It was three years ago that Stephen Harper's Conservative government said it planned to introduce the First Nations Property Ownership Act, which would expand property rights for Canada's Aboriginal people, but we still haven't seen the legislation. Such an Act would...
Year: 2014
There’s No Such Thing as a Free Parking Spot
A Calgary non-profit made headlines recently when it was revealed that the organization was required to build a parking lot for an affordable housing complex that is effectively empty. The housing is provided specifically for helping people transition from out of...
It Shouldn’t Be Up to Industries to Decide If They Are Exclusive
As of last year, people in Ontario who wish to cut hair for a living must be a member of the Ontario College of Trades, which has mandated a 600 percent increase in certification fees for hairstylists. The newly formed Ontario Hairstylists Association claims that the...
Clearing Up The Confusion About Carbon And Carbon Dioxide
In the ongoing discussion about climate change, we are frequently misled about carbon, carbon dioxide and “carbon pollution.” Politicians and environmentalists use the terms interchangeably, when talking about the need to reduce our carbon emissions, or 'carbon...
Featured News
Preston Manning: Report of the COVID Commission
Introductory Comment Brian Giesbrecht, Retired Judge, Frontier Centre Senior Fellow: The Frontier Centre for Public Policy is honoured to present Mr. Manning’s latest offering, in what he calls a fictionalized story. It is about everything that has happened to this...
Canada: Returning to the Original Vision
Many Canadians are aware of stories of how immigrants were originally attracted to Canada through the promise of free land. The then Minister responsible for immigration, Clifford Sifton, had his staff spread out across central and eastern Europe promising free land...
Civil forfeiture laws victimize citizens
Civil forfeiture laws across Canada are unnecessarily victimizing citizens. Rather than cling to these regimes, Canadian provinces need to move towards federal criminal forfeiture procedures found in the Criminal Code, which provide more procedural protection for...
Nationalism in the Skies: The square peg in a round world
Executive Summary The 1944 Chicago International Aviation Conference, known as the Chicago Conference, was convened to determine how best to deal with air transportation between countries. A multilateral or borderless trade was proposed by the United States (hereafter...
Nationalism in the Skies and the bête noire of the 21st century
Emirates CEO Tim Clark says the airline industry considers the Gulf giant its “bête noire” –the “monster of the Middle East.” With two-thirds of the world living within eight hours of its Dubai hub, it seems the whole world is now changing planes in the Middle East....
Frontier Centre releases Nationalism in the Skies: The square peg in a round world
Today the Frontier Centre for Public Policy issued Nationalism in the skies: the square peg in a round world, authored by Mary-Jane Bennett. Nationality in a global business like aviation has made little sense Convened in 1944 by U.S. president F.D. Roosevelt to...
Mark Steyn at Manning Networking Conference 2014
Last month I attended the Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa. It's the largest annual gathering of conservative and libertarians in Canada, with a noticeable generational split between those two philosophies. The keynote speaker on the final day of the conference...
Heated Sidewalks are Worth Consideration
People laughed when Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army to help clear snow in 1999. But snow and ice present many challenges for municipal government. When snow is plowed to clear the way for vehicles, parking becomes difficult, and icy sidewalks are also...
The Cost Disease Infects Public Education Across Canada
Executive Summary • Professor William Baumol coined the term “the cost disease” to indicate that the cost of consumer products has increased at the rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), while the cost of education and health care have increased at an exponential...
Public schools in the northern territories are infected with the cost disease
Education costs are skyrocketing across the north, and there is little evidence that the increased spending has produced better outcomes for students. Policy reforms are needed to bring more consumer choice and competition into education. William Baumol,...
Public schools in Western Canada are infected with the cost disease
Taxpayers have good reasons to be concerned about the skyrocketing costs of education. Recently, William Baumol, professor emeritus of economics at Princeton University, used the term “cost disease“ to describe the exponential increase in the cost of social services—a...