Search

Search results

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. Government budgets are like volcanoes: It’s what underneath that counts

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Imagine you’re near what you thought was a dormant volcano but it suddenly erupts. Assuming you escape, you might later reflect that there was nothing “sudden” about it. The eruption resulted from earlier events deep within ...

3. The Texas Advantage over Alberta

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Alberta and Texas have always had a lot in common. Ranching in the 19th century. A can-do entrepreneurial approach to oil and gas in the 20th century. And in the 21st century they are still somewhat similar; oil and gas ...

4. 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 ...

5. A Tale of Two Energy Booms

   Non-renewable resource prices, especially oil prices, and associated revenues to governments have fallen significantly over recent months. This is not the first time such gyrations in oil and gas prices and then government revenues have occurred. Recent ...

6. Western weakness won’t help Ontario’s budget woes

   Appeared in the National Post With the plunge in oil prices over the last six months (and already soft natural gas prices), it’s not headline news to note that provinces heavily dependent on energy-related revenues are suffering. The decline in the ...

7. How Quebec can get its mojo back- Focus on prosperity, not politics

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald For decades, Quebec and its governments have been petulant and demanding. The tendency has been there since at least the first avowedly separatist Parti Quebecois government, elected in 1976. That habit continued regardless ...

8. Not your mother's budget surplus

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald When apologists for the provincial government's new borrowing binge defend it on the grounds that private sector companies borrow money for capital expenses so why not have the Alberta government do the same? their ...

9. Ontario's have not status sets up a divided Canada

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun and Ottawa Sun As anyone who has ever watched puppies tussle over a bone knows, nothing will lead to acrimony quicker than competition for an object everyone wants. Keep the puppy image in mind. Replace it with provincial ...

10. The very sensible compassion of Margaret Thatcher

    Appeared in the Calgary Herald The recent death of Margaret Thatcher provoked a plethora of analysis and emotion about the late British prime minister. That was predictable given how the much-needed reforms of the British economy upset the turgid status ...