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1. Wynne government reopens spending tap, exposes province to more risk

   Appeared in the Financial Post, May 10, 2017 The Wynne government recently tabled Ontario’s first balanced operating budget in a decade. While it’s good to see the province finally bring its annual operating expenditures in line with revenues, there are ...

2. Despite likely balanced budget, Ontario’s deficit dragon not dead yet

   Finance Minister Charles Sousa will deliver Ontario’s spring budget on April 27 and the expectation is that Ontario will deliver a balanced budget for the first time since the onset of the Great Recession. Ontario has now run nine ...

3. Ottawa’s ‘innovation budget’ unlikely to spark innovation

   Government-sponsored venture capital initiatives tend to underperform compared to initiatives funded by the private sector. ...

4. Trudeau government stretches definition of ‘infrastructure’ too far

   Appeared in the Ottawa Sun, April 2, 2017 The 2017 federal budget revealed new details on the Trudeau government’s nearly $100 billion infrastructure spending plan. Canadians should know that, contrary to the government’s rhetoric, much of this spending ...

5. Another broken promise—federal government ditches latest fiscal pledge

   By 2019/20, Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio is forecasted to be 31.5 per cent. ...

6. What does the federal budget mean for Ontario?

   Appeared in the Toronto Sun, March 29, 2017 Last week, the Trudeau government released its 2017 budget. So what are the most important takeaways for Ontarians? Firstly, something we’re very familiar with in this province—growing government debt. The ...

7. Saskatchewan has a plan to balance its budget, Alberta doesn’t

   Appeared in the Calgary Sun, March 27, 2017 Alberta and Saskatchewan are energy-rich jurisdictions that fell on hard times as commodity prices fell. And both jurisdictions face significant fiscal challenges, with large budget deficits and substantial debt ...

8. William Watson: Trying to digest 159 ways to improve a country

   I spent seven hours Wednesday confined with several hundred other columnists, reporters, financial analysts, policy wonks, cameramen, video editors, sound engineers and so on at the federal government’s annual budget lock-up. You line up ...

9. A brief federal budget history—Canada, 1867-2017

   Appeared in the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, March 13, 2017 The upcoming federal budget comes in Canada’s 150th year—an important milestone for what is perhaps the most successful country in the world. The evolution of federal finances since 1867 ...

10. Ottawa spends $23 billion each year on innovation and skills training—with little sense of success

    The federal government is not properly measuring the effectiveness of 90 per cent of its spending on innovation and skills training. ...