The National Post ran a little pro-and-con debate on minimum wages in Feb. 22's paper. I was the "pro" side; my argument was excerpted from a longer paper on "What determines wages and income distribution" that is available on the CAW's web site. The "con" side was written by two economists at the Fraser Institute.

Governments are still reeling from recession-induced deficits, but now their attention is turning to another fiscal elephant marching into the room: the coming renegotiation of federal-provincial transfer payments. The Canada Health Transfer (CHT) expires in 2014, and must be extended soon. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty plans to clamp down on transfers to reduce his own deficit. But that just passes the buck to the provinces, whose fiscal position is even worse.

As this debate heats up, there's a new piece of knowledge that should be considered carefully as finance ministers arm-wrestle. Since the CHT was implemented in 2004, researchers around the world have established a whole new field of scientific knowledge regarding the social determinants of health.

The Investment Canada Act, implemented in 1985 by the government of Brian Mulroney, replaced the Foreign Investment Review Agency, which had become a potent symbol of Pierre Trudeau's interventionism. While the new act was explicitly intended to welcome foreign investment (including takeovers) with open arms, it included a "net benefit" test to supposedly protect Canadian interests.

When the world plunged into recession in 2008, G20 leaders ostentatiously pledged not to repeat the errors of the 1930s. To hasten economic recovery, they would avoid protectionism and keep trade flowing. Canada's government has been among the loudest voices in this free trade chorus.

This is a gross misreading of actual history. World trade collapsed in the 1930s because of collapsing consumer demand, not protectionism; competitive tariffs were a response to that implosion, not its cause. For the same reason, world trade plunged 12 per cent last year, despite the G20 promises.

Tepid GDP numbers released Tuesday by Statistics Canada confirm that Canada's economic recovery, such as it was, is sliding completely into the ditch. We're clearly heading for stagnation at best, and quite possibly another "double dip" downturn.

The headline number was disappointing, to say the least. Real GDP grew only 2 per cent (annualized) in the spring quarter. That's just a hair faster than the U.S. economy (which everyone knows is still deeply in the soup). Two per cent doesn't keep up with population and productivity -- implying higher unemployment ahead, not lower. Typically, at this stage of recovery, the economy should be growing three times faster.

Canada's trade negotiators used to complain they were missing all the fun. Canada didn't sign any free-trade agreements for seven years (stretching back to a blockbuster deal with Costa Rica in 2002). Then, last year, a spate of little deals (including Colombia, where trade unionists are still being murdered) broke the drought and gave them something to do. But it's the "big one" that now has negotiators drooling: a proposed mega-deal with the European Union. The fourth round of talks kicks off today in Brussels.

Toronto's main business lobby, the Board of Trade, recently called for the outsourcing of public transit services to private companies, part of their free advice to the next mayor on reducing the city's deficit.

On one level, it's an unremarkable proposal: just the latest in a chorus of business demands that governments fix their deficits by selling, contracting out or eliminating public services. But it caught my eye because I am residing temporarily in Auckland, New Zealand's biggest city, where the transit system is the most fragmented, expensive and maddening I've ever used. And it's 100-per-cent private. The gory details provide a caution for those who believe the private market always does things better.