For the record…

Earlier this week, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released The Harper Record 2008 – 2015 edited by Teresa Healy and Stuart Trew. I had the privilege of reviewing the chapter by University of Victoria professor Donna Wood, “Hollowing out the middle: Recasting federal workforce development programs under the Harper government.” The chapter looks at workforce development in light of the Labour Market Development Agreements (LMDAs) and the Labour Market Agreements (LMA), a reduced EI program, deterioration of federal/provincial relationships and feeble engagement efforts. If Donna’s chapter is any indication of the quality in the rest of this book, it is certainly a “must read,” (not to mention its awesome cover.)

You can download the whole publication or any individual chapter at: https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/harper-record-2008-2015

I’ve posted the chapters below so you can see the breadth and depth of the topics covered and the calibre of the authors.

Table of Contents

vii Preface

Bruce Campbell

1 Introduction

Teresa Healy and Stuart Trew

Democracy

19 Irreconcilable differences: First Nations and the Harper government’s energy superpower agenda

Daniel Wilson

37 Dismantling democracy: Stifling debate and dissent for civil society and Indigenous people

Pearl Eliadis

75 Scapegoating Canada’s public sector: How the government used the crisis to attack unions, slash the public service and increase privatization

Howie West

89 Government for the people, not by the people: Populism and parliamentary governance under Stephen Harper

Clark Banack

105 A party for new Canadians? The rhetoric and reality of neoconservative citizenship and immigration policy

John Carlaw

Labour and Migration

129 Welcome! (But don’t get comfortable): The permanence of Canada’s temporary migration program

Karl Flecker

149 The hidden growth of Canada’s migrant workforce

Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood

159 Canada’s managed migration policy: Working for business, not people

Harsha Walia

169 The war on labour: Solutions in search of a problem

Alison Braley-Rattai

183 Hollowing out the middle: Recasting federal workforce development programs under the Harper government

Donna Wood

Social Policy

203 Tough on crime, weak on results: The Harper government’s emphasis on prison time is ineffective and expensive

Paula Mallea

217 Mad Men family policy: The Harper record on taxation and child care

Kate Bezanson

229 Whose priorities?

Artwork by Rusa Jeremic

231 The Harper government’s reorienting of Status of Women Canada

Jane Stinson

239 Case Study: The Harper government and the Canada Social Transfer

Jennifer Mussell

245 Truth without reconciliation: The Harper government and Aboriginal peoples after the apology

James FitzGerald

255 The need for federal leadership in public health care in Canada

Melissa Newitt and Adrienne Silnicki

265 Housing first, but affordable housing last: The Harper government and homelessness

Carey Doberstein and Alison Smith

Economy

281 Leaner and meaner: Government spending from stimulus to austerity

Tamara Krawchenko and Christopher Stoney

293 Gender and austerity in post-crisis Canada: How the government is leaving women behind

Sophie O’Manique

307 Safe, but for how long? Canada’s incomplete response to the last global financial crisis

Ian Roberge

317 A dance of partisan ideology and electoral politics: The politics of economic policy in the Great Recession

Prosper Bernard Jr.

Food, Water, Air, Environment

333 Corporate power, deregulation and the threat to public safety

Bruce Campbell

337 Burning down the house: Environmental policy dismantling by the Harper government

Nigel Kinney

349 A monopoly of knowledge: The dissolution of the libraries of Fisheries and Oceans Canada

Andrea Zeffiro

357 From food sovereignty to food insecurity: How changes to the Canadian Wheat Board and seed policy leave farmers worse off

Ann Slater

367 Case Study: Agriculture Canada to remove Health Canada from safety assessment of some GM foods

Lucy Sharratt

Security, Foreign Policy & Trade

373 More secure, but not safer: A review of national security policy from 2008 to the present

Monia Mazigh

387 Adrift at sea: Defence policy after Afghanistan

Stewart Webb

403 White hats, black hats: The Harper government’s policy toward Israel

Dennis Gruending

415 Investor versus state: Canada’s trade and investment treaties are undermining democracy and regulation at home and abroad

Scott Sinclair

423 Case Study: Canada as mining superpower

Yves Engler

429 About the Authors