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1. Federal fiscal update—Canadians shouldn’t pop the champagne on economic growth

   When unveiling today’s federal fiscal update, Finance Minister Bill Morneau (pictured above, with the prime minister) touted higher than expected economic growth for 2017 as a success story for the Trudeau government. As he told the ...

2. Business investment down, taxes up—bad news for Canadians

   With less than three months left in 2017, despite recent headlines espousing positive economic news, Canada’s economy faces many near and long-term challenges that the Trudeau government must consider as it crafts its fiscal update (due ...

3. To deal with Trump, Trudeau should look to Chrétien

   Appeared in the Huffington Post, June 5, 2017 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s father once famously compared living next to the U.S. to sleeping with an elephant—a twitch or a grunt south of the border can have big consequences for Canada. Well, President ...

4. Hiking capital gains taxes—bad for the economy and Canada’s middle class

   Appeared in the Vancouver Sun, March 21, 2017 In the lead up to today’s federal budget there have been on-going rumours that the federal government will raise capital gains taxes. Despite misperceptions that hiking capital gains taxes will only affect ...

5. Raising capital gains taxes—a lot of economic pain for little revenue gain

   Rumours abound that the Trudeau government may raise the capital gains tax in tomorrow’s federal budget so it’s critical for Canadians to understand that raising this tax will cause much economic pain for very little revenue gain. ...

6. To spur future growth, Morneau should study recent history

   Appeared in the National Newswatch, August 29, 2016 The federal Liberals have repeatedly talked about the importance of encouraging long-term economic growth and bringing about greater prosperity, particularly for Canada’s middle class. As part of the ...

7. The typical minimum-wage earner in Canada—not who you think

   Many Canadians believe raising the minimum wage will effectively help the working poor. Central to this belief is the assumption that the typical minimum-wage earner lives in poverty. But is this really the case—who is the typical ...

8. Misleading claims about ‘poverty’ in Canada fail to distinguish between temporary and persistent spells

   Claims that “10 per cent of Canadians” live in poverty understandably sound dire. But those claims about the extent of poverty in Canada often focus on a snapshot in time of Canadians with low incomes. This is problematic and in fact ...

9. Canadian Government Debt 2014

   With Canadian governments having returned to deficit-financed spending, the growth in direct government debt has re-emerged as a serious public policy issue in Canada. The net direct debt of all three levels of government increased from $872.2 billion to ...