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1. 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 ...

2. How does Alberta’s deficit stack up against the other provinces?

   Alberta’s budget is coming in a couple weeks and expectations are that the government will unveil a deficit for the current fiscal year totalling at least $5.9 billion. How does this number stack up against the other provinces? Let’s ...

3. Ontario vs. the US “Rust Belt”: Coping with a Changing Economic World

   Since the recession, Ontario has recorded large and consistent budget deficits that have increased the province’s already enormous debt load. According to a prominent narrative at Queen’s Park, policymakers are not to blame for this fiscal trend because ...

4. Understanding the Foundation for Teachers’ Strikes in Ontario

   Appeared in the Sudbury Star While much has been made about the ‘resolution’ of the teachers’ job action in Ontario, most of the discussion has missed two fundamental aspects of the debate: school choice and unionization in the public sector. No long-term ...

5. 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 ...

6. Municipal Amalgamation in Ontario

   The 1990s and 2000s were tumultuous decades for Ontario municipalities. Hundreds of municipalities across the provinces were amalgamated amid claims that restructuring would produce local governments that would be more efficient and less costly. Taxpayers ...

7. Mining exploration spending sharply declining in Ontario

   Mining exploration spending is tightening in Ontario. In 2011, exploration spending peaked, amounting to $1.07 billion of investment in the province. In 2015, the story is much different. Natural Resources Canada is predicting that ...

8. Municipal Fire Services in Canada: A Preliminary Analysis

   This bulletin examines trends in fire service spending and the incidence of reported fires in Canada. It finds that the number of firefighters and spending on fire services is increasing even as the incidence of reported fires is decreasing based on ...

9. 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 ...

10. Prohibition-era liquor policies continue in Ontario and B.C.

    Appeared in the Ottawa Citizen If Canadians ever needed proof that narrow politicking interferes with sensible consumer choice, they need look no further than the byzantine “reforms” on the sale of beer, wine and spirits proposed by Ontario, and one ...