Canada

With U.S. President Barack Obama expected to deny a permit to the Keystone XL pipeline this fall, Canada’s oil industry is looking for someone to blame.

As the mid-term elections in the United States continue to heat up, a new report released Wednesday shows that Canadian corporations have registered at least $15.3 million USD in spending on direct lobbying of the U.S. federal government in the first nine months of 2014.

A Canadian consulting firm has found that the country's fastest growing industry isn't fossil fuel extraction or export, but clean technology, like wind and solar energy companies.

Burger King is in talks to buy doughnut chain Tim Hortons and create a new holding company headquartered in Canada, a move that could shave its tax bill. Such an overseas shift, called a tax inversion, has become increasingly popular among U.S. companies and a hot political issue.

The Canadian government, learning something from the US, has systematically kept wages low for temporary workers. Employment Minister Jason Kenney approved extra work visas but has paid them the bare minimum wage to work – a practice that goes against the "prevailing wage" standard.

Currently, only four percent of the Canadian construction force is female. Journeyman, a national program that helps mentor, support and promote women working in construction, hopes to change that. But drumming up female interest in a male-dominated industry is only a small part of the program's mission.

Today's labor force numbers are ugly, there's no other word for it. Employment down 29,000 jobs. Paid employment (i.e. not counting self-employment) down 46,000 jobs. The only reason the unemployment rate held steady (at 6.9 per cent) is because labor force participation fell again: by almost two tenths of a point, to just over 66 per cent.

A new study released this week that examines nearly 500 pieces of legislation in 66 countries finds Canada lags behind many countries, including China, when it comes to advancing a plan to reduce climate change pollution and fossil fuel usage. According to Globe International, the organization behind the study, Canada currently "has no comprehensive federal climate change legislation."

While Right-to-Work legislation has traditionally been the norm in the American south, the decision by the Michigan legislature to adopt the anti-union legislation has placed the issue on Canada’s doorstep. The importance may already be significant in light of a near 50-year low in the "coverage rate" for Canadian workers outside of the agriculture sector.