Earlier this year, the Chamber of Commerce released yet another report on how public protections and other regulatory requirements are undermining Canadian competitiveness—and how the government should go about deregulating to make life easier for businesses big and small. Though it wasn’t directly tied to the Trump administration’s massive gutting…
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The CCPA continues to carefully read through the nearly 2,000-page USMCA text. This blog, the third in a series on how the agreement differs from NAFTA, examines the agreement’s chapter on Good Regulatory Practices, a relatively new addition to so-called next generation trade deals. Stay tuned to this space for continued analysis…
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Not even three full months into his reign as Ontario premier, the battle lines between Doug Ford and the City of Toronto have been drawn and democracy is on trial. Premier Ford threw Toronto’s October 22nd municipal election campaign into chaos this summer by arbitrarily cutting the number of seats…
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Strong-arm tactics have always been an ugly feature of Canada-U.S. trade negotiations. But in the current NAFTA renegotiation the Trump administration has taken bullying and brinkmanship to a whole new level. The Canadian government was thrown off balance by the U.S.-Mexico deal announced in late August and has been playing…
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The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has confirmed that the Canada Revenue Agency’s (CRA) crackdown on charitable political activity has been an arbitrary and unjustified infringement upon freedom of expression. It’s time for the federal government to act swiftly to close the book on a dark time in Canada’s democratic…
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The Supreme Court gave Canadians cause to celebrate this April in its R v Comeau decision. However, because of the way the ruling was covered in the media, most people will not know how much was at stake and what we might have lost had things gone the other way….
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Heading into Ontario’s June 7 election, the three major political parties have made distinct expenditure promises and revenue announcements. Let’s look at these fiscal plans in historical and comparative context (see note 1). Ontario governments have traditionally supplied a comparatively low level of public services (e.g., health, education, etc.) and…
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In Ontario’s first-past-the-post electoral system, it’s not just a matter of counting votes. Here are a few things to think about that may help determine who wins—and who loses—on June 7: Geography matters Governments change when the same people vote differently, or when different people vote the same—but in a…
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Just how likely is it that a NAFTA deal can be concluded this year? Last week, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan entered the fray, saying that this Thursday (May 17) is the drop-dead date for the Trump administration to notify Congress that a NAFTA deal has been reached, if there…
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I was invited to appear before a parliamentary trade committee last week on behalf of the CCPA to discuss a possible Canadian free trade agreement (FTA) with the Mercosur countries. I must say that, while CCPA is always happy to participate in such discussions, it’s hard to understand why the…
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