Search

Search results

1. Expanding government won’t help Canada’s recovery

   Enough signals have been sent by the federal government over the last few weeks for Canadians to formulate reasonable expectations about the upcoming throne speech next month and what might be included in the government’s plan for ...

2. Who's better having the money—governments or individual Canadians

   Appeared in the Financial Post, January 17, 2018 Much, if not all policy debates, ultimately boil down to a single fundamental question—is the city, province or country, and more specifically its residents, better off having more or less of their income. ...

3. Morneau’s ‘Plan for Middle Class Progress’ cuts GDP by $131 billion

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, November 2, 2016 On Tuesday, Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau released his government’s Fall Economic Statement titled A Plan for Middle Class Progress. As noted in the release, “Finance Minister Bill Morneau announced ...

4. Federal deficits could total nearly $200 billion over next five years

   Appeared in the Financial Post, May 12, 2016 As the saying goes, a moving target is hard to hit. That is why repeated shifts in the federal government’s deficit and debt goals over the past six months have been so concerning. What started as a promise to ...

5. Moving Targets: Re-estimating Federal Deficits and Debt-to-GDP through 2020/21

   The federal government has repeatedly shifted the goal posts on its own “fiscal anchors.” This bulletin examines the robustness of the current “fiscal anchor” to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio by the government’s first mandate. The 2016 federal budget ...

6. Conservatives’ economic vision for Canada is hardly conservative

   Appeared in the Financial Post As expected, the 2015 federal budget had the general feel of an election budget, with a small surplus and a smattering of initiatives to satisfy various voting groups. As Liberal leader Justin Trudeau noted in the House of ...

7. Economic Principles for Prosperity

   Often when people talk of prosperity, they are thinking just about money. Money is a one aspect of prosperity, but only one. Prosperity also includes a robust job market where employment is available and opportunities for advancement abound, an employment ...

8. Canada's advantage; As Canada's experience in the 1990s showed, the path to economic growth lies in shrinking government, not growing it

   Appeared in the National Post This past weekend, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty encouraged the G20 countries to rapidly implement their stimulus packages, highlighting that his government provided a greater stimulus budget than the G20 countries agreed was ...

9. Ontario Prosperity, Is Best of Second Best Good Enough?

   In this study, we examine four key components of prosperity in Ontario. First, we evaluate Ontario's economic performance. Second, we present research on the relationship between the size of government in a jurisdiction and its economic performance. ...