New column day

Here, on the fundamental need for governments to provide a secure source of income and benefits - and the choice of the Trudeau Libs and Moe Sask Party alike to instead make citizens bear the brunt of political choices.

For further reading...
- The National Post offered a backgrounder on the Phoenix pay system which has resulted in federal civil servants getting shortchanged on the money they've earned for public service. The Auditor General reported on its inexplicable failings. And CTV reported on the continuing rallies to draw attention to hundreds of thousands of still-outstanding issues.
- Terry Farrell reported on Canada Post's orders which resulted in the delay of benefit cheques which CUPW specifically agreed to keep delivering. CUPW called out Patty Hajdu's misleading attempt to then use management decisions to attack workers' right to strike. And Nora Loreto pointed out that no government can reasonably expect labour peace while going out of its way to undermine the bargaining processes which are supposed to keep conflict contained.
- D.C. Fraser reported on how a rental supplement cut by the Saskatchewan Party will result in a year's gap in coverage since a federal replacement has been delayed - and since Scott Moe and company don't care enough about renters to fix the mess they've made.
- Finally, I'll point again to Noah Smith's post on the many facets of poverty and insecurity in order to highlight the importance of a government willing to reduce all of the drivers of precarity.