Now that economic rethinking is on the agenda, argues Richard Swift, it’s a good time for those who see the ominous writing on the wall to challenge the growth consensus and promote a package of serious degrowth measures, some of which align with historic left demands and the Green New Deal which seems to have faded from view.

Imposed from above during an economic emergency, rent control played a significant role both in curbing out-of-control inflation and solving the housing crisis Canada was experiencing at the time. A combination of robust rent control and concurrent investments in public housing saw housing prices fall by as much as 30 percent in real terms between 1975 and 1978.

Despite the documented harm caused by their bad behaviour, landlords across Canada have very little accountability. Just as patients ought to feel assured their nurses and social workers are behaving ethically, tenants deserve to feel confident their landlords are not engaging in exploitative, unsafe, or criminal behaviour.

The Wall Street Journal warns that Trump’s “dumbest trade war in history” could lead to recession. But, as McGill University professor Daniel Cere explains, his policies might not be born out of ignorance, but cold-blooded tactics designed to advance the interests of those best positioned to take advantage of economic chaos.

As the US redefines its global role and its approach to international relations with Trump at the helm, the world is going to become a far more unstable and threatening place than it already is. In this enormously challenging context, the pivotal but still uncertain question will be the scale and strength of working class resistance and the popular struggles that are taken up.

Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on campaign literature to discern Mark Carney’s vision for the future. The decades he’s spent in both the private sector and the public service, as well as his 2021 book, Value(s): Building a Better World for All, offer important insights into the political imagination of the central banker who would be prime minister.

The following is an excerpt from Invested in Crisis: Public Sector Pensions Against the Future by Tom Fraser. Fraser traces the rise of the province’s pension funds by melding history, geography, and political economy to situate this growth in the context of Ontario’s deindustrialization, the rise of finance, and the global politics of the built environment.

Whether Donald Trump’s tariffs remain for long, we must decouple our economy from the United States as much and as quickly as possible, writes political economist and University of Alberta professor emeritus Gordon Laxer. It will not be easy, but if we summon the resolve we showed in the Second World War, when we built whole industries from scratch, it can be done.

A weak labour market is always bad for workers. But it is an even bigger problem as we deal with Trump’s attacks on Canada’s economy. Canada’s current unemployment rate is 6.6 percent, down from a recent high of 6.9 percent. However, it is well above the 4.8 percent achieved in 2022, or even the 5.5 percent reached in 2019.

Canada has a choice to make. We can continue to let the wealthiest among us hoard resources while ordinary Canadians struggle with rising costs, or we can take bold action to build a fairer, more just society. It’s time for Canada to ditch the excuses and implement a wealth tax and other progressive tax measures. The future of our economy, and our democracy, depends on it.