The Prime Minister is wrapping up his ninth annual trip to Canada’s north this week. This year, like every year, the stealth ski-doo is loaded up with announcements. Presents for everyone! So what are women in Nunavut going to find in their stockings this year? The bulk of federal investments…
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Each quarter, Ontario’s Ministry of Finance releases an update on Ontario’s economic accounts. The numbers for the first quarter of 2014 were released in the heat of summer, and on the same day that the provincial budget was re-introduced. As a result, it went largely unnoticed. A closer look tells…
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In its July issue, The Economist placed on its front page a picture of a graduate cap turned into a bomb nearing explosion under the heading “Creative destruction: reinventing the university.” Repurposing Joseph Schumpeter’s well-known phrase, the magazine announced this time that university, that venerable institution, would undergo a true…
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Big news today that Burger King, a US company, is planning to buy Tim Horton’s, a Canadian one. This is another in a string of “tax inversion” deals where US corporations move their corporate headquarters from the US to elsewhere to avoid US taxation. They don’t actually change anything or…
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The Fraser Institute’s annual Consumer Tax Index report generated some media buzz with its outlandish claims about just how much taxes have risen since 1961. Before you get worked up about this, consider that 1961 was over half a century ago, before the time of universal health care that we…
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Corporate Canada has reached a milestone in 2014. For the first time ever, it is now hoarding more cash than the national debt. What that means is that in one fell swoop, Canada’s corporations could pay off our entire national debt with just the cash sitting in their banks accounts,…
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My report, Willful Blindness?, released today, summarizes the regulatory failures behind the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. The federal government has so far not acknowledged any culpability or responsibility for the accident. On the contrary, the Minister has blamed the accident on the negligence of individuals and not on gaps in the regulatory…
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So let’s say that you don’t care about pipelines. Let’s say climate change doesn’t concern you or your children. Let’s say you aren’t concerned about the radical alternation in the landscape of northern Alberta. What if when I say “tar sands” and you say “Show me the money!” Well even…
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