“Privatization is not inherently good or bad – the performance or effectiveness depends on implementation.” That isn’t the type of rhetoric one might expect to hear when describing something as polarizing as privatization, but it is one of the conclusions …
Transit and Roads Aren’t Always at Odds
Public transit is often assumed to come at the expense of good roads, and vice versa. There are certainly cases where roadway spending and public transit are at odds. For instance, when light rail or streetcar projects remove lanes of …
If Governments Aren’t Wasting Money, They’re Doing it Wrong
Tales of government waste make for excellent news headlines. Bev Oda’s infamous $16 orange juice probably got more media attention than the $45 billion F35 procurement debacle. Part of the reason is that is that people understand the value and …
Mid-Sized Cities Can Attract Tourists by Being Themselves
People flock to major cities to take advantage of unique experiences. In theory, most of the types of activities tourists seek out can be replicated most anywhere, but people are willing to pay a large premium and go out of …
Why Families are Moving to Texas and Hipsters are Moving to Pittsburgh
Many municipal politicians, particularly in mid-sized cities, aspire to turn their city into the next trendy place, following in the steps of Portland or Brooklyn. Meanwhile, lesser fashionable places such as Houston, Phoenix, and Atlanta are swallowing up migrants from …
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 …
Legalize Soft Drugs to Reduce the Availability of Hard Drugs
Does caffeine lead to cocaine use? Obviously not. But what would happen if caffeine was outlawed? Naturally, a black market would emerge. Drug gangs, which are highly skilled at operating outside of the law, and have pre-existing distribution channels, would …
Frontier Centre Releases A Blueprint for Reorienting Canadian Drug Policy
Today the Frontier Centre for Public Policy published A Blueprint for Reorienting Canadian Drug Policy, a new report by policy analyst Steve Lafleur and research intern Andrew Chai. In the report, the authors assert that the War on Drugs, in …
A Blueprint for Reorienting Canadian Drug Policy
“I think what everyone believes and agrees with, and to be frank myself, is that the current approach is not working, but it is not clear what we should do,” said Prime Minister Stephen Harper after a 2012 meeting with leaders of …