Jordan Brennan is an economist with Unifor and a Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard University. In a recent report, he trashes the Nova Scotia Liberal government’s neoliberal austerity agenda. He argues that cutting government spending when the private sector is also belt-tightening is exactly the opposite of responsible economic stewardship.
Also, we speak with four of the newly-elected city councillors: Lindell Smith, Lisa Blackburn, Shawn Cleary and Richard Zurawski. Each talks about how they’re gearing up for joining council, how they hope to address a living-wage ordinance, and which councillor they’d most like to job shadow.
Finally, please Jeebus, Go Cubs!
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This whole concept put forward by Brennan is based on wilful ignorance of some significant issues. One being that past performance is not a guarantee of future performance. This province is losing some big easy money in natural gas royalties and jobs. Manufacturing in the pulp industry is questionable. And the environmental destruction we’ve done to this province, to achieve GDP (an awful metric) over decades that has kept things in his comfort zone, seems to be insignificant. Which would be expected from a Unifor rep, not gonna bite the hand that feeds.
One thing was right though, we aren’t like Greece in debt – or austerity. But things aren’t looking up.
One couple where one is a teacher or RN and another is a firefighter or police officer and the combined income would be about $90,000 or more; enough to purchase a $360,000 detached home in Dartmouth or peninsula Halifax.
The same couple could not buy a detached home, or almost any other home in Greater Toronto.
Public sector workers in Nova Scotia are better off than almost any other city in Canada – they don’t need higher wages.