2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Cardus Work and Economics Program Director Brian Dijkema reflects on the opportunity that construction season provides us to celebrate the "vast array of talents and skills that it takes to keep a country and its economy functioning."
Virtually no one in Canada can drive to the cottage or campsite without coming across a sign like this:
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Saying “government should not” is as simplistic as saying “government should” if there is nothing else that follows. Yes, conservatives believe in limited government. But this requires more than arithmetic requiring the size of government. What government should do, it should do well and enough resources need to be dedicated to those tasks.
“It is,” as NDP MP Alexandre Boulerice put it, “becoming a bad habit.”
On a purely pragmatic level, federal Labour Minister Kellie Leitch must be pleased that the mere threat of back-to-work legislation got CP Rail trains running on time Monday.
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Crawford, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, was the featured guest speaker at Cardus's latest Hill Family Lecture Series, which took place as a component of the Building Meaning Project. Following his lecture, he was joined by Ray Pennings of Cardus, Bob Blakely of Canada's Building Trades, and Sarah Watts-Rynard of the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum.
"It is a kind of progress when you no longer have to mess around with dipsticks and dirty rags," Matthew Crawford stated at the Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario, last month, "but I also want to just notice that there is a kind of moral education that is ...
Yet it feels like a curiously controversial thing when the minister offers his related belief that employers, trade unions and other non-government actors actually have a responsibility to open doors to work for Canadians. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It's an uncontroversial thing when Employment Minister Jason Kenney says he believes work is a good thing.
Yet it feels like a curiously controversial thing when the minister offers his related belief...
Before his public appearance, I sat down with Havard and asked about how employees can respond when their leaders are not virtuous. He responded with his thoughts on the spiritual needs of human beings, and how they play out in the workplace. Havard had some specific advice for those of us who may find ourselves lacking exemplary leadership.
Last week, I had the privilege of interviewing Alexandre Havard, the Moscow-based author and founder of the Havard Virtuous Leadership Institute. Havard appeared in Ottawa for a lecture and book signing, du...
Last week, Cardus's program director for Work and Economics, Brian Dijkema, sat down with the CEO of Christian Horizons, Janet Nolan, to talk about labour shortages, productivity, and the surprising economic and community benefits that come when disable...
One of the best stories of the women's gold medal victory last week was Meaghan Mikkelson, who despite playing with a broken hand, played almost 22 minutes of the final, spent two minutes in the box for roughing, and registered an assist on the goal that st...
Yeah, we can do anything. We know. Our second-wave feminist mothers showed us that. But somehow, the third wave hasn't washed over society powerfully enough to supplement the current female role models, which remain—perhaps more than ever—overwhelmingly pretty, pink, perky homemakers. And the trends begin in childhood.
Let me humbly attempt to say something on behalf of women.
Yeah, we can do anything. We know. Our second-wave feminist mothers showed us that. But somehow, the third wave hasn't washed over society powerfully enough to supplement the current female r...
Some think these changes will significantly transform our politics. Justin Trudeau won the Liberal leadership this spring promising a new deal for the middle class. The thinking is that success for Trudeau is dependent on renewing a sense of hope and optimism regarding Canadian prospects. The NDP under Thomas Mulcair, on the other hand, with their historic affiliations to the union movement stand to benefit from increased numbers thinking of themselves as working class or poor.
Ekos pollster Paul Adams has noted how Canadian sense of class identity has been changing in recent years. Historically, Canadian politics has divided more along regio...
"Given the state of Quebec's bridges, roads and other infrastructure, I was under the impression construction workers have been on strike for the past 40 years," the comment writer wrote under a news story when the strike began June 17. No wonder the government-mandated construction holiday each July is a two-week source of jubilation for Quebecers who can finally move around their communities without being waylaid by traffic snarl-ups or getting clonked on the head as they pick their way through the war zones at the perimeters of building sites.
A clever web commenter put Quebec's current construction strike in perfect perspective.
"Given the state of Quebec's bridges, roads and other infrastructure, I was under the impression construction workers have been on strike for the past 40 years," ...
One of Dudamel's signature moves is to bypass the customary conductor's bow in response to audience applause, and instead leap off of the podium and embed himself within the orchestra. He will put his arm around a couple of the performers and initiate a communal bow to acknowledge the appreciation.
Classical music aficionados will recognize the name Gustavo Dudamel, the 28-year-old director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic who has become the craze of the symphony orchestra scene around the world. The May 18th print ...
The premise behind this is that individual employees, left on their own, resemble nothing so much as this.
One of the points of collective bargaining—indeed the key point of collective bargaining—is that it is intended to replace the patchwork of individual employment contracts in a workplace with one contract, negotiated by the union, on behal...
Charlie Brown always thinks he's going to kick the ball, but Charlie Brown always ends up falling on his back. He's never really out of the game, and he's always keen to try again—but each time he falls. Canadian unions are always up for another try. However, like Charlie Brown, there is a sense of predetermination, of inevitability in each try.
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Almost everything he says, of course, turns out to have the predictable burble and sulphur of the primeval class-warrior. You can tell and smell it from three blocks away. There's no normal need to move in for exact identification. "The (condo) boom is gobbling up land almost as fast as it sucks up mortgage debt.
Jim Stanford sports an economist's badge on his white-collar shirt front, yet works for the Canadian Auto Workers. This combination gets him punditry gigs on CBC and in the Globe and Mail.
Almos...
You'll be hearing a lot of this type of doublespeak in the next while, so I thought it would be helpful to clarify a few things.
The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO) wants to strike this Friday. Wait, I'm sorry, they want to stage an "action" that "is a political protest unless the Ontario Labour Relations Board determines o...
It's hard to think critically and carefully about strikes. Typically, the response to a strike is rather simple: are you for it, or against it? And, it's often personal: are you with us, or against us? But how would one even go about deciding if you are for or against a strike?
Teacher strikes in Chicago, work-a...
Last week's announcement of a proposed merger between the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union (CEP) is certainly a bold move. Choices had to be made whether the future of unions rested in focusing on the nuts and bolts of grassroots collective bargaining or by taking on the bigger social questions of the day.
Leading a union in today's environment of declining union numbers is not a job for the timid.
Last week's announcement of a proposed merger betw...
His grandparents asked: I've been thinking a great deal about those last few words, lately, particularly as they pertain to my work, but also as they pertain to our public life, our discussions, our debates—our life together. The question that continues to recur for me is this: . . . . . . . . . .
I read an excellent commencement address by Daniel Mendlesohn this week in which he describes a conversation he had with his grandparents about his plans to study classics in university....
While the majority of the 211 players drafted will not make the big stage, a few will make an impact and maybe a handful will play a game that will allow them to be a part of the NHL elite. Does this small probability of success mean that the players shouldn't even try or that they should give up because they are unlikely to be the best, to be special?
This past Friday night, hundreds of young men with natural talent and physical prowess descended upon the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, PA, hoping and praying they would hear their names announced by a National Hockey League team in the 2012 NHL draft...
Citing former Laval University professor and labour relations specialist Rejean Breton, Martineau renders Quebecers as infantile, self-obsessed fantasists suckling upon the Nanny State. Martineau himself uses equally harsh vocabulary. He notes students will be massing to again disrupt Montreal's city centre this afternoon just as the Charbonneau commission begins hearings on construction industry corruption.
On today's 100th day of protests by Quebec students, Journal de Montreal columnist Richard Martineau offers a scabrous depiction of his province.
Citing for...
On the surface, a student protest is impractical, by definition. How do students have leverage over a government, especially enough to paralyze that government into making concessions to them? They aren't employees bringing a valuable skill to an employer, so how do they effect change? And their form of protest is . . . skipping class? I do that too, but usually I do it with the knowledge that I'm losing valuable learning time and paying the university to not teach me. I'm not hurting the university by playing hooky, I'm hurting myself.
When the Quebec student protests started, my earliest feelings were of sympathy. These were fellow student, with whom I felt a kinship. Finally someone had taken up arms against ever-increasing tuition prices!
On the surface, a student protest is imp...
Take, for instance, the Canadian Auto Workers Union. Yesterday, the CAW launched a major paper entitled "Re-thinking Canada's Auto Industry: A Policy Vision to Escape the Race to the Bottom." The report outlines policy recommendations including "buy Canadian" measures, direct government investment in the auto industry, Central Bank tampering with monetary policy to lower the Canadian dollar and encourage exports, and a host of other measures intended to "protect Canada's share of this industry." The first community whose head gets stepped on is workers in developing economies.
The race to the bottom is a full-contact sport full of cheap hits and thuggery. The thugs, however, are not always easy to spot.
Take, for instance, the Canadian Auto Workers Union. Yesterday, the CAW launched a major paper entitled "...
Think about religion: God is back, say the pundits, and there is more than enough evidence to prove it. But three questions immediately follow: 1) how? 2) where?, and 3) is it a good thing?
There are a lot of good reasons to be a Christian labour union, none of which are tied to being competitive or being efficient. But I think two overlapping trends in the next decade(s) will actually turn what has been a liability—a religious designation—int...