By 2015, students and faculty at more than 1,000 college and university campuses across the world (including nearly 30 in Canada) had pressured academic trustees and administrators to divest their institutions’ endowment holdings in publicly held fossil fuel companies...
A public advocacy campaign to amalgamate the 13 municipal governments in Greater Victoria has been underway for a few years. As elsewhere in Canada and around the world, much of the justification for the amalgamation proposal is cost savings. However, the results have...
Having been in the United Kingdom for the last 10 days of the Brexit campaign, the victory of the Brexiteers over the Remainers was expected. The debate pitched economics against politics. Maybe, as David Smith wrote in The Times, “the economics and...
Canada has a serious middle-income housing affordability crisis. Canada’s house prices have grown nearly three times that of household income since 2000. This contrasts with the stability between growth in house prices and household income during the previous three...
Free citizens have minds of their own and want to pursue their lives as they see fit. This is inconvenient for the elites, who wish to be in charge of everyone’s lives so that they can show their superiority and gain benefit for themselves and their friends. So the...
Demographia International Housing Affordability rates middle-income housing affordability in 94 major housing markets in eight nations: Australia, Canada, China, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States. This edition covers the third...
The Syrian civil war is now five years old, spreading deep economic and humanitarian costs around the world. The arrival of more than one million refugees and migrants in Europe is leading to tensions that could bring an end to internal mobility in the European Union....
Cities around the country are seeking to improve urban transportation infrastructure. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is committed to spending money on the “right things,” to create jobs and improve the economy. Yet, the productivity of infrastructure...
Bill C-51, which is no longer a bill but a statute, the Anti-Terrorism Act, was controversial when introduced by the Canadian government last year. Its major feature expanded the remit of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and made it easier for government...
By-elections can be important for many reasons. Tuesday’s provincial by-election in Calgary-Greenway was significant because of its impact on the rivalry between the Progressive Conservatives and the Wildrose Party. It was a close call, but the PCs managed to...
In his March 2 article, “The cheapest way to cut carbon,” economist Trevor Tombe presents the basic logic of emission taxes as applied to CO2. In theory, a uniform carbon price would minimize the cost of emission reductions because it would prompt emitters...
In 2011, Calgary council voted 10-3 to discontinue fluoridation of the city’s water, which had begun 20 years earlier pursuant to a referendum. Now the consequences are becoming visible. A study by Alberta medical researchers shows that the incidence of cavities...
In the fall of 2014, the government of Nova Scotia banned hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking. Fracking could have developed industries and created jobs and wealth in the province. This could have ended Nova Scotia’s long standing status as a...
This op ed was originally published by Embassy on Monday, February 8, 2016: http://www.embassynews.ca/2016/02/10/How-the-Liberals-can-develop-Canada-Arctic-strategy/48207
The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled this week that federal financing of First Nations’ child-welfare services is inadequate and discriminatory, and thus violates the Human Rights Act. Recognizing that it lacks the expertise to reform child welfare, the...