Lobok posted:

Mincome also has to make financial sense. Unemployed persons right now total 1,363,000. If we give those people $30,000 a year that's $41 billion right there. Now that's very quick and dirty back-of-the-napkin math but any basic income or mincome program is going to come with a hefty price tag. And it's not a simple switch out with EI because EI payments are relative to what you were earning so getting rid of EI to pay for mincome would hurt people who would end up with less on mincome than they would with EI.

PT6A posted:

I'm pretty sure unpaid OT is forbidden by law in those sorts of positions, no? Hourly employees must be paid overtime.

JawKnee posted:

doesn't stop it from happening, in the slightest

PT6A posted:

I'm pretty sure unpaid OT is forbidden by law in those sorts of positions, no? Hourly employees must be paid overtime.

Lobok posted:

Mincome also has to make financial sense. Unemployed persons right now total 1,363,000. If we give those people $30,000 a year that's $41 billion right there. Now that's very quick and dirty back-of-the-napkin math but any basic income or mincome program is going to come with a hefty price tag. And it's not a simple switch out with EI because EI payments are relative to what you were earning so getting rid of EI to pay for mincome would hurt people who would end up with less on mincome than they would with EI.

Helsing posted:

And by the way, the mounting pressure of the working poor right now is taking the form of votes for Brexit or Donald Trump. The institutions and worldviews that might have channeled the frustrations of the working poor were systematically dismantled and discredited by exactly the kind of liberal idiots who think class politics is no longer relevant. The result is that these resentments get channeled into authoritarian or nativist political movements. And rather than taking this as a warning sign of growing instability the ruling class is reacting by adopting a kind of shallow identity-politics driven liberalism in which they ignore women and minorities among the working poor and fixate on demonizing the white working class as racist and retrograde.

So I guess it's possible at some point we'll see pseudo-fascists start winning elections. That might not be too far away in Europe at this rate. But again, there's not much evidence that this is forcing a reevaluation among contemporary liberals about their embrace of neoliberal economic policies.

Lobok posted:

Mincome also has to make financial sense. Unemployed persons right now total 1,363,000. If we give those people $30,000 a year that's $41 billion right there. Now that's very quick and dirty back-of-the-napkin math but any basic income or mincome program is going to come with a hefty price tag. And it's not a simple switch out with EI because EI payments are relative to what you were earning so getting rid of EI to pay for mincome would hurt people who would end up with less on mincome than they would with EI.

JawKnee posted:

doesn't stop it from happening, in the slightest

A Typical Goon posted:

People in those sorts of positions don't work OT they work 30 hours a week and are kept on the edge of poverty and are told that if they don't show up half an hour early or they ask for breaks or call in sick they'll have their hours cut to 25 a week so just suck it up and eat ramen noodles every night idiot

RBC posted:

lets not forget that most of canada doesn't have a 40 hour work week.

Ontario is 44 hours and if you take an hour unpaid lunch you have to work over 49 hours to get overtime. We have some of the worst labour laws in the developed world.

Lobok posted:

getting rid of EI to pay for mincome would hurt people who would end up with less on mincome than they would with EI.

Helsing posted:

Advisers who are close to the government actually are seriously discussing the idea of using immigration to help substantially increase the size of the Canadian population above it's estimated trend. While it's doubtful the government is going to adopt the most extreme proposals being discussed it's still worth dissecting the underlying premise here, which would seem to clearly go beyond filling skills shortages:


Now if you read the text of this article carefully then it's true that nowhere does anyone explicitly say that increasing immigration will increase income or gdp per capita (they keep is vague, saying how increased population can "expand our economic potential"). However, when you hear them talking about a "brewing demographic storm" necessitating a massive increase in immigration I think it should be clear that they're not just talking about filling in skills gaps. In fact they're quite open about the fact that they think a larger population would give Canada more "influence" on the global stage and that if only Canada had let in more immigrants in the last century then this could have been "Canada's century". I'll agree that exactly why all this is supposed to be good for us is never spelled out explicitly, but it's very clear the policy being advocated here goes way beyond a targeted policy intended to fill some skills gasps.

quote:

That from the Vancouver Police Department who insinuated it earlier today, in a news conference that dealt with the arrest of two Albertans.

“I think a lot of it is anecdotal, I don’t have specific numbers to provide you,” said Constable Brian Montague.

“I think a lot of it has to do with the Alberta economy is so poor right now and the B.C. economy is thriving … in the past we used to see a lot of people move from British Columbia to Alberta and now we’re seeing the opposite flow because the economy is poor and the jobs aren’t there, we’re seeing a lot more people in general move from Alberta to British Columbia and as a result we’re likely going to run into individuals who have recently moved here who are committing crimes as well.”

Montague says it’s not just Alberta, they’re seeing individuals coming from all over the country and some have outstanding warrants in those provinces.

“I think it is just anecdotal and it’s something that our frontline officers have seen and we’ve seen it for many, many years when we’re dealing with individuals that have criminal histories from other provinces and have moved to B.C. to avoid dealing with those criminal histories, in my cases they have outstanding warrants where the police in British Columbia can’t touch them but if they remain in Alberta, Saskatchewan or Ontario they can be arrested and stand trial. That’s nothing new, I’ve been a police officer since 1994 and we’ve been dealing with radius warrants for decades.”

“I think something that we’ve seen recently because of the influx of the people leaving Alberta and coming to British Columbia, it’s just something that we’re seeing.”

The words aren’t new to Calgarians, in fact, former Mayor Ralph Klein suggested an influx of Canadians from the east were responsible for Calgary’s woes back in the eighties.

The statement, however, didn’t appear to surprise Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin.

“I know Chief (Adam) Palmer well and he’s a very thoughtful man so if they’re seeing migration in the province there probably is some relationship with the economy in this province moving towards where there’s a heightened economy both through legitimate business and criminality follows the economy so if that’s happening and he’s seeing that it’s probably accurate but I haven’t seen any of the data but I trust he has all the information,” says Chaffin.

“I’ll have a chance to talk to him when I see him next but I mean I would expect there is migration of people, the more lively economy both in business and criminality, I wouldn’t be surprised but I haven’t seen the data on it.”

PT6A posted:

What's wrong with career changes and relatively shorter-term employment than has historically been the case?

I'd go insane if I knew I was destined to do the same goddamn thing every day for the rest of my working life. I'm preparing for a career change in the next year or two and I'm thrilled about it (also because my clients are driving me nuts at the moment).

Trapick posted:

I mean, this is true of any kind of insurance. If you burn your own house down you don't get an insurance payout for it.

(Another reason we should replace EI with mincome or something.)

CLAM DOWN posted:

48 hour work week

vyelkin posted:

Not to mention if you're referring to Nova Scotia it seems like even after 48 hours you're only entitled to 150% of minimum wage ($10.60 in NS), not 150% of your regular salary. So if you're working for $16/hr then you get no benefit from overtime even after working 48 hours a week.

quote:

Activists have called on Canadian leaders to introduce concrete policies to confront discrimination against women and girls after the country fell from first to 25th in the United Nation’s gender equality ranking.

The criticism comes as the United Nations holds its 65th annual meeting to eliminate gender discrimination, and just a few months after the country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, was praised for a speech to the UN in New York, where he said, “I am a feminist.”

“Canada fails to respect, protect and fulfill the social and economic rights of women and girls,” a group of 14 non-profit organizations said in a statement. “Too many women in Canada experience poverty, homelessness, insecure housing, woefully inadequate social assistance incomes, food insecurity and other violations of the right to an adequate standard of living.”

The groups, which include Amnesty International, the Native Women’s Association of Canada and Oxfam, pointed to Trudeau’s comments on gender equality and his pledges to improve relations with the country’s indigenous population.

“Canada has a new federal government with a Prime Minister who says he is a feminist, calls for a nation-to-nation relationship, and acknowledges that ‘poverty is sexist’. We know words matter, but now we need action,” the statement said.

Historically, the United Nations’ work toward gender equality has included an annual Gender Inequality Index, an international ranking in which Canada has steadily fallen. In 1995, Canada held the top spot, but has fallen to 25th over the last 20 years.

...

“We’re looking to the new government that’s taken over, who has made lots of promises around women’s equality,” said Kasari Govender, executive director of the West Coast Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (Leaf). “Are they actually going to truly act on the damage that has been done over the last couple decades that have eroded women’s equality?”

the trump tutelage posted:

Do you have a partner and/or children?

vyelkin posted:

Canada has fallen from first to 25th in the world on gender equality according to the UN.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/26/canada-women-un-ranking-discrimination-justin-trudeau

The Guardian knows their audience so they point out the difference between style and substance in the Trudeau government:


It's a bit misleading because we were in first place in 1995, not last year, but still.

THC posted:

infernal machines posted:

LMAO forever at the computer janitor protesting that he'll be "taking a pay cut" because he's sick of his job, while telling people who literally can't miss an hour of work or they'll fail to make rent and won't be able to afford the bus fare to get to work how much he prefers the flexibility of precarious employment.

brucio posted:

Surely, surely, the NDP can do better than Niki Ashton.

ChairMaster posted:

I don't know why you guys are so insistent that there exists a realistic solution to the problems that are facing the young people of today and all future generations.

The Butcher posted:

I'm a bit bummed that GMI will most likely be popularly known as "mincome" and not "basic income" which people would naturally shorten to "basic" because that's what its called in the very excellent hard sci-fi Expanse series.

Rust Martialis posted:

Question for mincome - how do you handle cost of living variations based on geography?