- Ed Broadbent discusses the connection between unions, democracy and equality:
In democratic societies, there are two principal arenas of non-violent conflict over power: the state and the workplace. Just as political democracy entails the right to select or reject one’s representatives and enables us to pursue, share and exercise power in the real world of free citizens, democracy in the workplace also requires that workers have their own representatives and some real power.- And David Olive points out some important reasons not to take Canada's economic future for granted.
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Canada’s stronger unions have helped ensure we have less extremes than in the U.S. (falling wages tend to be limited to the middle-class) and have certainly not undermined our economic performance, comparatively. Even hard-hit Ontario (which has the second lowest unionization rate in Canada after Alberta) has an unemployment rate significantly below the U.S. average.
Don’t believe those politicians and pundits who say unions threaten prosperity. The effort to emasculate unions is about silencing the voice of Canadian workers, and at risk are our hard-won rights – both inside and outside the workplace.
- I'm somewhat more skeptical than Michael Harris about the impact of yesterday's pro-evidence protests. But it's certainly worth doing what we can to prove him right in thinking a sea change is afoot.
- After much hemming and hawing, Christy Clark has succumbed to NDP pressure by questioning the impact of a Gateway pipeline on British Columbia. Meanwhile, Andrew Nikiforuk reveals what Enbridge's top executives took away from their Michigan oil spill - with "take the money and run" apparently leading the way.
- Finally, SOS Crowns wonders whether this week's SaskPower rate hike announcement represents some of the fallout from privatized production.
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