Canada is awash in reports on the fiscal health of provincial and federal governments, but putting together a full picture of the balance sheets of the country's cities is next to impossible. Now, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Prairie-based think tank, has...
Year: 2007
Disclosure by Municipalities ‘Unsatisfactory’
Canadian municipalities - particularly in Quebec - should adopt the practices of New Zealand municipalities when it comes to financial openness with the public, a small group of policymakers agreed yesterday. "The level of disclosure (by Canadian local governments) is...
Halifax’s Financial Picture Just So-So: Winnipeg Think-Tank
Halifax Regional Municipality is in pretty good financial shape, but it could be doing better. A new report from the Winnipeg-based think-tank Frontier Centre, which is the sister think-tank to the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, has compared the finances of...
City Taxes; The Onerous Job Ahead
As city officials discuss whether job cuts are required to hold the line on a tax increase residents in these lean times can ill afford, two new reports have painted Windsor as an area with higher taxes and costs than competing jurisdictions. A study released by the...
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Canadians on the Move, to Smaller Communities
The Canadian Dream is increasingly being realized in smaller areas For decades, Canadians moved to the larger cities (census metropolitan areas, or CMAs) with their economic opportunities. The latest estimates indicate that CMAs have 72 per cent of the nation’s...
Leadership Needed in Canadian Healthcare; Apply Within
When the Premiers were first called to a sit-down lunch to talk about healthcare with Prime Minister Trudeau, there was plenty of talk about the potential for systemic change, innovation and accountability. It seemed that Canadians and their leaders were finally on...
Let Dairy Farmers Sleep – We’ll Buy Somewhere Else
Canadians would all be better off if we closed down supply management and imported dairy products at world
prices.
A Solution to the Gang Problem?
One useful alternative to the current jail system is a military-style boot camp that could be located in the far north, away from society and accessible only by air. Here the gang member would follow the stiff regime of military-style character building.
Suburbs Attacked Because Middle-Class Hates Plumbers in Big Houses
Sixty years ago this month something happened on Long Island near New York that was to help shape Australian cities. It deserves to be better known. The first homeowners moved into Levittown, a 17,000-residence housing estate built by Bill Levitt. Essentially, Levitt...
An Inconvenient Price
Sums that are small relative to the cost of trying to fine-tune the planet’s climate could prevent scores of millions of deaths from AIDS, unsafe drinking water and other clear and present dangers.
Michael Silver, President of Silver Jeans
The President of Silver Jeans discusses opportunity amid rapid change in a Frontier Conversation.
Time to Ditch Kyoto, Experts Urge
It is time for a radical rethink on climate change, says a report in the journal Nature this week. Echoing sentiments long associated with politicians such as Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President George Bush, the report says it is time to ditch...
Why Water is Becoming the New Oil
It appears that water is about to become commoditized and be traded as a futures contract along with pork bellies, oranges or lumber. This will make water a geopolitical issue. If Great Lakes water is shipped to irrigate the U.S. Midwest, will Canada get half its value?
The Madness of Feeding this Ravenous NHS
Dramatically higher health funding in Britain’s public health monopoly results in higher costs not more service.
Is Quota Helping to Kill the Family Farm?
As the entry price into the monopoly increases the number of dairy farms is collapsing. FC034