent of Winnipeggers …

Where’s the Compassion? The Harper Government’s Approach to Employment Insurance

by Errol Black Canada’s Employment Insurance (EI) System has been much in the news in recent weeks. The main issues are long delays in processing EI claims resulting from the Harper government’s attempts to automate and depersonalize the …

Moving Manitoba Forward Post-election 2011

by Shauna MacKinnon On October 4th Manitobans gave Greg Selinger’s NDP a mandate to govern for the next four years. The NDP ran on a Doer-esque steady-as-she-goes platform with the slogan Let’s keep building. Don’t turn back. Now …

Bloated Public Sector or Bloated Rhetoric? …You Decide….

Yesterday I sent a letter to the Winnipeg Free Press about an August 31st op-ed decrying Manitoba’s supposedly “bloated” public sector. The op-ed was just begging for a response. Let’s hope the letter gets printed, but in case …

Fast Facts: Lessons of the Canada Post lockout

by David Camfield PDF version Recent events tell us a lot about some of the challenges facing working people in Canada today. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) began rotating strike action on June 2nd, after over …