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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. 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. 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 ...

6. Alberta's budget-busting election

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald All politics is local, said Tip O’Neill, the 1980s-era leader in the U.S. House of Representatives.  That may be true, but government budgets—especially in Alberta—are increasingly anything but local. International events ...

7. Harper's bloated budgets shouldn't earn Frum's praise

   Appeared in the National Post Canada's Conservative government deserves praise on a number of fronts. Since coming to power, the Tories have ended the reflexively relativist approach to foreign policy, tackled supposedly politically sensitive ...

8. Canada's red-ink budgets: 45 of the last 65 years

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Ever since the last recession, Canadians have been informed by pundits and the political class that stimulus spending—perhaps better labelled as “binge” spending—was critical to Canada’s economic recovery. But extra ...