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1. Ottawa should heed lessons from Quebec daycare experience

   Quebec’s blanket policy helped everyone including parents from high-income households. ...

2. Lobbying can lead to monopolies (which can lead to higher prices and/or lower quality)

   Competition is not just about the number of firms on a market. It’s also about allowing new entrants to challenge incumbent firms. Thus, because competition is the best way to improve the well-being of consumers, barriers to entry should ...

3. Middle-class prosperity in Canada—some facts

   After Prime Minister Trudeau introduced the men and women who will serve in his new cabinet, much attention has been dedicated to Mona Fortier, the new “minister for middle-class prosperity.” To name a minister in charge of the prosperity ...

4. Eliminating barriers to competition—the overlooked remedy for high cellphone bills

   The cost of cellphone services always seems like a hot topic in Canada. This past election season, the parties floated ways to bring down prices for Canadian consumers. But first, it’s necessary to cool down the temperature a little. To ...

5. Alberta’s fiscal plan—put the pedal to the metal

   Based on last week’s provincial budget, the Kenney government in Alberta plans to return to sounder fiscal ground. Since 2008, the province has run large deficits, turning a balance sheet in the black up to $35 billion to a net debt of ...

6. Media bailouts will do more harm than good

   After Groupe Capitales Médias, which owns newspapers in Quebec such as Le Soleil, announced its serious financial difficulties in mid-August, numerous interest groups (involved in the world of journalism) and pundits said the government ...

7. Rent control—bad policy will not correct bad policy

   A longstanding quip among economists is that, with the exception of bombardments, there are no surer ways of destroying a city than rent control. Few economists disagreed then and even fewer disagree now. It’s one of the few policy ...

8. Quebec, don’t fall prey to fiscal illusion

   Quebec’s budget surplus, it was recently revealed, will now stand between an estimated $3.4 billion and $4.6 billion, which is well above the previously estimated surplus of $1.7 billion. Given Quebec’s long history of budget deficits ...

9. 'Austerity' claims in Quebec have little basis in fact

   While headlines focus on the SNC-Lavalin affair, a minor political scandal erupted recently when rookie Liberal MNA Marwah Rizqy proposed that her Quebec Liberal Party apologize for its “austerity” efforts when it was in office. Putting ...

10. CEO pay-to-employee pay ratio tells us nothing about the competence of the CEO

    Earlier this month, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) published its annual report on the pay packages of chief executive officers (CEOs) at top public Canadian firms. The idea is to catch the headlines by stating on what ...