In Our Times Tally

● Percentage of Canadian workers who believe that “their employer is genuinely interested in their well-being”: 16
● Hourly wage of workers at the R.L. Denim/Metro Group factory in Bangladesh, in cents: 11
● Total compensation of Metro Group CEO Eckhard Cordes in 2008: $5,100,000
● Amount of time Cordes would have to work to earn a Bangladesh factory worker’s full-time, annual salary, in minutes: 9
● Current surplus of the federal Employment Insurance fund: $57 billion
● Percentage change since 1996 in the average maximum weekly Employment Insurance benefit: – 25
● Percentage of a university-educated male salary that a university-educated women in Canada earned in 1995: 75
● Percentage in 2005: 68
● Year in which Nelson Mandela was officially removed from the United States Terror Watch List: 2008
● Percentage change in the value of the Toronto Stock Exchange from April to June 2009: + 35
● Number of full-time Canadian jobs lost during June 2009: 48,000
● Percentage of countries in the world where the share of wages out of total income has fallen in the past 20 years: 70
● Ratio of what American employers spend on health care for workers to that of Canadian employers: 6 to 1
● Original estimated cost of Brampton, Ontario’s “public-private partnership” civic hospital: $357 million
● Actual cost of the hospital: $614 million
● Estimated cost overruns of the 12 “public-private partnership” hospitals currently being planned in Ontario: $7.2 billion
● Percentage of Americans who are in favour of military action against North Korea: 57
● Percentage of Americans aged 18-24 who can’t locate North Korea on a map: 70
● Percentage who can’t locate Israel on a map of the Middle East: 75
● Ratio of income of a top Canadian CEO to that of an average full-time worker in 1998: 104 to 1
● Ratio in 2007: 259 to 1
● Estimated number of people around the world who will lose their jobs in 2009: 51,000,000
● Ratio of Venezuela’s annual GDP growth rate to that of Canada’s, since 2004: 4 to 1
● Percentage change in the value of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) Investment fund during the last fiscal year: – 18.6
● Amount the CPP Investment Board’s top executives gave themselves in bonuses in 2008: $7 million
● Amount of CPP savings currently invested in U.S. military contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin: $100 million
● Number of its employees that British Airways has asked to work for free during July 2009: 30,000
● Number who have agreed to do so: 1,000
● Monthly salary that company CEO William Walsh will forego during July to “help the company’s survival plan”: $115,500
● Estimated number of plastic water bottles disposed of in the United States every day: 60 million
● Factor by which increases in university tuition fees in Canada over the past 15 years have outpaced the rate of inflation: 4
● Total student debt load in Canada: $13 billion
● Estimated cost of “employee stress” on Canadian businesses each year from health claims and lost productivity: $12 billion
● Percentage of all Canadian media currently owned by the seven largest media corporations in the country: 84
● Per capita amount spent on health care in the United States: $7,290
● Per capita amount spent in Sweden: $3,323
● Number of violent acts which occur in Canadian workplaces each year: 356,000
● Chance that they involve victims who work in social assistance or health care services: 1 in 3
● Hourly wage which two parents with two children in Toronto would need in order to live above the poverty line: $16.60
● Chance that a British citizen supports returning services privatized in the last 25 years back into public ownership: 2 in 3
● Year in which the first Labour Day was celebrated by the union movement in Canada: 1872
● Number of Typographical Union leaders arrested in Toronto that year for going on strike: 24

Our Times Tally, inspired by Harpers Index (see www.harpers.org), is compiled by freelance writer Sean Cain.

SOURCES: 16 – Ipsos Reid Poll (November 2008); 11 – Workers Uniting Union; $5,100,000, 9 – BusinessWeek.com; $57 billion – Public Accounts of Canada (2007-2008); – 25, 75, 68 – Canadian Labour Congress; 2008 – BBC News (July 1, 2008); +35, 48,000 – Jim Stanford (Facts from the Fringe, July 2009); 70 – International Labour Organization (World of Work Report 2008); 6 to 1 – Canadian Health Coalition; $357 million, $614 million, $7.2 billion – Ontario Health Coalition; 57 – Rasmussen Opinion Poll (April 2009); 70, 75 – National Geographic Society (May 2006); 104 to 1, 259 to 1 – Hugh Mackenzie (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives); 51,000,000 – International Labour Organization; 4 to 1 – Banco Central de Venezuela, Statistics Canada; – 18.6, $7 million – CPP Investment Board Annual Report (2009); $100 million – Richard Sanders (Canadian Dimension, April 2009); 30,000, 1,000, $115,500 – CBC News (June 16, 2009); 60 million – Bottled Water Blues; 4, $13 billion – Canadian Federation of Students; $12 billion – Conference Board of Canada; 84 – Tanner Mirrlees (Relay Magazine, April-June 2009); $7,290, $3,323 – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Health Data 2009); 356,000, 1 in 3 – Statistics Canada (Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics); $16.60 – Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (A Living Wage for Toronto, November 2008); 2 in 3 – Mark Steel (The Independent, March 2009); 1872, 24 – The Canadian Encyclopedia.
Recent Posts
Contact Us

We're not around right now. But you can send us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Start typing and press Enter to search