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1. If you think June 9 is too late for Tax Freedom Day, just wait

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, June 9, 2017 The official start of summer is just a few weeks away and we’re fast approaching the half-way point of the year. So consider this—if you had to pay all your taxes for the year up front, you would have worked for ...

2. Canadians Celebrate Tax Freedom Day on June 9, 2017

   In 2017, the average Canadian family will earn $108,674 in income and pay a total of $47,135 in taxes (43.4%). If the average Canadian family had to pay its total tax bill of $47,135 up front, it would have worked until June 8 to pay the total tax ...

3. Secret ballot vote for union certification empowers workers, promotes democratic principles

   Canada’s Senate may not always live up to its ideal of being the chamber of “sober second thought,” but from time to time Senators can contribute to better policy outcomes by getting their counterparts in the House of Commons to ...

4. William Watson: Was Stuart McLean, national treasure, also a public good?

   I was not an early fan of Stuart McLean. I listened live to his famous gift of a cockroach to Peter Gzowski on Gzowski’s retirement show and thought it was silly, as, frankly, Gzowski seemed to, as well. And when The Vinyl Café first ...

5. Canada can improve cost of doing business

   A recent issue of the Economist magazine showers high praise on Canada. It says we place second of sixty in the Best Countries index, second of 55 in the Most Reputable Countries ranking, and tenth of 163 in the Good Country index. We ...

6. In Canada, being born to poor parents doesn’t resign you to same economic fate

   If Canada was a place where children of poor parents could not rise up and improve their economic standing, this would be a troubling state of affairs. After all, it would mean that economic fate is pre-determined. Thankfully, that’s not ...

7. Canadians Celebrate Tax Freedom Day on June 7, 2016

   In 2016, the average Canadian family will earn $105,236 in income and pay a total of $45,167 in taxes (42.9%). If the average Canadian family had to pay its total tax bill of $45,167 up front, it would have worked until June 6 to pay the total tax bill ...

8. Free expression vs. expression for free

   In an earlier post, I argued that government should not fund the arts because works of art can easily be used to exploit highly ideological state interests—interests that may stand in direct conflict with the very people funding the art ...

9. Poor policy responsible for Ontario’s dwindling share of Canadian economy

   The Institute recently released a major study by former chief analyst at Statistics Canada, Philip Cross, assessing the state of Ontario within Canada. The results are startling in terms of the economic decline of one of Canada’s ...

10. Understanding the clawback of OAS benefits

    October 1 was National Seniors Day and Daphne Bramham of the Vancouver Sun commented on the mix of transfers to seniors compared to Canadians under age 45. It was an interesting and worthwhile piece, though it didn’t include a critical ...