Premier Scott Moe tweeted this graphic on equalization yesterday. The tweet continues the Saskatchewan government’s long record of misrepresenting how equalization works in the hopes of ginning up anti-Quebec and anti-Ottawa sentiment among the Saskatchewan electorate. However, this time the misrepresentation goes one further, as it implies the graph is…
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Take a deep breath, Ontario: we have reached the conclusion of this bizarre and dramatic election period. We wade now into unchartered territory. Sure, there have been PC governments before. But there has never been a PC government quite like the one we are about to experience under Premier-designate Doug…
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Back in March, the Ontario Liberals put all of their chips on the table with their election-style provincial budget. They promised free child care, more support for dental care and drugs, and a reinvestment in health care—bankrolling it by deficit spending for the next six years. That left the opposition…
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In its waning days before a June election, with the opposition breathing down its neck, the Ontario government threw down the gauntlet with what is unquestionably a pull out all the stops election budget. The marquee item was announced yesterday after weeks of big announcements: if re-elected, the government would…
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Sixty-two times. That’s how many times the Government of Ontario drew upon the word “care” in a throne speech designed to claim its stake in a pre-election period that has so far seen its share of ups and downs. The Liberals aren’t the only ones focused on improving care. With…
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Am I happy with the 2018 federal budget? Well, many of the items in it can be found in this year’s and past Alternative Federal Budgets (AFB), which of course is a good thing. But in general I’d say this is an ambition constrained budget. The government had the fiscal…
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The government promised us a budget guided by gender analysis this year, and they delivered: on pay equity, on supports for women entrepreneurs and, in the warm fuzzy afterglow of Canada’s successful Olympics showing, a little something for women in sports. Investments in child care, women’s organizations and ending violence…
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More than 80% of men in Quebec take leave after their child is born. On average they take 5 weeks. In the rest of Canada, less than 30% of fathers take leave and on average they take just over 2 weeks. There are two possible explanations for this difference: 1)…
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Apparently, it’s not just prospective homebuyers being priced out of the GTA. How many young families can easily come up with an extra $14,455 a year, on top of other expenses? Why $14,455? That’s the median annual cost of a preschool child care space in Toronto, according to our recent…
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In the 2015 election the Liberal Party platform stood out by promising to run a deficit in order to provide stimulus to a then slow-growing economy. They promised to spend money to implement new policies aimed at, say it with me, the middle class. The decision to commit to deficit…
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