Jul 27 2021 — Jake Fuss — Fraser Institute — During the pandemic, government budget deficits have grown substantially across Canada—at a time when interest costs are at historical lows. If interest costs return to the slightly higher levels of 2019, deficits would increase by billions for governments across the country. And yet, several governments (including the Trudeau government) show little concern over their high […]
Jul 14 2021 — Nigel Rawson — Fraser Institute — The rapid approval of COVID-19 vaccines in Canada is unprecedented. The urgent need for vaccines, coupled with a federal government interim order to expedite access, meant the vaccines were approved by Health Canada in a timeframe similar to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). With renewed focus on […]
Jul 9 2021 — Kevin Page — Policy Magazine — People reading financial news in recent days were likely surprised to learn that the international community has coalesced around an approach to establish a global minimum tax for large multinational digital companies. Is it a big deal? It needs to be. On July 5, following years of work led by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation […]
Jun 30 2021 — Public Policy Forum — In this week’s episode of Policy Speaking, Edward Greenspon connects with Jerry Dias, President of Unifor Canada. They reflect on the state of the ‘union’, the impact of the pandemic on Canada’s auto, manufacturing & service industries and the constant transition to new & different work. Jerry shares thoughts on industrial policy based on U.S. […]
Jun 20 2021 — Public Policy Forum — Vass Bednar takes over as host of Policy Speaking, for a special Brave New Work discussion on new data policymakers can use in this digital era. Joining the podcast is Paul Cowan, Chief Marketing Officer at FreshBooks who talks about the birds-eye-view insights his accounting company gleaned during the COVID economic crisis, and how sharing […]
Jun 19 2021 — Jason Clemens, Milagros Palacios and Niels Veldhuis — Fraser Institute — In a recent interview, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland explained the need to focus on economic growth to deal with many of Canada’s fiscal issues including our high debt levels. Minister Freeland is correct that higher rates of economic growth would solve many of the country’s issues. Unfortunately, her policy prescription for higher growth is […]
Jun 19 2021 — Policy Options — This past April, the Liberal government announced the first federal budget since 2019. In hopes of a strong pandemic recovery, the budget promises massive policy measures. With transformative spending and net debt now reaching an unbelievable $1 trillion, it’s shocking what little say we actually have in the budget process. In fact, when it comes […]
Jun 19 2021 — Policy Magazine — Thomas Jefferson once said, “The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness”. As we try to fully digest the 700-page April 19 budget one might ask: Is the government succeeding in its mandate of making us happier? It is often said that if you cannot […]
Jun 17 2021 — Mikayla Zolis — Policy Magazine — Canada is facing an unprecedented moment in housing market history. The Canadian Real Estate Association’s latest data cites a 23.1 percent increase in April’s home price index from the previous year. Set against the highest real house price growth rates among rich countries globally, and Vancouver, Toronto, and Hamilton topping the list of North America’s […]
Jun 17 2021 — Anil Wasif — Policy Magazine — We have a problem. Some 50 years, a couple of task forces, and a pandemic later, we are still figuring out what kind of childcare we want. We use words like “equalizer” and say things like “she-covery” — yet, how easily we forget that when push comes to shove, we just like to shuffle like […]
Jun 16 2021 — Policy Magazine — In the wake of the high-profile incidents of police violence against African Americans, the world has been confronted by a reality long known by Black people and reluctantly accepted by others–the presence of racism within policing. As protests against police brutality have broken out in many major cities worldwide, a global outcry has arisen for […]
Jun 15 2021 — Rudayna Bahubeshi — Policy Magazine — The first wave of COVID-19 coincided with the massive protests around the world provoked by the murder of George Floyd. Anti-Blackness, and systemic racism broadly, were in the public eye to a degree unprecedented in recent decades. In the city of Toronto in August 2020, Black people made up 34 percent of COVID-19 cases, despite […]
Jun 15 2021 — Asif Imran Khan — Policy Magazine — More than a year after the emergence of COVID-19, the much-anticipated World Health Organization (WHO) investigative report on the zoonotic source of the virus was finally published last March. The findings of the report have been underwhelming, to say the least. A US led multi-country joint statement stated that report “lacked access to complete, original […]
Jun 13 2021 — Colin Robertson — Canadian Global Affairs Institute — Presidents and prime ministers of the thirty NATO nations will meet in Brussels on Monday, June 14. The agenda, for this their 29th summit since the Alliance was formed in 1949, will discuss safeguarding the rules-based order in the face of the rising challenge from China and Russia. NATO operations in Afghanistan and Iraq will […]