Lately, ordinary citizens, voters and taxpayers are beginning to worry about something that usually only ‘dismal scientists’, i.e., economists, care about: our alarming federal and provincial deficits and exploding national debt. While putting an economy into...
On July 2nd, 2020, a rather sad milestone or marker of Canada’s misplaced energy and environmental policies – not to mention its handling of federal-provincial relations – occurred. On that day, the first cargo of Western Canadian oil left Burrard Inlet on the Pacific...
So far, all the federal government schemes and programs to ameliorate the devastation wrought by the ill-considered shutdown of the Canadian economy for nearly three months have focused on compensating individuals and businesses for being unemployed or shutting down....
In recent months and years, a plethora of social, cultural, academic and political critics and self-appointed ‘activists’ have all decried the supposed increase in income and wealth inequality in Western nations, particularly the United States of America. The first...
For standards of living to grow, productivity growth must be strong and continually renewed. That is one notion that nearly all economists can agree on. So, it is not surprising that politicians scramble to discover new or not-so-new ways to boost productivity growth....
Behavioural psychologist Robert Epstein believes Google can and does influence voters and that research teams in Canada and elsewhere need to monitor how users are being swayed. Epstein, the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today and founder of the American...
The World Bank just issued its annual ‘Ease of Doing Business’ report for 190 countries and territories. Again, Canada was not near the top. It was 18th. Small New Zealand was first, Singapore was 2nd, and Denmark was 3rd. Even our main trading partner, the US, was...
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in a report released with its latest World Financial Stability study, critiqued Italy, chiding the perennial underperformer for its famously large, unaffordable and growth-stifling public sector. Why this matters to anyone...
British Columbia’s quandary: To keep Columbia Power, or add 15,000 teachers, nurses, or paramedics? There are two generally accepted methods for valuing a company: its intrinsic value as a cash-generating enterprise, and its standard market value in comparison with...
A few months ago, State Street Global Advisors, ‘SSGA’, the self-described ‘third largest asset advisor in the world’, celebrated its first anniversary of their creation of a new specialty Exchange Traded Fund, the SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (SHE). An...
The federal government is determined to eliminate any real or perceived income tax bias or benefit that people who incorporate receive versus those who file tax returns as individuals, usually as employees. The assertion is that these incorporated people are getting...
There have been a number of issues and problems in ordinary corporate governance in recent years and decades. Boards of directors of corporations are charged with supervising management of those corporations. Boards establish performance standards for those...
Successful private companies benefit from having effective boards of directors. They protect the interests of shareholders - the company’s owners - by hiring and supervising top management, establishing performance standards, and setting management pay. Boards also...
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy today released A Valuation of the Centra Gas Division of Manitoba Hydro authored by Ian Madsen. Fifteen years ago, Centra Gas was a private, investor-owned company. However, since then it has been a division of the Crown...
Donald Trump’s removal of the United States from the Paris Accord on Climate Change has major economic implications for Canada. Our major trading partner will enjoy lower energy costs going forward - putting Canada at a growing disadvantage as a location for...