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1. Comparing Government and Private Sector Compensation in Ontario, 2017

   Using data on individual workers from January to December 2015, this report estimates the wage differential between the government and private sectors in Ontario. It also evaluates four available non-wage benefits in an attempt to quantify compensation ...

2. Did the Coal Phase-out Reduce Ontario Air Pollution?

   In 2005, the province of Ontario began a process that would eventually lead to the phasing out of its coal-fired power plants, the largest of which were the Lambton and Nanticoke facilities in southern Ontario. The rationale for shuttering these plants ...

3. Ontario vs. the US “Rust Belt”: Coping with a Changing Economic World

   Since the recession, Ontario has recorded large and consistent budget deficits that have increased the province’s already enormous debt load. According to a prominent narrative at Queen’s Park, policymakers are not to blame for this fiscal trend because ...

4. Municipal Amalgamation in Ontario

   The 1990s and 2000s were tumultuous decades for Ontario municipalities. Hundreds of municipalities across the provinces were amalgamated amid claims that restructuring would produce local governments that would be more efficient and less costly. Taxpayers ...

5. Municipal Fire Services in Canada: A Preliminary Analysis

   This bulletin examines trends in fire service spending and the incidence of reported fires in Canada. It finds that the number of firefighters and spending on fire services is increasing even as the incidence of reported fires is decreasing based on ...

6. How Compensation Spending Consumes Provincial Government Resources in Ontario

   This report measures the growth in provincial government compensation spending in Ontario and how such spending has consumed government resources from 2005/06 to 2013/14 (latest year of available data). Over the period, increases in compensation spending ...

7. Comparing Government and Private Sector Compensation in Ontario

   Ontario’s serious fiscal challenges are well documented. As the provincial government struggles to eliminate its deficit and rein in growing government debt, it has signaled that managing public sector compensation (which totals over half of its program ...

8. Ontario’s Debt Balloon: Source and Sustainability

   The Ontario government’s net debt has expanded from 28% of the provincial economy in 2008/09 to an expected 40% in 2014/15. This represents an increase of over $117 billion or $7,800 more debt per On-tarian. The debt-to-GDP ratio is now much higher than ...

9. What Goes Up...Ontario's Soaring Electricity Prices and How to Get Them Down

   Ontario’s total annual power cost has risen by over 50% since 2004, despite declining competitive wholesale market prices. This is due to increases in the so-called Global Adjustment, a non-market mechanism that now dominates power pricing in Ontario, and ...

10. Evaluating the Proposed Ontario Pension Plan

    The Ontario government has proposed its own supplement to the CPP in an attempt to force more saving. In reality, Ontarians typically have an above-average saving rate, double that of the rest of Canada as recently as 2009. Saving in Ontario returned to ...