A different look at the news
- Young hobos and gold-plated dinners
- Will EU-Canada trade pact survive?
- Forget baseball. We've got hockey, soccer, basketball
- What to watch and read this weekend
- What to watch for (and ponder) in the coming days
The past week
A comment I'd love to hear ...
“I’m not sure where I’ll be working in a few years, either.”
Liberal Party optics
I wonder if they talked about the plight of our kids at those gold-plated Liberal dinners.
We’re not likely to find out. But let’s review how the week played out, and discuss the optics of young hobos and fancy fundraisers.
It started last weekend, when Finance Minister Bill Morneau told a Liberal function that contract work and turnover among Canada’s youth will be with us for good.
That sparked some anger from opposition politicians and, later in the week, heckles from young people at a labour forum when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed that precarious work situations aren’t going away.
For the record, he said that’s a source of concern for his Liberal government.
I can’t help but contrast this with reports from The Globe and Mail’s Robert Fife and Steven Chase about Liberal fundraisers worth up to $1,500 a plate.
Mr. Morneau, for one, said Friday he has been onside with all of the related rules.
But, as my colleagues Bob and Steve report, federal lobbying commissioner Karen Shepherd is probing what she dubbed these “pay-for-access” gatherings.
Which brings us back to raking in money at a time when our kids can’t find solid work.
The jobless rate among young people, those between the ages of 15 and 24, stands at 13.2 per cent, or more than 365,000 kids who can’t find jobs.
And that doesn’t take underemployment into account at a time of much contract and intern work without benefits or pensions.
Not only that, national unemployment isn’t expected to decline much any time soon.
For the record, the Liberals did campaign on a pledge for youth job creation. And they have not been alone in what amounts to shrugging their shoulders. The Harper Conservatives weren’t particularly strong there, either.
It all begs the question: Since when does government policy amount to get used to it?
Citing his government’s concern, Mr. Trudeau lauded the recent reforms to the Canada Pension Plan
Not to knock those reforms, but I suspect our kids are more concerned at this point about the next 40 to 50 years than they are about those that will follow.
A comment I'd love to hear ...
“But look what you get for $1,500 a plate.”
Trading up
When you throw in a troubled trade pact, it hasn’t been the best of weeks for the governing Liberals.
True, the proposed EU-Canada trade deal appears to have been salvaged at this point after a breakthrough in the standoff between Wallonia and Belgium’s other regions, with an agreement to suspend the treaty’s dispute mechanism.
But as Steven Chase and Paul Waldie write, there’s still so much that could happen, and so much still to do, that some observers question whether the deal known as CETA will ever see the light of day.
Analysts say this week’s development is certainly encouraging, but God knows what could happen in this era of protectionism and slow decision-making in the European Union.
Toronto-Dominion Bank economists Fotios Raptis and Brian DePratto said they are now “a little more optimistic” about the EU’s negotiating ability, among other things.
“That said, there remains some uncertainty surrounding the ultimate fate of CETA,” the TD economists said in a report on the breakthrough.
“The suspension of the dispute system means that the trade component of the treaty should be able to go forward on a provisional basis while changes to the dispute system are discussed,” they added.
“Should a revised dispute system not be agreed in the coming years, CETA may still be undone.”
A scene I'd love to see ...
“I’ll go to the pharmacy, you get the Doritos.”
Oh, forget about baseball
We’ve got hockey across the country, the Raptors and Toronto FC, which just reached a milestone, as my colleague David Shoalts reports.
Your weekend
If it’s nice enough, get out to the movies. If there’s a chill, you can always stay home and watch TV or read a book.
Kate Taylor loved Moonlight, which kicks off in the 1980s' drug-infested Miami and which might just be too good for the Oscars.
Kate also highly recommends The Handmaiden, which she calls a “great big chocolate box of a movie.”
Or go for real action with Ron Howard’s Inferno, starring Tom Hanks, the hot-pursuit thriller reviewed by my colleague Brad Wheeler.
And talk about opening lines, from my friend John Doyle, who talks about TV’s The Walking Dead: “He came, he saw and he bashed in two heads with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire.”
You could also choose to slave over a hot stove with Anthony Bourdain’s book Appetites: A Cookbook, which reviewer Jen Agg says “might be more bourgeois than bohemian, but he’s still a rebel.”
The week ahead
It’s not only the countdown to the American election, it’s also the countdown to a U.S. interest rate hike.
(I know, those two can’t possibly compare given everything we’ve seen on the campaign trail.)
Here’s what my colleague Affan Chowdhry says about the final week:
“As the U.S. presidential race enters the homestretch, all eyes will be on the horserace and the latest national and battleground state polls. But the stump speeches will also be something to behold.
“The Clinton campaign benefits from a powerful rotation of surrogates. Expect to see U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren reprise her ‘nasty women’ speech, Vice President Joe Biden channelling angry-old-man disbelief, and First Lady Michelle Obama perhaps offering another forceful rebuttal of the Trump candidacy. Has there been anyone sharper and more eloquent than Ms. Obama?
“But let’s not forget President Barack Obama. He is loose, hungry and unforgiving. The Republican Party that he says stonewalled him at every step is in deep trouble in Congressional races, and Mr. Obama’s stump speeches have been punishing. For him this is no longer just about electing Ms. Clinton. It’s also payback time, as he prepares to make his closing argument to voters.”
Politics aside, it’s a huge week for the global economy.
In Canada, we get Mr. Morneau’s fall economic statement on Tuesday, which Royal Bank of Canada economists say will be scoured for “any signs of additional fiscal stimulus given the generally lower growth forecasts.”
Right. Canada’s economy is generally in the doldrums. And, as already noted, we have an unemployment problem.
Before Mr. Morneau’s report, though, Statistics Canada will give us the latest look at the state of the economy, with a report on gross domestic product in August. RBC expects to see a monthly gain of 0.2 per cent.
We won’t see an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve on Wednesday - now that would be interesting just before the U.S. election - but there’s one coming before the end of the year.
Markets will, as always, scour the U.S. central bank’s statement for clues.
We’ll also see how the euro zone economy fared in the third quarter of the year, with a report Monday, and how the Canadian and U.S. jobs markets fared in October, with reports Friday.
Which pretty much brings us back to where we started.