Profile of Lana Payne

Biography

Lana Payne writes on labor, politics and social justice issues every second week or twice monthly in The Weekend Telegram.

All articles of Lana Payne

• Cynicism gets the boot in Labrador byelection
  The real winner in the Labrador federal byelection was the triumph of democracy over cynicism. The cynicism that says vote for me or you will be ...
• The big blink
  It doesn’t happen often, but the Harper government just blinked. It wasn’t a total capitulation, not even close. Indeed, the changes announced ...
• Foreign workers and federal priorities
  It is a program that is rife with abuse. Its rules are regularly broken. And it was designed that way; legalized exploitation.No one should be ...
• Newfoundland and Labrador: welcome to austerity
  The definition of insanity, Albert Einstein once said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.Welcome to ...
• Broken election rules and no penalty in sight
  As far as excuses go, they are not even good ones. The dog ate our copy of the “Political Financing Handbook for Candidates and Official Agents” ...
• Attacking the most desperate
  Vilifying the unemployed has become commonplace and pervasive in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Canada. In Harperland, anyone and everyone who ...
• Worthy of note: a banker is touting the benefits of...
  The considerable voices urging the federal and provincial governments to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) in some fashion just got an ...
• Getting by with a little help from Facebook friends
  American author James A. Michener once claimed: “I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” Of course, Mr. Michener was more ...
• Expecting public service (and getting it)
  If he chooses to do so, Kevin Page can look back on his term as the country’s parliamentary budget officer with the knowledge that he made a ...
• Prosperity, meet austerity
  So what does a government do when faced with a “white-hot” economy, real wage growth, skyrocketing consumer and business confidence, the best ...
• Idle No More
  She has inspired so many, with humble courage, with quiet determination, with dignity and with steely resolve.Some might call her hunger strike ...
• The ugly underbelly revealed
  My voice counts. A poignant reminder this Dec. 10 that advancing human rights is tied to our ability to participate in “effective and meaningful ...
• Paying the price for breaking the rules
  Finally! Repercussions for breaking the rules. Canadians have been witnessing a growing, flagrant disregard for the rules, for a level playing ...
• Budgets, austerity and demanding better
  Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has a lot of egg on his face — messy, runny-yolk egg. Last week, the country’s finance minister blamed global ...
• A life lived: one that inspired respect
  We said goodbye to a fine, gentle man last week. He left us much, much too early. He was just 63. His death was sudden, adding to the intensity ...
• The feds have met their match
  It has a ring of poetic justice to it. In the wake of the Liberal sponsorship scandal, the federal Conservatives, then in opposition, called for ...
• Repeating the same mistakes
  “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” — Winston Churchill By now we should have learned that slashing government ...
• The Occupy movement, one year later
  Occupy. The one per cent versus the 99 per cent.It was, and is, more than a slogan.It was, and is, an expression of global economic injustice.It ...
• It's time for a raise
  Back to school. Last week, my daughter went off to start her final year of elementary school.Sixth grade!I’m not sure where the time has gone. It ...
• Finance minister is delivering the goods to...
  Ask and you shall receive. It’s no wonder Canadian corporate CEOs are feeling so emboldened. They have never had it so good. They sit on nearly ...
• His way, or the highway
  Some leaders rise to the occasion of their times, others, like Prime Minister Stephen Harper, are more focused on dampening expectations, ...
• Cash hoarding and the world economy
  It is doubtful the developers of the reality television show “Hoarders” have considered Bay, Wall and Fleet streets or the Cayman Islands as ...
• Not your ordinary revolution
  Scientists. Doctors. Nuclear engineers. Academics. Researchers. Stephen Harper has a big problem.He has ticked them all off. And they are not ...
• Down to the dirt
  A Conservative senator calls a senior political reporter a bitch for doing her job. A cabinet minister calls a deputy premier a complete and ...
• Federal policies will drive down wages for all
  Why is Canada’s prime minister so determined to drive down, or at the very least, suppress the wages of Canadians?As an economist, Stephen Harper ...
• The Conservatives and the junk labour market
  There is no such thing as a “bad job,” Jim Flaherty, Canada’s finance minister, told us last week.It was a stunning and glib pronouncement, made ...
• Out of the mouths of babes
  Sometimes our kids say the darndest things. Last week, while driving my daughter to school we had the following conversation. (It got me thinking ...
• Truth is the latest casualty
  When you wage an ideological war, lies are necessary weapons. We are familiar with the saying that there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned ...
• Fighter planes and just desserts
  I am guessing Kevin Page doesn't get invited to many Conservative cocktail parties. And that's unlikely to change after last week. The ...
• A budget for everyone else
  A federal budget for the rest of us. What a brilliant idea!