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

• Iggy is iffy
  The federal Liberals have a big, big problem - their leader. And no, this is not a recycled column about Stephane Dion. Michael Ignatieff needs ...
• Not a house to live in
  Playwright Lillian Hellman wrote that "cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth." And as the British Columbia government works on a new ...
• What Ted Menzies didn't say
  It seems I have struck a Conservative nerve. Last week, Ted Menzies, Parliamentary secretary to federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, took ...
• Pensions and true progress
  It is an idea whose time has come. And we can thank the global financial meltdown, stock market crash and the subsequent economic crisis for it. ...
• Forget the photo-ops, where are the jobs?
  With tens of thousands of discouraged workers throwing in the towel, consumer bankruptcies on the rise and a less than stellar construction ...
• Recession over? Not on Main Street it isn't
  In case you didn't hear it, (probably because you were too busy trying to find a job before your employment insurance ran out) the recession is ...
• Quick, Liberals - here's your chance
  As far as blunders go, this one has the potential to be a whopper. That is, if the prime minister's opponents can turn his anti-tax tirade to the ...
• R.E.S.P.E.C.T. - get it?
  Sometimes an apology is not an apology. Case in point: Doug Elniski, a Conservative member of the Alberta legislature who last month had this ...
• Not so fast, Mr. Flaherty
  Jim Flaherty should keep his musings to himself. And he shouldn't allow his ideology to interfere with the nation's economic recovery efforts. ...
• This recession is all rural
  St. John's really is in an economic bubble. A trip outside the Paddy's Pond overpass highlights the growing rural-urban economic divide - a ...
• EI: Liberal by design, Harper's downfall?
  It is a strange quirk of fate. Stephen Harper must be thinking so. In the 1990s, the Liberals - then led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his ...
• Safeguards needed for laid-off workers
  For the workers and their families, it was like a stake in the heart. The blows keep coming for the hundreds of central Newfoundland forestry and ...
• Who's next in the Stephen Harper crosshairs?
  First they came for the women seeking equal pay for work of equal value. The federal government's Equitable Compensation Act is a thinly veiled ...
• Staying true to ourselves
  Sixty years is not such a long time in the scheme of things. Indeed, joining Canada, for many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, is a "living ...
• Paying the price for greed
  Bernie Madoff looked to be taking the path of least resistance last week. And Wall Street should be thankful he did. The former chairman of the ...
• Not much to celebrate this year
  Next week women all over the globe will celebrate International Women's Day. At least, they will try. But with the planet plunged into an ...
• And the insensitivity award goes to ...
  You have to wonder if Conservative MPs are living in a bubble or on another planet; if they turn on the television news; if they ever read a ...
• Harper and Ignatieff play budget politics
  It gives a whole new meaning to the devil being in the details. By now, every Newfoundlander and Labradorian knows that buried in the fine print ...
• Mr. Harper's budget opus
  It will be the most important federal budget in more than a generation. It will determine the fate of a government. But more importantly it will ...
• There's no time like now
  Premier Danny Williams has done something the left in Canada has struggled to do in recent years - focus attention on trade agreements that rank ...
• A federal budget wish list
  Stephen Harper, the economist, has finally woken up to the economic crisis that has gripped the planet. It took him long enough. During this ...
• Not very prime ministerial
  "Leadership, at one time, meant muscles," said the great Indian political and spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi, "but today it means getting along ...
• Canada standing still in the midst of a global crisis
  At this point, Stephen Harper must be thinking that accountability and transparency were not such good ideas. During the federal election, the ...
• Harper just doesn't get it
  In the end it may well be his aloofness - his inability to convey empathy - that does him in. That coolness, combined with his rigidity and his ...
• What Stephen Harper isn't telling you
  It's no wonder Stephen Harper is happy to talk up crime. Any hot-button issue will do in order to avoid talking about the elephant in this ...
• Plenty of reasons to not vote for Stephen Harper
  Prime Minister Stephen Harper spent the first week of the federal election campaign trying to convince Canadians that he is not a cold, ruthless, ...
• Labour Day reflection
  Labour Day is the day that Canada gave the rest of the world. So you'd think our labour standards and laws would be at the very least among some ...
• Outrage or outrageous
  As Stephen Harper soaked up the warmth of the people of the Irish Loop last week - a shock to his chilly demeanor - his apostles were busy hiding ...
• PM's ambition destroying the nation
  It appears nothing is safe from Stephen Harper's ruthless hunger for a majority - not even the Canadian federation. The prime minister and his ...
• Force oil companies to share fabulous wealth
  Gas and home heating prices are raging. Yet where is the outrage? There is plenty of resignation. Lots of acceptance. But no revolt. Why is it ...