wage

Wednesday February 10, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 10, 2021

Rogers, Bell and Telus collected more than $240 million from Canada’s wage-subsidy program — and Bell and Telus raised shareholder payouts

June 18, 2020

Canada’s big three telecom companies have collectively received more than $240 million from the federal government’s wage subsidy program while continuing to pay out billions of dollars in dividends to shareholders.

According to the most recent filings in provincial lobbyist registries, Bell has received $122.9 million, Rogers $82.3 million and Telus $38.6 million in support payments as part of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the three companies have continued to pay out regular dividends to shareholders; Bell and Telus have announced increases to their annual payouts. Both Bell and Rogers have also laid off workers at their hard-hit media divisions. 

Other large businesses have also paid out dividends while receiving CEWS support, including numerous companies in the oilpatch, auto-parts maker Linamar and furniture retailer Leon’s. (Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, is among the recipients of the federal wage subsidy.)

April 2, 2020

Economists say the relief payments to large, profitable companies with ample access to credit illustrate problems in the way CEWS is designed, in these cases leading to benefits for shareholders but not necessarily targeted support for workers whose jobs are at risk. One Liberal MP is calling on the government to claw back payments from companies that have paid dividends.

“CEWS is sold as a wage subsidy, but it’s really a business expense subsidy,” said Amin Mawani, associate professor of taxation at the Schulich School of Business at York University.

Mawani has argued that Canada should consider a model where the government pays subsidies only in respect of employees who miss hours of work because of the pandemic. Under the current rules of the Canadian program, businesses with any level of revenue decline are eligible for at least some level of subsidy with respect to all their Canadian employees. 

He said it is understandable that businesses would continue to pay dividends, which he described as a “cost of doing business” akin to paying interest to the bank on loans, but he questioned the need to hike payouts this year. “I don’t think shareholders were necessarily expecting an increase during the pandemic.” (Niagara Falls Review) 

 

Wednesday December 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday December 5, 2012

Dwight Duncan has warning for next Ontario Liberal leader

Tim Hudak asks Santa ‘Dwight Duncan’ to keep labor restrictions

A confidential report says Dwight Duncan has always been admirably frank as finance minister. His finger-wagging, however, is usually aimed at Tory and NDP rivals across the floor.

Now fellow Liberals are bearing the brunt of his bluntness.

In the race to replace Dalton McGuinty as premier, Duncan is watching warily from the sidelines, preparing his own exit strategy from provincial politics. And fussing over his fiscal legacy:

Après Dwight, le deluge?

“I don’t intend to go silently into the night,” he told the Toronto Board of Trade during a PowerPoint show outlining doomsday scenarios for Ontario’s fiscal future:

Tory tax cuts would add billions to the budget deficit and undermine government programs. NDP tax and wage hikes would imperil the economy.

But Duncan was also sending a clear message to the seven candidates vying for the Liberal leadership. The winner of the January convention will automatically inherit the premier’s office and dictate the terms of the next budget.

A few are straying from the party line by second-guessing the teachers’ dispute. Some candidates are hinting they would have handled the unions differently, deftly avoiding any imposed deals.

While they waver, Duncan disdains pussyfooting. He stressed Monday that the controversial Bill 115 must be deployed to ensure total payroll costs do not increase. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday October 5, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 5, 2012

Civil Service Wage Freeze in Ontario

Premier Dalton McGuinty refused to say Thursday if the public-sector wage freeze legislation opposed by the Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats will be a confidence vote in his minority Liberal government.

“Without speaking to that particular issue…an integral part of our plan to attack the deficit is to put in place a freeze on public-sector compensation,” McGuinty told the media after his annual agri-food summit.

When reporters pointed out he hadn’t answered the question about whether he would declare the bill a confidence motion, McGuinty admitted he was ducking the issue.

“Yeah I know,” he said. “That was deliberate. Why is this a surprise?”

The Liberals unveiled a draft version of the bill last week to get opposition input on the plan to freeze wages of 481,000 workers in hospitals, colleges, universities, nursing homes and the civil service to help eliminate a deficit projected at $14.8 billion.

The Tories want the government to open labour contracts to impose an immediate pay freeze, and said they can’t vote for a “weak” bill that exempts municipalities, which means police, firefighters and public transit workers will not be covered.

McGuinty rejected the Tory demand to open existing contracts as “a constitutional non-starter,” and said he won’t extend the wage freeze legislation to cover municipalities, who directly employ police and firefighters.

“We have enough challenges with our own fiscal problems,” he said. (Source: CBC News) 

 

Thursday December 21, 2006

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 21, 2006

McGuinty accuses NDP of theatrics over pay hike

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty accused the NDP on Tuesday of using unprecedented stalling tactics and theatrics to delay a 25-per-cent salary hike for provincial legislators.

New Democrats have been colourful in expressing their anger over the pay boost for members of the provincial parliament, announced in a surprise move by McGuinty’s government last week. The NDP has been trying to force the related bill to a committee for public hearings.

The provincial legislature had been scheduled to rise on Dec. 14, but the government announced it would sit another week in an effort to pass the pay hike.

Before a Liberal caucus meeting Tuesday, McGuinty invited Ontarians to “grab some popcorn” to watch the NDP’s performance.

“…It is really without precedent in the annals of parliamentary traditions,” he said of the New Democrats tactics.

The legislation would see the MPPs earning 75 per cent of what their federal counterparts make and would increase a member’s base salary to $110,775 from $88,771. (CBC)