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1. Trudeau rhetoric can’t change Canada’s fiscal reality

   Due to federal tax changes, 61 per cent of low-income families face higher personal income taxes. ...

2. Freeland doubles down despite dismal pre-COVID economic numbers

   The Trudeau government ranks last on average total household income growth. ...

3. Federal government’s spending rationale based on misleading debt picture

   Canada has the fifth-highest level of total indebtedness (relative to the size of our economy) among 29 industrialized countries. ...

4. Trudeau government spending large on Canada’s credit card

   Federal program spending in 2021/22 is $54.4 billion higher than planned in November 2020. ...

5. COVID-19 isn’t the only reason for our mega-deficit

   Appeared in the Financial Post, July 8, 2020 Today, the Trudeau government presents a “snapshot” of federal finances that’s likely to blame this year’s historic federal deficit on COVID-19 and the recession. But that’s only part of the story. The federal ...

6. Reality of government matters when assessing policy options

   In 1969, UCLA economist Harold Demsetz formalized an important concept in comparative economics—the Nirvana fallacy. His argument was that it was inappropriate, misleading and potentially counterproductive to compare hypothetical ideal ...

7. What would Chrétien’s budget rules have meant for Trudeau: Part 2

   After successive years of higher-than-promised federal deficits and record levels of per-person federal spending, the Trudeau government now finds itself less prepared to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog post estimates where ...

8. Morneau seems uninterested in perilous state of federal finances

   Appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press, January 26, 2020 It’s hard to recall a time when Canada’s finances were so perilously close to rapidly deteriorating with seemingly little or no interest in Ottawa. Finance Minister Bill Morneau has been making the ...

9. Federal Deficits Then and Now: Is Canada Repeating the Fiscal Mistakes of 1965 to 1995?

   From 1965 to 1995, the Canadian federal government repeatedly ran deficits, accumulating debt, a habit that culminated in the near crisis of the mid-1990s. After a period of reform beginning in 1995, Canada returned to deficits in 2008/09. While ...

10. Scheer moves closer to Trudeau, further way from sound fiscal policy

    Appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, June 17, 2019 The upcoming federal election may be one of the more contentious in recent history. And given how important sound fiscal policy is to a healthy economy, government finances should be a central issue. ...