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1. The high cost of getting climate policy wrong

   The Internet is abuzz over a recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) that shines some light on the potential impact of the federal carbon tax plan on Canada’s economy. Specifically, the report shows that the carbon price ...

2. Trudeau government 0-for-3 for budgets that improve fundamentals for growing the economy

   With the Trudeau government tabling its third budget, the script has become familiar. Each budget the government loudly proclaims platitudes about growing the economy and helping the middle class. In reality, there’s no magic lever to ...

3. The key fiscal lesson of Canada’s first 150 years—spend prudently

   As 2017 draws to a close, Canadians can reflect not only on the outcomes of the last year, but in this milestone 150th year of the federation, also where we are headed. What shall Canada’s economic achievements be as the next 50 years ...

4. Canada’s federal deficits would be much worse without Alberta

   The prevailing narrative surrounding the post-2008 recovery in Canada is that the country weathered the storm significantly better than the United States, and has emerged in relatively strong fiscal shape (though certainly not unscathed) ...

5. Provincial and local governments should make infrastructure decisions, not Ottawa

   Last week, and as part of Ottawa’s multi-billion infrastructure spending plan, Amarjeet Sohi, federal minister of infrastructure and communities, wrote letters to his ministerial counterparts in each province and territory laying out ...

6. William Watson: Trying to digest 159 ways to improve a country

   I spent seven hours Wednesday confined with several hundred other columnists, reporters, financial analysts, policy wonks, cameramen, video editors, sound engineers and so on at the federal government’s annual budget lock-up. You line up ...

7. Chrétien Consensus begins in Saskatchewan under the NDP

   This is the first of several blog posts based on the recently released book the End of the Chrétien Consensus?, which chronicles the emergence and success of the policies of this era as well as the move away from these policies over the ...

8. William Watson: What’s new should be what’s news in a fiscal update

   When journalists are locked up for a budget or fiscal update—I know, I know, we should just leave them there. When they are off in isolation the two or three hours they’re electronically out of touch is enough time to at least thumb ...

9. Proven economic policies, not ‘bold ideas,’ needed to spur growth in Canada

   Later today federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau (pictured above) will meet with his government’s appointed Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which will provide advice on how to spark long-term growth in Canada. The council, led by ...