The price of copper has long been a bellwether for economic conditions. The price is strongly correlated to economic activity, industrial production and economic growth in general. It is also highly correlated with the Canadian dollar and economy. The red metal’s...
Ian Madsen
Energy Storage, Key to Making Renewable Energy and Green Infrastructure Viable, is Expensive
Big infrastructure spending plans in both Canada, the United States, and the European Union, all place a lot of emphasis on renewable energy displacing coal, gas and petroleum burning generating stations and motor vehicles. Yet little attention is given to the one...
Alberta Government Ignores, Expensively, the Axiom That Government Should Stay Out of Business
The conservative or free market foundational principle that government should stay out of business was ignored by the United Conservative Party of Alberta and the premier of the provincial government. Their regime ‘invested’ what has come to be revealed as $1.3...
Decoupling and Reshoring From China will be Hard: China Holds Most of the Cards
Several factors have merged to induce Western governments and the firms they preside over, to find substitute supply chains for China-dominant ones that they now depend on. These factors include growing public revulsion at the repressive and persecutory policies the...
Featured News
Promote Equity by Providing a Quality Education
Earlier this year, a group called Equity Matters asked the province to establish an education equity secretariat. They want this office to oversee equity officers working in Manitoba schools. Equity Matters wants to ensure that all Manitoba students are reflected in...
Why Frances Widdowson Matters
Frances Widdowson probably isn't someone most Canadians recognize. I'm here to tell you why they should. In terms of Canada's intellectual culture, Frances Widdowson matters because she is a classic and prolific academic. In a time when demagoguery easily flourishes,...
Booze, Cannabis, and Beyond – A Valuation of BC Liquor Distribution Branch
Using an intrinsic value method, and discounting to the present, British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch’s (BCLDB) projected future free cash flows, as the company is today, but taxed at statutory rates, the range of estimates is $12.13B to $84.91B, with a tighter...
Liquid and Rich, for Now – A Valuation of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario
Using an intrinsic value method, and discounting to the present, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s, ‘LCBO’s’ projected future free cash flows, as the company is today, but taxed at statutory rates, the range of estimates is $12.13B to $84.91B, with a tighter range...
Only Government Can Foul Up a Sure Money-Maker, Cannabis
Ever since the oft-delayed rollout of legal recreational cannabis sales in Canada on October 17th, there have been problems across this vast and highly regulated land. The first is lack of product in nearly every province. The second is too few retail outlets for the...
Venezuela’s Descent into Poverty, Chaos and Repression
This past week, Nicolás Maduro was sworn in as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for his second six year term. His first term was marked by hyperinflation, violent repression, flight of foreign investors, shutdown of businesses, bankruptcies, riots,...
Two, and Even More, Glaring Reasons to Mistrust Global Warming Activists’ Sincerity and Integrity
In December we were treated, if that is the word, to the sorrowful and accusatory screed of an earnest Swedish teenager, as she cast gloom and guilt globally while comfortably ensconced in a heated auditorium at the latest United Nations Climate Change Conference in...
New Technology Will Make Carbon Dioxide Tax Obsolete Anyway
Canadian politics have been riven and even toxified by the debate over Ottawa’s plans to impose a ‘carbon tax’ on greenhouse gas emissions (GGE) on all provinces lacking such a levy. The ostensible goal is to induce the use of less fossil fuels, and thus emit less...
Marine Atlantic Better Suited for Private Investors
One of the biggest risks to taxpayers with Crown corporations is their dependence on government subsidy; and how vulnerable they are if such subsidies were ever to be reduced. Marine Atlantic Inc. monopolizes the market for passenger water transportation on the east...
Mr. Postman, Look & See, Is There a Letter for Thee?
Changes in trends occasioned by digitization has had some adverse financial effects on Canada Post Corporation (CPC). Particularly, there is a shift in demand for traditional mail leading to a decline in mail volumes. Parcel volumes, however, are increasing owing to...
Always Building, Payoff Deferred – A Valuation of Yukon Energy Corporation
Yukon Energy Corporation (YEC) is a sprawling generator and distributor of electric power to customers in Yukon Territory. It could be worth as much as $212M were it divested, making the assumption that its chronic heavy capital investment program will end soon. As a...