2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Matthew Lau argues Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s weakness is not her lack of qualifications but her insistence she can steer the economy while wearing sunglasses at night.
In my wallet is a valid Ontario Class G driver’s license. The license means that the government finds me qualified to operate a motor vehicle, and indeed, I have done so many times. If I proposed, however, to drive the 30 kilometres from my home to Toronto ...
Anticipating next week’s Cardus study on pay day loans, and a vote by the city of Kitchener to regulate the sector, Convivium’s Rebecca Darwent talks to Cardus Work and Economics Program Director Brian Dijkema about helping low-income Canadians gain fair and equal access to credit.
Rebecca Darwent: Can you start by bringing us up to speed on the work you have been doing to set the stage for what has led to the paper we are expecting for release next week?
Brian Dijkema: We have done six reports on payday lendin...
The federal budget released this week purports to give women a hand up when in reality it gives men the brush off, contends Cardus Family Program Director Andrea Mrozek.
Back in the day, it was a success when women changed the workforce such that working part-time was more acceptable. We also used to look down upon, for example, the legal profession where becoming partner involves a cot in the office with a pillow of legal ...
This week’s federal budget has admirable elements but also goes a long way to show the Liberal government’s shortcomings, Cardus experts tell Convivium.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s 2018 budget combines a hard push in the wrong direction with overestimation of government’s power to fix social inequity, Cardus analysts says.
Morneau’s spending blueprint tabled yesterday is billed as fostering equal...
Finance Minister Bill Morneau handed down a 2018 budget today that spends billions in new money Canada doesn’t have, and raises the national debt to almost $700 billion. But no worries, writes Convivium’s Peter Stockland. It’s also got a gendered analysis. And it puts people first.
The key number for understanding the federal Liberal government’s 2018 budget is 319. That’s the page number where total projected spending for the coming fiscal year is first mentioned.
It’s an eye-popping $338.5 billion, up from $311.3 billion in t...
A bold first step towards falling behind. Cardus Family Program Directors Andrea Mrozek and Brian Dijkema reflect on Budget 2017 and the impact that it will have on the Canadian public.
The 2017 federal budget tries hard but is undermined by its contradictory objectives, say Cardus experts in fields heavily affected by the spending plan released yesterday.
Andrea Mrozek, program director for Cardus Family, and Brian Dijkema, who hea...
Program Director of Cardus Work and Economics Brian Dijkema reflects on the true nature of Lent.
See the money wanna stay/for a meal. Get another piece of pie/for your wife. Everybody wanna know/how it feels. Everybody wanna see/what it’s like.
Ima Robot, Greenback Boogie
You k...
Publisher Peter Stockland sits down with Work and Economics Program Director Brian Dijkema to talk about Pay Day Loans. Hear what Dijkema told Convivium before his testimony to the Queen’s Park Standing Committee on Social Policy.
An Ontario legislature committee studying so-called “pay day loans” heard this week that reforming the rules is necessary, but not enough to help those who need the quick cash most.
Brian Dijkema, program director for Cardus’ Work and Economics, told...
The idea is sound. As noted in a recent report by Cardus, Banking on the Margins, payday lenders and the loans themselves are structured in such a way as to encourage their customers to become dependent. The loans, while quick and easy, do not build credit, and they require customers to pay back the original amount borrowed plus substantial interest in one lump sum. Too often this results in adding a significant deluge of spending for people who are already struggling to maintain a responsible cash-flow. An unemployed construction worker from Fort McMurray who has trouble making ends meet one week can be crippled by the automatic withdrawal of his previous week’s shortage plus interest rates that, in Alberta at an annual rate of 839% on a ten-day term, are the second highest in the country. And, as our research suggests, the struggle doesn’t stay with the individual. The lack of funds and the increase in debt are linked to mounting costs to families, significant physical and mental health problems, increased criminal activity, and a host of other problems which ultimately strain society – and often the government.
In the throne speech this month, Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell announced the Notley government’s intention to “protect Albertans who are experiencing economic d...
“I don’t fight crazy people,” Ali is said to have replied. “And anyone who wants to fight me is crazy.” We don't know if he will ever be considered Canada’s greatest prime minister—only history will judge and there’s a long line of coulda-been contenders—but Harper is certainly proving one of the toughest to beat. The combination of family support initiatives his government unveiled yesterday shows why.
The greatest boxer of all time, Muhammad Ali, was reportedly once asked how he managed to avoid the bar fighters and street corner challengers who were the bane of his trade.
“I don’t fight crazy people,” Ali is said to have replied. “And anyone who ...