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

• 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!
• You're either with us or against us ...
  And so the divisive smear politics that has dominated public debate south of the border and in Ottawa has found its way to Newfoundland and ...
• When the mud flies ...
  When you throw mud, you should expect some to fly back. Just ask Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. Or better yet, tell him. The federal ...
• Has a politically savvy prime minister taken a wrong...
  Has Stephen Harper's ideology finally won out over self- preservation? On the surface, it would appear so when you consider the firestorm he ...
• Politics, large and small
  Tony Clement: a poster child for what's wrong with politics today. The Treasury Board president, who will oversee the largest mass firing in ...
• The hypocrisy grows
  Sadly, 2012 started out as 2011 ended with more tales of economic inequality and injustice. And more government indifference. One tale involved ...
• Happy New Year, corporate Canada
  The great Canadian giveaway continues. Canada's most profitable corporations - such as banks, oil and mining companies - are about to get ...
• Finance ministers continue to miss the boat on pensions
  Skyrocketing household spending, anemic business investment, a pension crisis, a European debt disaster and some nasty austerity medicine ...
• Invest in children and reap the rewards
  When it comes to early childhood education and child care, Newfoundland and Labrador has the worst report card in the country. That's ...
• Pleasing the 40 per cent
  The Harper government must think Canadians are stupid. Either that, or they are counting on the fact that the 40 per cent of the population who ...
• How are we really doing?
  An economist friend recently reminded me (not that I needed any reminding) that life’s about more than GDP — a measure economists use to ...
• Shining a light on inequality and greed
  The people are fighting back and in glorious fashion — peacefully and with creativity and imagination. Driven by the power of social media and ...
• Riche-ly remembered
  She was, in a word, fearless. Nancy Riche was also formidable, feisty and extremely quick-witted. Sometimes that wit could be caustic. Some ...
• Fighting for jobs, and showing the prosperity divide
  For the fish plant workers of Marystown, it is line-in-the-sand time. No more race to the bottom. Their stand has exposed what has been a ...
• Safety for our children’s sake
  William Shakespeare once wrote: “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.”Safety is something we hear a lot about this time of ...
• Losing Jack Layton
  Love. Expressed in the colourful and heartfelt chalk writings and drawings on sidewalks and city squares. And in the beautiful words of tribute ...
• Grasping a true pension solution
  As world financial markets had another tumultuous week, plummeting for a few days, wiping out billions of dollars in savings, and then only ...
• The universality of hope
  It was there amid the tears of a nation, the rasp of a cancer-stricken political leader’s voice, and in the words of a nurse at an East African ...
• Not rosy for all
  Charles Dickens would not lack for material. The class struggle he wrote about in the 1800s is played out every day on the business pages of ...
• The economy made us do it …
  Blame it on the economy. That’s the new Harper mantra. Union busting: the economy made us do it. Violate the right to free collective bargaining: ...
• Open season on Canada’s middle class
  A really smart Catholic nun once told me that without anger, there was no hope.I sure hope she was right, because there is going to be a lot of ...
• The opportunity of the Voisey’s Bay inquiry
  A really big slice of our province’s wealth or GDP (a bigger slice than any other province, even resource-rich Saskatchewan and Alberta) is ...
• The best of times, the worst of times
  For Canadian progressives, last week’s federal election result was the best of times.The impressive and historic victory of the NDP to official ...
• A little more on elections, economics and budgets
  Don’t get me wrong, I love the “rise-up Canada” anthem coming from Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff in the last days of this campaign. It is ...
• Harper 2008 — Harper 2011. I can’t tell the...
  Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are being asked to consider that Stephen Harper has changed since 2008. A tall order. OK — That’s an ...
• Budgets, throne speeches and a little sexism
  There was much the Harper Conservatives could have done in last week’s budget to avoid an election.After all, as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty ...