New Zealand may be kicking off a fiscal trend: boldly downsizing its public-sector payrolls to trim unwieldy government deficits. Its new coalition government, elected last October, is moving to eliminate 15,000 civil service jobs. David Seymour, ACT Party leader,...
Ian Madsen
Airbnb, VRBO: Scapegoats for Failing Government Housing Policies
The tourist-oriented city of Kelowna, British Columbia, has self-destructively voted to prohibit any new short-term rentals in residences. Even the provincial government is not as draconian, giving dispensation to resort and tourist destinations. Nationally, the...
Cold Weather Exposes Downsides of Heat Pumps, EVs and More
The very motivated Climate Emergency crusaders and politicians have an ambitious list of the things they wish to implement (along with those they want to ban). Foremost among their favourites are alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar along with batteries...
Believe It Or Not, There Is Good News About Rising Interest Rates
It is taking a while, but a prolonged period of elevated interest rates, at both the short end set by the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve Board of the United States, and at the long end in the bond market set by domestic and foreign investors, is coming to be...
Featured News
Weaponizing the Law
The indictment of former U.S. president Donald Trump for crimes invented by his political opponents is the most egregious example yet seen of the weaponizing of the law. The United States is now full of examples. However, in Canada, we also see the law being...
“Looking At” Seizing Control Over Western Canada’s Natural Resources
OTTAWA, REGINA - Last week, two things happened that could have profound impacts on natural resources development in Saskatchewan. One is a hint the federal government might want to take control of natural resources away from the provinces, and the other is the...
UN Climate Agency Distorts Science, Promotes Green Industry Lobby
The dubious ‘problem’ of purported global warming has become a key driver of public policy, bringing social coercion and huge capital allocations by governments and corporations across the world. Thus, very skeptical scrutiny should be brought to bear on...
Canadians Need a ‘Taxpayer Bill of Rights’
Ottawa has a spending problem, with a worrisome deficit and a debt service problem. Canada’s federal debt is about $1.2 trillion - roughly $30,000 per person, over $60,000 per household. Even worse, the debt is growing, with the current Liberal regime forecasting a...
EV Battery Plant Subsidies Better Spent Elsewhere
Big handouts to buy votes
If You Want a Smaller Pension Invest in ESG Funds
Part of the original pitch for an Environmental, Social and Environmental, ‘ESG’, investment strategy – i.e., putting your money into a basket of socially aware green, diversity and pseudo-woke social justice friendly investments - is that it would benefit the world...
Ottawa’s Policies Defeat Its Critical Minerals Push
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a recent rush visit to the Saskatchewan Research Council’s experimental rare earth refining facility in Saskatoon. He touted his government’s efforts to promote rare earth discovery, development, and extraction, along with the...
ESG: A Formula for Slower Growth, Lower Living Standards and Smaller Pensions
A recently formed group called the ‘Coalition for a Better Future’ has outlined a plan to re-order and re-orient Canada’s economy from its current largely-free-market basis to one that is a more guided, government-directed venture. Its focus expands beyond such...
US Dollar and Debt: Not Yet In Crisis, But Troubling
Recent anguish over raising the United States Congress’s wholly arbitrary debt ceiling by summertime, to avoid forced budget cutting, obscures a number of issues. In all likelihood, the debt ceiling will be raised and the military, pensioners and other core U.S....
Ocean Current Power Beats Solar, Wind, Hands Down
Self-righteous Climate Crusaders are trying to force all of us to adopt their ‘Green Transition’ based on a very narrowly based and dubious Utopia of purely alternative ‘sustainable’ energy sources, such as solar panels and wind turbines. They overwhelmingly have a...
Bank of Canada, Federal Reserve Should Focus on Vital Main Mission
It is a relief that the U.S. Federal Reserve Board is not veering off into climate theology or other mission-irrelevant distractions. While recent comments of the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, were unequivocal, comments from the Bank of Canada have not been as...