Search

Search results

1. Eliminating barriers to competition—the overlooked remedy for high cellphone bills

   The cost of cellphone services always seems like a hot topic in Canada. This past election season, the parties floated ways to bring down prices for Canadian consumers. But first, it’s necessary to cool down the temperature a little. To ...

2. Alberta’s fiscal plan—put the pedal to the metal

   Based on last week’s provincial budget, the Kenney government in Alberta plans to return to sounder fiscal ground. Since 2008, the province has run large deficits, turning a balance sheet in the black up to $35 billion to a net debt of ...

3. Media bailouts will do more harm than good

   After Groupe Capitales Médias, which owns newspapers in Quebec such as Le Soleil, announced its serious financial difficulties in mid-August, numerous interest groups (involved in the world of journalism) and pundits said the government ...

4. Rent control—bad policy will not correct bad policy

   A longstanding quip among economists is that, with the exception of bombardments, there are no surer ways of destroying a city than rent control. Few economists disagreed then and even fewer disagree now. It’s one of the few policy ...

5. Plastic bag bans may do more harm than good

   Appeared in the Vancouver Province, June 26, 2019 Last week, Prime Minister Trudeau announced plans to ban “single-use plastics”—possibly bags, straws and cutlery among other plastic things. "We need to cover all of Canada with this decision,” he ...

6. Governments should stop shielding Canadians from benefits of competition

   Appeared in the Moncton Times & Transcript, May 28, 2019 Economists love competition. If they’re teaching, in the first class, they will tell students how competition between firms leads to lower prices and greater quality. Beyond the classroom, few ...

7. Walled from Competition: Measuring Protected Industries in Canada

   Consumers are best served by firms when the latter are exposed to the threat of competition. Absent the possibility of new firms threatening their incumbent status, established players have less incentive to cut costs and prices and improve services. The ...

8. Beware, budget deficits can increase inequality

   Government debt redistributes resources from the entire population to the wealthy holders of the debt. ...

9. SNC-Lavalin reminds us that big government invites big scandals

   Appeared in the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal, April 9, 2019 The SNC-Lavalin scandal, which continues to dominate headlines across Canada, has many moving parts. It’s hard to disentangle everything so as to assign blame. But regardless of the eventual ...

10. Quebec, don’t fall prey to fiscal illusion

    Quebec’s budget surplus, it was recently revealed, will now stand between an estimated $3.4 billion and $4.6 billion, which is well above the previously estimated surplus of $1.7 billion. Given Quebec’s long history of budget deficits ...