Last Monday, B.C. teachers held a Day of Action in communities across the province to protest the B.C. government's decision to legislate a contract and put an end to their collective bargaining process. I was invited to speak to teachers at the Surrey rally, where I had the opportunity to share some of my analysis of the B.C. Budget (which readers of this blog are familiar with) and debunk some myths around the economic and fiscal context in which the teachers' bargaining process is taking place.

Last week, on Feb. 2nd, I drove up to London, Ontario, to shoot some film footage of the locked-out workers picketing outside the Electro-Motive Diesel plant for a documentary I am working on. The company, the only one to make locomotives in Canada, is owned by Caterpillar Inc., the world's largest equipment manufacturer. They had locked out the entire workforce of 450 workers on New Year's Day after demanding wage cuts as high as 50 per cent.

Stephen Harper took aim at some of his "complacent" colleagues meeting at Davos for taking their prosperity as a given and focusing too much on "entitlements and services" that they cannot afford.

But he also fired a few shots across the bow at complacent Canadians who might have thought he meant it when he said cuts to programs such as pensions were not on his agenda.

"We have already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending," Harper told the blue ribbon crowd gathered at Davos. "We must do the same for our retirement income system."