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Friday October 15, 2021

October 15, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday October 15, 2021

Ford should rethink outdated minimum wage stand

Doug Ford’s minimum-wage policy is the product of minimal thought.

April 29, 2021

Since becoming Ontario’s premier more than three years ago, Ford has rejected any meaningful increase in the baseline wages that employers must by law pay to their workers. After freezing minimum wages during his first 27 months in office, the premier consented to a 25-cent-an-hour increase one year ago then followed up with a paltry 10-cent-an-hour hike on Oct. 1. That brought the current hourly minimum wage to $14.35.

For many of the province’s 500,000 minimum-wage earners, this month’s change felt like a slap in the face instead of a helpful hand up. Those extra 80 cents they have in their pockets after an eight-hour-day’s efforts wouldn’t even cover the cost of their bus ticket to work. Yet Ford stubbornly insists any significant minimum wage increases would shutter businesses and drive higher unemployment.

The problem with this defence is that real-life evidence and real-live economists prove it’s wrong. And if Ford needs an expert second opinion on the matter from a fellow Ontarian, he should consult David Card, the Berkeley university professor who just won the Nobel Prize in economics. The native of Guelph and graduate of Queen’s University, Card was awarded the prestigious honour this week largely for his groundbreaking work into the economic and human impacts that followed minimum-wage increases.

February 1, 2014

Before his research, many economists would have agreed with Ford that boosting wages for some people can make life worse for more by forcing business closures and job losses. If the cost of labour grows too high, the demand for it would drop as many businesses scramble to adapt and some even go bust. Or so went the reasoning — supported for a time by many studies.

But in 1993, Card and the late Alan Krueger challenged conventional theory by looking at what happened to jobs at several New Jersey fast-food restaurants after the state raised its hourly minimum wage from $4.25 (U.S.) to $5.05 (U.S.). After comparing the situation in New Jersey to what was going on at similar fast-food restaurants in neighbouring east Pennsylvania, they concluded the rise in the minimum wage had no effect on the number of people being employed.

In response to skeptical colleagues, Card launched another study in 2000 using new information. His findings were the same. And over time, he won over most of the doubters to his viewpoint. There are still vigorous debates over how governments should manage minimum-wage legislation. But the prevailing opinion of economists is that moderate and gradually introduced wage increments benefit low-wage employees, do not cost jobs and help reduce poverty.

October 18, 2006

In fact, Premier Ford should already know this. After the previous Liberal government raised the hourly minimum wage from $11.60 to $14 in 2018, he railed against what he called “a failed Liberal policy that is driving jobs and investment out of Ontario. It’s equal to the carbon tax when it comes to job killing.” The Ontario Chamber of Commerce was of the same mind and issued dire warnings of economic devastation to come.

Six months after the Liberal minimum-wage hike, however, Ontario’s unemployment rate had dropped to 5.4 per cent, the lowest it had been since 2000. Meanwhile, business profits in the province had risen while its annual inflation rate was running at a modest 2.2 per cent.

Let’s hope the worldwide publicity surrounding Prof. Card’s Nobel Prize will push Ford and the Progressive Conservatives to rethink a minimum wage policy that has so widely been discredited. In its place should be a minimum wage that rises annually and matches wage growth across the provincial workforce. It’s time for a minimum wage based on maximum wisdom. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: 2021-34, academia, Beer, Buck-a-beer, David Card, Doug Ford, economics, Employment, Minimum wage, Nobel, Ontario, Science

Friday April 24, 2009

April 24, 2009 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday April 24, 2009

Ignatieff comes to America, to be educated

May 2, 2009

The Leader of the Official Opposition is in town to talk with senior Obama administration and congressional figures and to deliver a speech on Afghanistan before a private audience that includes Richard Holbrooke, the President’s special envoy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Michael Ignatieff had dinner last night with Mr. Holbrooke as well.

The Department of Foreign Affairs would kill for this kind of access.

Mr. Ignatieff is more than a moderately important Canadian politician hoping for a photo-op with a departmental secretary and maybe a senator or two.

He used to be one of the world’s better-known public intellectuals, a man more at home in common rooms than in his too-small office on Parliament Hill.

Having taught at Harvard, having been a regular contributor to The New York Times, having acted as host on BBC programs – being, in other words, a prominent member of the transatlantic intelligentsia, equips Mr. Ignatieff with an intellectual credibility in the eyes of this administration that Prime Minister Stephen Harper simply cannot emulate.

Within any culture, the question that matters is: Is he One of Us? For the Obama administration, Mr. Ignatieff is One of Us. Mr. Harper never will be. And there’s nothing he can do about it.

During his visit, Mr. Ignatieff hopes to impress his views about Afghanistan – Canada should stop shooting at people there and work harder on rebuilding Afghan society – on Mr. Holbrooke and other figures close to the President. (Source: Globe & Mail) 

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: academia, alumni, Canada, egghead, faculty, friends, Harvard, intelligentsia, Michael Ignatieff, nerd, primal, professor, roots, snobs, University, USA

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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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