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1. Ontario’s decade of spending decadence

   Appeared in the Windsor Star The Ontario government has never made a secret of its desire to have the federal government help fund Ontario’s provincial budget. It even started its own think-tank with $5 million in 2009, which regularly publishes reports ...

2. Government budgets are like volcanoes: It’s what underneath that counts

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Imagine you’re near what you thought was a dormant volcano but it suddenly erupts. Assuming you escape, you might later reflect that there was nothing “sudden” about it. The eruption resulted from earlier events deep within ...

3. Prohibition-era liquor policies continue in Ontario and B.C.

   Appeared in the Ottawa Citizen If Canadians ever needed proof that narrow politicking interferes with sensible consumer choice, they need look no further than the byzantine “reforms” on the sale of beer, wine and spirits proposed by Ontario, and one ...

4. Western weakness won’t help Ontario’s budget woes

   Appeared in the National Post With the plunge in oil prices over the last six months (and already soft natural gas prices), it’s not headline news to note that provinces heavily dependent on energy-related revenues are suffering. The decline in the ...

5. A low dollar and cheap oil didn’t rescue Ontario and Quebec before

   Appeared in the National Post One of the more persistent myths about prosperity is that it results purely from luck. Often, commentators credit the mere presence of oil, gas, potash and other natural resources for Western Canada’s recent (and presently ...

6. Ontario consumers handicapped by beer and wine sale myths

   Appeared in the Waterloo Region Record Much of Canada’s current approach to liquor retailing has its roots in Prohibition-era attitudes towards wine, beer and spirits. But anyone who thinks that era ended should consider the anti-competition rhetoric that ...

7. Ontario parents deserve more school choices for their children

   Appeared in the Lakeshore News There is no question that a great education is essential to success in the 21st century. Completing high school, for example, markedly reduces the chances of unemployment or the probability of remaining trapped in low-income ...

8. Ontario's beer cartel paints Alberta liquor privatization as the bogeyman

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald It’s been two decades since the Alberta government exited the business of selling beer, wine and spirits to consumers. The privatization of all government liquor stores (completed in 1994) led to a dramatic expansion in the ...

9. Ontario's have not status sets up a divided Canada

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun and Ottawa Sun As anyone who has ever watched puppies tussle over a bone knows, nothing will lead to acrimony quicker than competition for an object everyone wants. Keep the puppy image in mind. Replace it with provincial ...

10. Equalization, Ontario, and the politics of division

    Equalization is a federal transfer program that is explicitly designed to subsidize provinces with weak own-source revenues and to be politically unifying. However, the flip in Ontario?s status from a?have? to a?have-not? province has had, and will ...