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1. Ontario’s decade of spending decadence

   Appeared in the Windsor Star The Ontario government has never made a secret of its desire to have the federal government help fund Ontario’s provincial budget. It even started its own think-tank with $5 million in 2009, which regularly publishes reports ...

2. The provinces are lousy at controlling spending

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Provincial cries for more federal money are as old as Confederation, and rarely have any substance to them. After all, it’s easier to demand that Ottawa ante up federal cash—to cry about some mythical “fiscal imbalance” ...

3. Don’t define compassion by government spending

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald In a recent column in the Edmonton Journal, a local historian mused that modern governments have become too enamoured with “the unfettered market of purely economic conservatism.” He then equated higher taxes and more ...

4. The federal government doesn’t owe Ontario—or Alberta—more money

   Appeared in the National Post In a year when two heavyweight provinces, Ontario and Alberta, which together constitute 55 per cent of Canada’s GDP, are running substantial deficits, there are three ways to reduce the red ink. Strategy one: cut (and reform ...

5. Alberta’s budget: $11.4 billion in extra taxes

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Premier Jim Prentice dropped hints for months that the 2015 provincial budget was a once-in-a-generation chance to “fix” Alberta’s finances. That didn’t happen. Instead, the province raised taxes on Albertans in a manner ...

6. “Anti-tax” accusation based on silly and simplistic arguments

   Appeared in the Vancouver Sun In a recent column about the upcoming Metro Vancouver transit plebiscite, Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham complained about business leaders who talked “way more about cutting taxes for poor beleaguered taxpayers for ...

7. Alberta’s missed Heritage Fund opportunity

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Over the past decade, the province of Alberta treated boom-time resource revenues like a permanent state of affairs. That set the province up for fiscal failure, for multiple lost opportunities. One high-profile example is ...

8. Alberta’s 10-year, $49 billion boom in program spending

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Over the last decade, higher energy prices and entrepreneur-friendly policies drove Alberta’s booming economy, generating a significant windfall in government revenue. Looking back, however, Albertans might ask themselves: ...

9. Fumbling the Alberta Advantage: How Alberta Squandered a Decade of High Energy Prices

   It is well-known that Alberta’s provincial budget is highly dependent on resource revenues. Over the last decade, as a proportion of total revenues, resource revenues have accounted for as much as 40% (2005/06) and as low as 19% (2009/10). In the most ...

10. Digging Alberta out of the deficit hole

    Appeared in the Calgary Herald, January 31, 2015 Alberta Premier Jim Prentice has warned Albertans that the current fiscal year’s projected surplus has turned into at least a $500 million deficit and that next year’s budget will sink deeper into red-ink ...