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1. Canada’s finance minister apparently doesn’t understand the difference between taxes and transfers

   The job of finance minister requires a wide breadth of knowledge and clear understanding of public finance. So it’s more than a little worrisome to see federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau (pictured above) display an apparent lack of ...

2. Federal purchase of Trans Mountain pipeline distorts incentives, sets dangerous precedent

   Today, Finance Minister Bill Morneau (pictured above) announced that the federal government will purchase all assets related to the Trans Mountain pipeline. This includes the existing pipeline first built in the 1950s, and construction ...

3. Morneau's Trans Mountain pipeline promise creates a dangerous precedent

   After weeks of anticipation, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau (pictured above) today announced that—in light of the uncertainty over the $7.4 billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project—the federal government will compensate ...

4. Morneau tweet ignores evidence of Canada’s investment problem

   Statistics Canada’s latest survey on investment intentions for 2018 found that private-sector investment is slated to fall again this year. ...

5. Canada has a business investment problem—deal with it

   It’s not as if we needed more bad news about Canada’s economic prospects. But we got it last week with the latest data highlighting the country’s weak business investment. Statistics Canada released its latest survey results on ...

6. 2018 budget—another nail in the coffin of Trudeau’s balanced budget promise

   While campaigning for the 2015 election, then-candidate Justin Trudeau made a commitment to Canadians, pledging three years of modest budget deficits of no more than $10 billion, with a balanced budget by the end of his first mandate in ...

7. 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 ...

8. Federal budget an opportunity for Ottawa to change big spending ways

   Since coming into office, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has markedly increased spending, contributing to larger-than-promised budget deficits with no end in sight. Next week’s federal budget is an opportunity to change ...

9. Trudeau government tax policies puzzling in light of finance minister’s admission

   In a recent year-end press scrum, Finance Minister Bill Morneau (pictured above, right) said something unexpectedly telling. Although it did not receive widespread attention, Morneau all but admitted that raising tax rates changes the ...

10. 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 ...