Rising income inequality has been at the forefront of public debate in Canada in recent years, yet there is still much to learn about the economic forces driving the distribution of earnings and income in this country and how they might evolve in the future. With research showing that the tax-and-transfer system is losing the ability to counteract income disparity, the need for policy-makers to understand the factors at play is all the more urgent. Income Inequality provides a comprehensive review of Canadian inequality trends, including changing earnings and income dynamics among the middle class and top earners, wage and job polarization across provinces, and persistent poverty among vulnerable groups. The Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), in collaboration with the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network (CLSRN), presents new evidence by some of the country’s leading experts on the impact of skills and education, unionization and labour relations laws, as well as the complex interplay of redistributive policies and politics over time. Amid growing anxieties about the economic prospects of the middle class, Income Inequality will serve to inform the public discourse on inequality, an issue that ultimately concerns all Canadians.

"The report, 'Make It Safe: Canada's Obligation to End the First Nations Water Crisis,' documents the impacts of serious and prolonged drinking water and sanitation problems for thousands of indigenous people--known as "First Nations"--living on reserves. It assesses why there are problems with safe water and sanitation on reserves, including a lack of binding water quality regulations, erratic and insufficient funding, faulty or sub-standard infrastructure, and degraded source waters. The federal government's own audits over two decades show a pattern of overpromising and underperforming on water and sanitation for reserves"--Publisher's description.

The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.

"In addition to assessing existing conditions and knowledge, the IAASTD uses a simple set of model projections to look at the future, based on knowledge from past events and existing trends such as population growth, rural/urban food and poverty dynamics, loss of agricultural land, water availability, and climate change effects. This set of volumes comprises the findings of the IAASTD. It consists of a Global Report, a brief Synthesis Report, and 5 subglobal reports. Taken as a whole, the IAASTD reports are an indispensable reference for anyone working in the field of agriculture and rural development, whether at the level of basic research, policy, or practice."--BOOK JACKET.