And the case of C-377

Should a political leader accept thousands of dollars from an interest group and then…

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Our friends at CUPE inform us that, “Members of Senate are debating Bill C-377 this week.”

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  Generating enough media spin to rival a jet engine at take off, the management and PR folks at Ikea Canada want you to believe that their poor little corporation is being held hostage by greedy, soulless union workers in Richmond. Woe.  Pity poor Ikea. It’s tough being a multi-national corporation with a reputation for [...]

It has been a pretty busy week so far and this beautiful weather has been a much needed treat(ment) for the woes of working a stressful job and trying to get by. Fortunate for me, but unfortunately for 500 other people, there will no longer be good and bad days, nice weather or poor, just silence. My heart breaks to find out that the death toll from the building collapse in Bangladesh has reached 500 victims, because these deaths were not only avoidable, but also a sign of the times we live in.

One expert went into detail about how (Read more…)

By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive: The right-wing’s regressive anti-union rhetoric and U.S.-styled attacks on the labour movement threatens Canada’s prosperity, says a report recently released by the progressive Canadian think tank Broadbent Institute. The report expresses grave concern about the Conservative government’s current political agenda and “highly-organized right-wing campaign to import American-style [...]

The post Conservatives attack on unions a threat to shared prosperity in Canada, says Broadbent Institute appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.

To hear Pierre Poilievre howl about the Conservative government’s plans to put a Treasury Board negotiator at the bargaining table of Canada’s Crown corporations you’d think that the places were run by the Soviet Workers’ Councils of Leon Trotsky’s dreams.

Bill 85 is an omnibus bill that aims to rewrite labour law in the province. Larry Hubich says the new law opens the door to making compulsory union membership illegal. He is president of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour. Larry Hubich speaks with R…

The nerve. Chapter one: Terrance Oakey, the spokesmuppet for Merit Contractors Association, a lobby group that wants, among other things, laws passed to require unions to cough up private information on any expense over $5000 to Revenue Canada, legal r…

Conservatives often suggest that public sector settlements are out of whack with private sector settlements.

In fact, the evidence from Ontario over the last couple of decades proves the opposite. Public sector settlements have fallen behind private sector settlements.  Here is the data from the Ontario Ministry of Labour: Percent increase Annual average  increase Public Sector Settlements Annual average increase Private Sector Settlements 1990 6.8% 6.3% 1991 5 4.6 1992 2.6 2.7 1993 0.5 1.9 1994 0.1 1.1 1995 0.2 1.7 1996 0.3 2.2 1997 0.7 .3 1998 1.3 2.1 1999 1.4 3.1 2000 2.7 2.4 2001 2.9 3.0 2002 2.9 3.0 2003 3.5 1.9 2004 3.1 2.7 2005 2.7 2.4 2006 3.0 1.7 2007 3.1 2.9 2008 3.1 2.0 2009 2.4 1.3 2010 1.9 2.0 2011 1.6 1.9 2012 1.2 1.4 Average Annual Wage Settlement 2.3 2.5 Annual public sector wage increases averaged 0.2% less than the . . . → Read More: Defending Public Healthcare: Public sector wages lag private sector

This song against the recently deceased former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher is “Oxford Lady” by the Manchester-based post-punk/New Wave band The Brigade. Lyrically, it’s a bit more subtle than most of the anti-Thatcher songs I posted, but that just means you have to listen a bit more closely.

As a bonus, here’s a link to another anti-Thatcher song by The Brigade, which made in support of the British miners’ strike in the 1980s. The song title is “The Movement”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qNn9j6Ob4Zc

Our dumbed-down Planet of the Left.  

Harry Mount writing at TheTelegraphUK:
It was bad enough  last week when 100 deluded academics wrote to the Telegraph, 
 attacking the idea of teaching children lists of facts, rules and spellings.

Now, even more scarily, the teachers responsible for those children are attacking the idea of knowing stuff. The National Union of Teachers has laid into a supposed “pub quiz” approach to teaching – by that, they mean teaching children to learn things.
Anne Swift, from the NUT’s ruling executive, said she feared a curriculum that will mean “teaching children to learn facts by rote, with inspectors turning up to test the children’s knowledge of the continents, chronological order in history and the times tables”.
Oh God, imagine the horror of it – children knowing what the world looks like and what order the most important events in history took place, and discovering how to add up. How wicked…

Another teacher produced the tired old line that the internet has replaced the need to know things: “We live in a digital era. Children do not need to be carriers of information any more. Everything is available on the internet at the click of a button.”


Is it really a teacher – and, presumably, a university graduate – who can come up with such rubbish? What would you have thought of Archimedes, Shakespeare or Darwin, if they’d said, “Erm, I actually don’t know anything – but I’ve got a huge library full of lots of books and stuff – I can look it all up in an instant.” You wouldn’t have called them resourceful – just stupid. Ditto, anyone now who knows nothing, but does have a decent wifi connection.


In the most horrifying, patronising statement, one teacher said that, thanks to the need to learn facts in the new curriculum, “creativity and enjoyment at school will be reduced, thus alienating young people and leading to more school absence”.
Can you imagine a teacher at a good private school being allowed to say, we won’t teach the children anything because then they’ll play truant? No – and that’s why private schools will go on outperforming state schools, as long as this wicked, mad, contrary kind of thought is allowed to flourish in the NUT.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and the rest of the Sunni nations have got to where they are today as a result of the West sending them shiploads of money in exchange for their oil.  Did the West think that after the oil supplies dry ou…

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Canadian Labour Congress | Press Release: More than 350 labour leaders met for a one-day summit on Friday, March 22 in Toronto to talk about how their members can advocate for greater fairness for all Canadians. “We met to reaffirm our resolve that all Canadian workers have the right to share [...]

The post Summit tackles growing unfairness in Canada: Unions resolve to be part of solution appeared first on The Canadian Progressive | News & Analysis.

Award-winning Canadian director Bruce McDonald is sending a message to Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak about that party’s plans for the province’s unions.

The title might sound harsh, but there is no other way to say it. Creating legislation that takes away human rights in the workplace, and claiming that it is giving you rights, is deliberately dishonest. What it’s really about is greed and low wages.

There has been much written and much hand wringing lately about social inequality and the ever growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. There is more wealth now than there has ever been. We don’t have a deficit problem. We have a distribution of wealth problem. “Right to Work” legislation will make that gap much, much worse.

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Men, especially white men, sleep too easily at night while women earn 70 per cent of what we do. Secretly, I think we’d prefer to not have to talk about this much. Sure, March 8 and December 6 are days we set aside for reflecting on this, but, most likely, we don’t want to be [...]

My friend Eric Duhaime had a book launch in Montreal for his new book : Liberez Nous des Syndicats( Free us from the unions) yesterday. It was great crowd. There had to be a security in the face of leftist threats. The event was a smashing success….