California’s long tradition of advancing nation-leading legislation continues into the new year, with laws reining in the gig economy, boosting online privacy and discouraging shootings by police, among other potential trend-setters.
The laws have sent businesses including Uber, Lyft and Google scrambling, not to mention U.S. President Donald Trump.
The state dominated by Democrats has delighted in tweaking the Republican president on immigration and other issues, though legislation requiring Trump to reveal his tax returns backfired when the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled it unconstitutional.
Some of the higher-profile new laws taking effect Jan. 1 include:
Online privacy
The nation’s most sweeping data privacy law takes effect with the new year. The law passed in 2018 requires companies to tell consumers what data they collect about them, why it was collected and who sees it. Consumers can refuse to let companies sell that data, and companies are barred from selling data from children younger than 16 without consent.
San Francisco real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart, seen in Oakland, Calif., Dec. 20, used a ballot initiative — a provision that allows private citizens to propose legislation — to establish stricter laws protecting online privacy. (Ben Margot/The Associated Press)
Facebook and other technology and internet giants have been heavily criticized for sharing, selling or targeting personal information that customers thought was private. The San Francisco developer who pushed for the law, Alastair Mactaggart, is now advancing a 2020 ballot measure to protect the law by creating a new state agency to enforce the privacy protections and requiring greater protections for users under age 16 to opt in.
Gig economy
California is making it harder for many industries to treat workers like contractors instead of employees who are entitled to minimum wage and other benefits such as workers’ compensation. The legislature carved out certain exemptions after the state Supreme Court ruled in favour of workers at the delivery company Dynamex in 2018.
The California Trucking Association and two associations representing freelance journalists and photographers have already sued on behalf of their members. The ride-sharing company Uber has said it will defend its current model from legal challenges. And Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have said they’ll spend $30 million US to overturn the law at the ballot box in 2020 if they don’t win concessions from lawmakers.
In this March 22, 2018, file photo, Anita Ross holds a photo of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, who was fatally shot by Sacramento police, as she and other protesters block the entrance to Sacramento City Hall. The shooting death of Clark helped spur the passage of two laws giving California one of the nation’s most comprehensive approaches to deter shootings by police. (Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press)
Police shootings
Two new laws together give California one of the U.S.’s most comprehensive approaches to deterring shootings by police. One changes the legal standard for when police can use deadly force, while the companion law increases officers’ training on how to handle confrontations.
California’s old standard was based on the doctrine of “reasonable fear,” meaning officers were unlikely to face charges for even questionable uses of lethal force if prosecutors or jurors believed they had a reason to fear for their safety. The new law allows police to use deadly force only when “necessary” to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious injury to officers or bystanders. But it doesn’t define necessary.
In this image taken from a video provided by SNJToday.com, Buena Regional High School wrestler Andrew Johnson gets his hair cut courtside minutes before his match in New Jersey this week after a referee told Johnson he would forfeit his bout if he didn’t have his dreadlocks cut off. Johnson went on to win the match, and the incident helped inspire a new law against hair discrimination. (Michael Frankel/Associated Press)
Hair discrimination
California becomes the first state to bar workplace and school discrimination against black people for wearing hairstyles such as braids, twists and locks. The new law says hairstyles are associated with race and therefore protected against discrimination.
Federal courts have historically ruled that, unlike characteristics such as race, hair can be changed, so there are no grounds for discrimination complaints based on hairstyle. The California law says “race” also includes “traits historically associated with race.”
The issue came to wide public attention a year ago when Andrew Johnson, a black high school wrestler in New Jersey, was told by a referee that he had to cut off his dreadlocks if he wanted to compete.
Vaccinations
State public health officials have new tools to crack down on doctors who write fraudulent medical exemptions for schoolchildren’s vaccinations, after the most emotionally charged legislative debate of the year repeatedly drew hundreds of supporters and opponents to the Capitol.
Officials can investigate doctors who grant more than five medical exemptions in a year and schools with vaccination rates under 95 per cent, the threshold that experts say means a population is resistant to a disease like measles.
It includes a phase-out period for existing medical exemptions similar to one allowed when California eliminated personal belief vaccine exemptions in 2015. For instance, a kindergartner with an exemption can retain it through sixth grade, while a seventh-grader can be exempted through high school.
Supporters of a rent control initiative calling for more rent control march on the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on April 24, 2018. A new law to take effect in 2020 will bar landlords from raising yearly rent prices by more than five per cent plus the cost of inflation. (Rich Pedroncelli/The Associated Press)
Rent control
Landlords will be barred from raising yearly rent prices by more than five per cent plus the cost of inflation under a new law that drew supporters who said they can no longer afford the state’s soaring housing costs. Landlords also won’t be allowed to evict someone without a reason or refuse to rent to someone solely because they have a federal Section 8 housing voucher.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called it the “strongest package in America,” though the restriction follows Oregon’s slightly higher statewide rent cap. A previous law still bans local governments from adopting their own rent control policies, though opponents want to overturn that restriction with a 2020 ballot measure.
Child sex assault
California is joining several other states in giving adults who were sexually assaulted as children more time to sue, a measure expected to trigger multitudes of new lawsuits against the Catholic church, Boy Scouts of America and other organizations.
The law gives victims of childhood sex abuse until age 40 to sue, up from the current age of 26. It alternately gives adults five years to sue after discovering they suffered psychological or other damages from a sexual assault, whichever is later. And it gives victims three years to file past claims that missed earlier deadlines.
OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
