No normal person pays close attention to who is "in" or "out" as finance minister, and that's a good thing. It means the politician in question has avoided messing up the lives of ordinary Canadians. Still, their actions can and do matter, for better or worse.
corporate welfare
March 20, 2014
3:00AM
Albertas provincial government has provided plenty of political theatre as of late, with, as I write, three resignations from the government, including that of Alison Redford as premier. However, the Redford resignation may not be the end of her influence on Albertas future, and in particular, upon the Alberta Heritage Savings and Trust Fund.
February 17, 2014
2:00AM
Back in late 2011 after the Occupy Wall Street protests, Fiat-Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne gave a speech in Toronto to decry what he called "the most inane displays of greed." The reference was to behaviour he had observed while serving on various company boards over the years.
February 7, 2014
2:00AM
The federal government recently poured $36.3 million into the Northleaf Venture Catalyst Fund the first of many soon-to-come government-sponsored funds comprising Ottawa's $400 million Venture Capital Action Plan. The plan, conceived with the view that Canada's lacklustre venture capital industry requires a government solution, ignores Canadian evidence that shows government-sponsored venture capital is ineffective. More fundamentally though, it represents a further blurring of the lines between pro-market and pro-business government policy.
January 31, 2014
2:00AM
In the land of government plenty that vast landscape populated with the tax dollars of Canadians there is no shortage of politicians willing to hand out and defend subsidies to business and no dearth of corporations willing to take the cash.
August 23, 2013
2:00AM
In his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, George Orwell argued that, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Orwell's quip came to mind again recently after reading Bombardier's defence of taxpayer subsidies to business, this in response to my recent study on the matter.
July 27, 2013
2:00AM
Back in 1962 John F. Kennedy had been president of the United States for one year, four lads from Liverpool were about to hit it big in the music world, and a Saskatchewan lawyer, John Diefenbaker, was in his fifth year as Prime Minister of Canada.
In retrospect, 1962 was also notable for another reason: it was the start of a trail identifying corporate welfare recipients, many of whom have sought subsidies from the federal government ever since.
June 29, 2013
2:00AM
Canada is a superb creation and initial credit for that must, obviously, go to Canada's fathers of Confederation. How we came about is a fascinating tale of seemingly intractable regional disputes resolved, at least for a time, by new institutions and a new country.