2018 CCPA the Monitor
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CANADIAN CENTRE FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 $6.95 Contributors Jeremy Appel is a multimedia Asad Ismi covers Juliette Majot is Executive Vol. 24, No. 5 journalist and currently international affairs for the Director of the Institute for ISSN 1198-497X Canada Post Publication 40009942 a reporter/editor at the Monitor with an emphasis Agriculture and Trade Policy. Medicine Hat News. on U.S. and Canadian The Monitor is published six times imperialism and grassroots Lynn McDonald is a former a year by the Canadian Centre for struggles against it in the Policy Alternatives. Matt Cicero is a writer, artist, MP, professor emerita at the activist and ritual abuse Global South. University of Guelph and The opinions expressed in the survivor. As an activist he Member of the Order of Monitor are those of the authors has been most involved Hayden King is from Canada. and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA. in Indigenous solidarity Beausoleil First Nation on organizing, and prison and Gchi’mnissing in Huronia, Toby Sanger is an economist Please send feedback to police abolition. He blogs at Ontario. He is the Director with the Canadian Union of [email protected]. stonesandsticksandwords. of the Centre of Indigenous Public Employees. Editor: Stuart Trew wordpress.com. Governance at Ryerson Senior Designer: Tim Scarth University. Paul Weinberg is a Hamilton, Layout: Susan Purtell Barbara McElgunn is Editorial Board: Peter Bleyer, Ontario-based freelance Alyssa O’Dell, Seth Klein, Kate Health Policy Advisor with Devlin Kuyek is a Montreal- writer whose work has McInturff, Erika Shaker, Emily Turk the Learning Disabilities based researcher at Grain, appeared in NOW Toronto, Association of Canada. focusing on monitoring and rabble.ca, the Globe and CCPA National Office: analyzing global agribusiness, HELP US SHED LIGHT ON THE 500-251 Bank St., Ottawa, Mail, Straight Goods and the ON K2P 1X3 Ben Isitt is the author of including the global land Monitor. tel: 613-563-1341 From Victoria to Vladivostok: rush. fax: 613-233-1458 Canada’s Siberian Expedition ISSUES THAT MATTER TO YOU. [email protected] (UBC Press), and a historian David Macdonald is a senior www.policyalternatives.ca and legal scholar specializing economist with the Canadian CCPA BC Office: in relations between social Centre for Policy Alternatives (we’ve got some bright ideas) 520-700 West Pender Street movements and states and co-ordinator of the Vancouver, BC V6C 1G8 in Canada and globally. Alternative Federal Budget. tel: 604-801-5121 Alongside his academic work, fax: 604-801-5122 Ben serves the public as a [email protected] Shoshana Magnet is city councillor and regional Associate Professor of MAKE A DONATION Tax receipts are issued for contributions of $15 or more. CCPA Manitoba Office: director in Victoria, B.C. Feminist and Gender Studies Unit 205-765 Main St., Winnipeg, and Criminology in the MB R2W 3N5 tel: 204-927-3200 University of Ottawa’s faculty I would like to make a monthly contribution of: I would like to make a one-time donation of: fax: 204-927-3201 of social sciences. OR $300 $100 $75 Other ____ [email protected] $25 $15 $10 Other ____ CCPA Nova Scotia Office: P.O. Box 8355, Halifax, NS B3K 5M1 tel: 902-240-0926 PAYMENT TYPE: [email protected] I would like to receive my I’ve enclosed a cheque (made payable to CCPA, or void cheque for monthly donation) CCPA Ontario Office: subscription to The Monitor: 10 Dundas Street East, I’d like to make my contribution by: VISA MASTERCARD P.O. Box 47129, Toronto, By e-mail ON, M5B 0A1 Mailed to my address tel: 416-598-5985 CREDIT CARD NUMBER: [email protected] No Monitor, thanks CCPA Saskatchewan Office: EXPIRY DATE: SIGNATURE: 2nd Floor, 2138 McIntyre Street Regina, SK S4P 2R7 tel: 306-924-3372 fax: 306-586-5177 CONTACT INFORMATION [email protected] Name Return this form to: Book reviews in the 500-251 BANK ST. Monitor are co-ordinated Yarek Waszul is an award- Address OTTAWA, ON K2P 1X3 by Octopus Books, a winning illustrator from community-owned anti- Toronto, Ontario, focusing City Province Postal Code oppressive bookstore in Or donate online at: on textile, advertising and The Monitor is a proud member of Ottawa. WWW.POLICYALTERNATIVES.CA Magazines Canada. editorial illustration. Telephone (Required) Email Yes, I prefer to receive my tax receipt Please do not trade my name with other and updates by email. organizations. REGISTERED CHARITY #124146473 RR0001 TABLE OF CONTENTS January/February 2018 CLIMBING UP, KICKING DOWN CEO PAY AND INEQUALITY IN CANADA 22 Canada’s CEOs are breaking pay records, yet they are some of the first people to oppose raising the minimum wage and making our tax system fairer—key planks of any plan to reduce inequality. David Macdonald explains why CEO compensation is important and what we can do to shrink the gap between what Canada’s richest corporate executives are paid and what average workers earn. BEHIND THE NUMBERS FEATURES COMMENTARY What the census tells The Canada Infrastructure It’s time to abolish us about inequality Bank: A shareholder shopping solitary confinement Sheila Block 7 spree for public assets Lynn McDonald 21 Just in time Toby Sanger 27 The massive carbon footprint for a just transition “Progressive trade” versus of big meat and big dairy Michael James 8 sustainable growth: Juliette Majot and Devlin Kuyek 41 Reasons to be skeptical The fight to stop CETA in Europe. Canadian retailers need of KPMG advice Stuart Trew 32 to catch up to U.S. on toxics Jim Silver 9 With Mexico on the brink, Barbara McElgunn 53 Membership-only is the left poised to take BOOKS clinics blur lines in health care the presidency? Rebecca Graff-McRae11 Asad Ismi 42 Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown Canada and the Bolshevik Revolution Reviewed by Shoshana Magnet 55 IN THE NEWS Ben Isitt 43 The Reconciliation Manifesto The B.C. budget we need When CSIS comes knocking: by Arthur Manuel Marc Lee and Alex Hemingway 14 Allegations of Islamophobia Reviewed by Hayden King 56 Ottawa safe injection site and a fratboy culture put spy agency Jeremy Appel interviews Kevin Taft defies government and gets results practices in the spotlight on Canada’s deep oil state 58 Matt Cicero 18 Paul Weinberg 49 Finding a cure for affluenza in true materialism Richard Denniss 60 Editorial 2 | Letters 3 | New From the CCPA 4 | Good News Page 54 From the Editor STUART TREW Disruption we can get behind ISRUPTION. IT’S THE catchphrase more backward, more unequal than We scored wins on the Airbnb file du jour, usually wielded by one the one we are living now. The main last year, too. In December, Vancouver presumptuous tech upstart or innovation of most self-declared and Toronto took steps to regulate Danother to challenge the market disruptors is that they’ve found a the online service, based in part on power of an alledgedly ossifying in- way to take an even bigger share of research about its impacts on housing cumbent. Frequently, but not always, the wealth from the workers who and rental stock from the CCPA. And as to justify the displacement of low- or produce it than was possible before David Macdonald reports in our cover middle-income workers with an even we all carried around the internet in feature (page 22), Canada’s CEOs— more precarious, low-cost, on-demand our pockets. richer than they’ve ever been since we workforce. It’s not the disruptors who are the started recording their compensation Uber and Lift (now in Toronto) are biggest problem, it’s the inequality— levels—have not been able to stop the disrupting taxi and public transit sys- in incomes, in power and in access to $15 minimum wage hikes introduced tems, they say, by encouraging people scarce resources—which is worsening in Ontario, Alberta and soon B.C. to drive others around for relatively in Canada, to the benefit of a small That measure has the potential to lift low pay and scant if any benefits. number of established and disruptive millions of people out of poverty with Uber’s ultimate plan is to relaunch elites alike. modest impacts on the revenues of with driverless cars (and buses), In fact, disruption to this status quo only the largest Canadian companies. putting even its current freelance would be a very good thing. (It’s been There’s obviously much more work workforce (and, they hope, many of the CCPA’s mandate for more than 35 to do, most obviously on climate today’s public transit operators) out years.) Even minor adjustments are change. “Real change” and a few green of a gig, let alone a job. welcome on the pathway to social energy partnerships with Canadian Airbnb, which takes a cut from home justice. In this respect, we can look tech start-ups and Chinese investors room and apartment rentals posted back at 2017 for inspiring examples have not disrupted the hold that to its website, claims it is not just of positive change. Perhaps most Canada’s fossil fuel industry has on disrupting the power of the big hotel importantly on gender equality. power in Ottawa and the provinces chains, but “empowering people and Last February, software engineer (see Jeremy Appel’s interview with helping them combat wage stagnation Susan Fowler took Uber down about Kevin Taft on page 58). On our Behind and worsening economic inequality.” five rungs when she exposed endemic the Numbers blog in December, Marc No doubt they are for many people sexism and a fratboy culture at the Lee pointed out Canada is still a “rogue filling a void created by stagnant company, earning her the title of state” on climate under the Trudeau incomes and rising household debt.