New research upsets anti-union apple-cart

Professor Erwin Diewert of UBC is uncorking a research paper that upends the last fifty years of received wisdom on the subject of Canada's supposed "productivity gap" with the US.

There is not a business school or an editorial board in Canada that has not laboured long and hard to explain that gap, and without fail there are several common threads in those explanations.

• Canadian taxes are too high
• labour laws are too rigid
• the minimum wage is too high
• unions have too much clout
• all of the above conspire to drive the best and the brightest to greener pastures

So after hearing that same song from every think tank in the land for the better part of half a century, Professor Diewert comes along and claims that the "productivity gap" as we have come to know and fear it simply doesn't exist!

Taxes aren't too high after all.

Labour laws could stand to be tightened up a little.

The minimum wage could be higher.

Unions don't have enough clout.

Insofar as the "best and brightest" have sought out greener pastures, it's because of fear-mongering and not because of facts!

Thanks Professor Diewert!..

LET'S PARTY LIKE IT'S 1962!!!