Tom Parkin

Ontarians pay as PCs' backlogged courts drop 338,000 traffic safety charges Millions in lost fine revenue. Millions spent to process and prepare cases that never get decided — because of a backlogged court system. Guess who pays!

You pay for PCs dropping 338,000 Highway Traffic Acf charges, double the number from ten years ago

42% of stunt driving charges got dropped. 32% of charges for driving with a suspended licence dropped

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Smith spreads false jobs facts to defend her minimum wage freeze Fact is, Notley's NDP cut youth unemployment by 22,100 people while hiking the minimum wage.

To justify the UCP’s eight year minimum wage freeze, Premier Smith falsely claimed the Notley NDP’s increases caused “mass layoffs” of young workers

In fact, there were 22,100 fewer unemployed young workers at the end of Notley’s term than at its beginning

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273% hike in fossil fuel burning the price of Ford PCs' energy muddle Ontarians are paying the price in money, emissions and uncertainty about where Ontario's future electricity will come from.

Doug Ford works hard to distract from his electricity muddle

And Ontarians pay the price with money, emissions, and an uncertain electricity supply

Ask yourself, how much should you pay for Doug Ford’s messes?

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Auto was struggling long before Trump. Two of eight Ontario assembly plants (Brampton and Oakville) haven’t built a vehicle since 2023

Anyway, whosever fault it is, it’s Ford’s job to address it. He has zero plan.

Ontario lost 91,000 jobs, openings shrank by 19,000 in July: StatsCan Ontarians are paying the price for a premier who doesn't believe there's a jobs problem, and has no plan to address it.

The cost of Doug Ford is 91,000 employees let go in July and 19,000 fewer job openings, leaving five job-seekers for every job opening

And many still working are paying the price with reduced shift hours

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Stiles' Ontario NDP at a defining moment Convention delegates made it clear the goal is to defeat and replace Doug Ford. That first requires kicking-out the legs PC support rests on.

Stiles has vowed to transform the NDP into a party that can defeat and replace the Ford PCs

Given the PCs’ high polling levels, that goal requires attacking PC strengths. Stiles’ new emphasis on Ford’s poor record on jobs is an early test of how that can done

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Ford's housing failure is a jobs-killer, but politics has muted criticism Ontario's residential construction sector is small and getting smaller, but sector unions appear reluctant to publicly raise concerns as the Ford government weaponizes a key grant program.

Ontario’s residential construction construction sector is small and getting smaller, thanks to PC housing failure

Jobs are down 10%, but there hasn’t been much public complaint, likely because PC political meddling in the Skills Development Fund has raised fears

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Job worries highest in Ontario, with low income and younger voters “Jobs and the economy” voters aren't older and wealthy, they're young and low income, the people first hurt in a jobs downturn.

The new “jobs and economy voter”: not older and wealthy, they're young or low income, the people first hurt in a jobs downturn.

Parties seeking their support need to sharpen focus on creating and protecting jobs

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Ontario now has four times more job-seekers than job openings Doug Ford’s “look harder” comment explains why Ontario has no jobs plan: because he denies there’s an unemployment problem.

Doug Ford’s “look harder” comment is probably resonating with a lot of people, but not the way he would like

There are now 800,000 unemployed in Ontario, and StatsCan yesterday reported in Q2 2025 there were only 179,000 job openings

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Bonnie' meltdown is Marit's opening. But bringing down Doug will demand real discipline. Beating Doug Ford's communications strategy will require some tough message discipline from the Ontario NDP, starting with setting the story.

The again leaderless Ontario Liberals give Marit Stiles a second chance to put her NDP forward as Doug Ford’s true nemesis

Ford is a tough opponent, and bringing him down will require unity around a story of what’s wrong with Ontario and why it doesn’t get fixed

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The biggest productivity hypocrites: low-wage advocates Politicians and business lobby groups speak out of both sides of their mouths when they demand low-wage workers but say they want a high-productivity economy.

Politicians and business lobby groups speak out of both sides of their mouths when they demand low-wage workers but say they want a high-productivity economy

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Yves Engler’s NDP leadership bid raises a big red flag Engler was nominated by group that says "the NDP cannot be transformed." So why is he running to be its leader?

The Socialist Action party nominated Yves Engler to run for the NDP leadership

The NDP giving a platform and its membership list to members of a fringe self-defined Trotskyist communist group hostile to the NDP is probably a bad idea

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Not a stunt: 800,000 Ontario workers now without a paycheque Unemployment is rising and many workers are giving up hope. Doug Ford responds with TV stunts and elite media shrugs. This is how we lose a country.

41,000 Ontario workers abandoned their job search in August and 66,300 Ontario jobs have disappeared this year

Doug Ford’s TV stunts and media complacency is how we lose a country. Fortunately some pro-jobs groups and politicians are stirring up action

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Blaming immigrants for the housing price surge is so false, it's stupid Housing costs skyrocketed on low mortgage rates. But some blame immigrants, and it’s mostly partisan hackery.

The theory that immigration caused the housing crisis doesn’t fit the facts

Opposite to the theory, house prices surged when in-migration to Canada was at historic lows; when in-migration was at highs, house prices were falling

Here’s what the data shows

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Trans Mountain pipeline 22% empty in June; forecast use revised down Forecasts have been downgraded but still look too rosy. Should Canadians pay for a second Pacific pipeline with so much capacity to Asia still unused?

Trans Mountain pipeline is 200 million barrels a day under capacity and could be expanded by another 300 Mb/d if there was a need

Why is Canada considering a second “nation-building” Pacific pipeline when the first one — which cost is $34B — isn’t fully used?

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Accepting US auto tariffs may be death blow to some Ontario assembly plants The value of vehicle shipments was already down, with several plants idle now or soon. Accepting U.S. auto tariffs may mean some never reopen.

With several Ontario auto assembly plants facing uncertainty, the decision to accept a U.S. auto tariff is being called a “betrayal” by Unifor

When Carney started echoing Trump’s “CUSMA-complaint” line, we should’ve known the decision had been made

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Olivia Chow's win shows Doug Ford has room to act on housing, if he's prodded Ford shrugs and says he's tried everything, but Chow's policy win shows there's lots of moves available to spur housing, for those not governed by NIMBY fears.

Doug Ford seems to have given up on building housing

ButToronto mayor Olivia Chow’s housing policy win last week shows there’re still many moves he can make to spur construction, if someone with some strategic savvy prods him

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Flight attendants to defy Carney’s illegal order The right to bargain and strike is Charter-protected in Canada. But when Air Canada wanted Mark Carney to break the law for them, he did.

When Air Canada execs knew they had Mark Carney and sec 107 in their back pocket they refused to negotiate

When flight attendants refused to obey Mark Carney’s illegal use of section 107 Air Canada had to actually bargain and a deal was quickly reached

Funny that
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Canadian boycott of U.S. travel gains steam in July To July 31, Canadians have logged over 830,000 fewer return trips from the United States through Canada's major airports than last year -- and July's drop is the biggest yet.

Canadians’ boycott of travel to US strengthens, July air travel down 27%, the deepest monthly drop yet

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Ontario’s population declines as exodus to elsewhere continues Out-migration gained pace as housing costs soared and unemployment climbed to 700,000.

Ontario’s historic population decline in Q1 2025 comes as more people leave for other provinces than move to Ontario from the rest of Canada

It’s a trend that began while housing costs were skyrocketing and unemployment started climbing

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Ontario jobless hits 700,000. Does anyone care? There's a lot of public fretting about what Trump might do, but 700,000 Ontario workers already without a job have been mostly ignored.

700,000 Ontario workers now jobless but Ontario’s elite doesn’t care

Chamber of Commerce, Toronto Board of Trade and Ontario Liberal Party issued no comment

Toronto Star didn’t even report on Toronto unemployment hitting 9.0%

Doug Ford faces no accountability

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Nordic nations’ workers have OECD’s highest union rate Most Nordic workers are members of a union, which bargain about a lot more than just terms and conditions at their own workplace.

Nordic nations’ workers have OECD’s highest union rate, playing a key economic role that distinguishes social democracy from neoliberalism

Nordics can manage full employment with low inflation while social infrastructure creates high labour market participation

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Will Trump's tariff wall end U.S. dollar's reserve privilege? The U.S. dollar's recent instability may have central bankers looking for a new reserve currency, but it's not clear there is one.

Increasingly, central bankers are looking beyond the U.S. dollar to stock their reserves

With inflation and tariffs debasing a dollar that’s already fallen 10% this year, there may be room for Europe to seize the privilege of the reserve currency. Can they?

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Canadians' US travel falls, but lots more from some places than others Canadian car travel from United States into BC, Quebec and New Brunswick more than 40 per cent down but a lot less in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Canadians’ US travel is down, especially among British Columbians, but not everyone is shunning travel to Trumpland

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U.S. dollar drop adding to Trump's trade wall Buying a U.S. dollar now costs 7 cents Canadian less than on January 1, and the falling dollar may be the goal.

A tumbling US dollar effectively puts a tariff on the world and there are signs it’s a goal and longterm

Thinking this will go away if we play nice and surrender some bits to Trump misreads the situation

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Family job income lagged prices in 2023, but investment income beat inflation The average B.C. family had the largest after-tax income gain while Saskatchewan families took the biggest hit on take-home income.

Average Canadian family income from work fell behind inflation in 2023, but income from savings and investment beat inflation

BC families’ avg after-tax income beat inflation the most, adding $1,160, while Sask families lost the most, $970

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GTA real estate crash continues, house prices now down 22% from peak Falling prices are welcome news for house buyers and renters, but the unchecked price surge from 2020 to 2022 created an affordability crisis and economic decline.

Ontario, Economic Weak Man of Canada, by Doug Ford

Act 1: low interest rates fuel house price surge

Act 2: premier lets overheated market run; prices rise 53% in 23 months

Act 3: affordability crisis chokes family budgets, retail sales stall, unemployment up

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Carney’s revenue cuts show shrinking the public sector is the priority, not deficits If balancing the budget was his priority, cutting billions in revenue is funny way to go about it.

Carney has cut about $15B a year from revenue, which would’ve made his $21.5B in spending cuts mostly unneeded

Deficits aren’t the target, it’s shrinking the state and empowering corporations, whose first loyalty isn’t to the defence of Canadian sovereignty

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You may be forgiven if you thought the Liberals won the election

Only Conservative voters support Bill C-5 letting Carney by-pass environmental reviews for projects he picks

And Albertans have the highest support for overriding provincial jurisdiction

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Today, Tommy Douglas would be a TikTok culture king The Saskatchewan CCF Premier knew politics is rooted in popular culture, knowledge the left should rediscover with union partners.

Tommy Douglas rooted his politics in the popular culture of his time

Times have changed, but political change still thrives when it uses cultural references, icons, events or identities to access voters and dies when it does not

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