How do we sustain large deficits, wind them down and gradually slow the debt accumulation?
Ordinary Canadians have begun worrying about something that usually only ‘dismal scientists’ – i.e. economists – care about: our alarming federal and provincial deficits and exploding government debt. Putting an economy into lockdown was assuredly going to reduce tax revenues and increase transfers to individuals and businesses to ameliorate the devastation wrought by the COVID-19…
We crave, mythologize, demonize and fight wars over money. Why can’t we just treat it with respect and maintain harmony in the home?
My husband and I once got into a mild argument over finances. It started with calculating costs for a trip east with friends to see a football game. It ended with a tally of summer bills and how on earth they would ever get paid. This happens in countless households. Money – or lack of…
Canadians love receiving government largesse, as long as someone else is paying for it, even if it is their kids
By Jason Clemens and Milagros Palacios The Fraser Institute Pulitzer Prize-winning author George Will has repeatedly argued that, contrary to conventional wisdom, there is enormous consensus in Washington, D.C. – borrow today to finance spending and tax cuts but leave the costs (i.e. taxes) to the next generation. There are increasing signs that Canadians are…
A ship without an anchor risks drifting into stormy waters. The same is true of governments that borrow and spend. More than six months into the global pandemic, it’s time for the Trudeau government to figure out what safeguards to put in place to ensure our temporary plunge into record deficits doesn’t become a permanent…
The Quebec system offers an opportunity to dive deeply into outcomes. The results aren’t promising for children
Advocates of state-run child care saw opportunity in the COVID-19 crisis. It’s an old idea but not a great one. Working parents returned home to care for their children, some able to continue paid work from home and others not. As a result, calls for universal child care grew louder than they had for 15…
Governments tend to forget about consumers when managing supply. Open trade to more cheese and challenge our farmers
Cheese heads – it’s what Canadians are called in many of the United States border regions. It’s because when many Canadians visit their American neighbours, they head straight to the nearest supermarket and buy cheese – and milk and eggs. Dairy and eggs are much more expensive in Canada than in the U.S., even when…
In the days before credit cards, before microwave machines, before The Ed Sullivan Show broadcast across the night TV screens, bread was a dime, pop a nickel or less, and my grandfather worked for a mill in the Canadian great northwest. Years ago, I would visit my grandfather in his Richmond, B.C., apartment. We would…
Trudeau needs to go back to drawing board and come up with an environmental plan that doesn’t hammer taxpayers
By Aaron Wudrick and Franco Terrazzano Canadian Taxpayers Federation Whenever Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to solve a problem, his solution can’t be to hit families and businesses struggling to get by with even more costs. Yet, that’s exactly the approach Trudeau is taking with his second carbon tax. As Postmedia columnist John Ivison reported,…
Alberta’s cities need to first tackle the cost elephant in the room: labour
We hear councillors offer nice platitudes about understanding the hardships Albertans are going through, but actions speak louder than words. And the recent push for new tax powers shows that big city councillors and mayors are divorced from the reality facing Alberta. In June, Red Deer council voted unanimously to back an Edmonton resolution calling…
Richard Nixon and Pat Moynihan had a plan to end poverty. In the end, it was far too complicated, and languished and died
Whether it’s called a guaranteed annual income or a universal basic income, this currently fashionable idea isn’t new. And the fact that it hasn’t happened yet is a tipoff to the associated complexities. One of the earliest proponents was an American right-winger. In 1962’s Capitalism and Freedom, libertarian economist Milton Friedman proposed what he called…
Ordinary Canadians have begun worrying about something that usually only ‘dismal scientists’ – i.e. economists – care about: our alarming federal and provincial deficits and exploding government debt. Putting an economy into lockdown was assuredly going to reduce tax revenues and increase transfers to individuals and businesses to ameliorate the devastation wrought by the COVID-19…
