Executive Summary Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia taxpayers have faced a long-standing fiscal gap between the federal transfers they receive and the transfers they deserve based on their share of federal revenue. The gap between the winners and losers of...
Backgrounder
Tapping Into Our Potential: Occupational Freedom and Aboriginal Workers
Executive Summary Obsolete protectionist regulations are the reason Canadian employers are unable to employ more workers in the skilled trades, particularly Aboriginal workers. Canadian employers report difficulty in finding enough skilled workers and labour shortages...
Finding Strength from Within: How Voluntary Outside Accreditation can Advance First Nation Communities
Executive Summary • The Idle No More movement was motivated to a certain degree by opposition to imposed change. • First Nations have historically opposed imposed solutions. First Nations require a new approach. • Some of the most successful initiatives that benefit...
Public Private Partnerships
Introduction On 25th of September, the citizens of Regina will vote in a referendum for the first time in 20 years. The question? Whether the city should use a traditional contract to construct a new wastewater treatment plant or to proceed with the council’s...
Featured News
Our Health Ministers Need to Take a Lesson from Hockey Coaches
Those of you who are tired of my rants about the demise of our once great health system will be pleased to know that this is my last editorial. I am retiring from the BCMJ Editorial Board; currently, I am the longest-serving member (more than 20 years). I have been a...
Zinchuk: Oilpatch Only Spending Half What It Spent in 2014
Back in the lofty, pre-Justin Trudeau government days of 2014, back when oil was booming, pipelines were planned to east and west coasts, and Alberta and Saskatchewan were swimming in money, around $81 billion was spent in capital expenditures (CAPEX) in the Canadian...
Knee-Capping the Competition
This paper examines the tax inequity that arises in Canada as a result of the general tax exempt status for Crown corporations. The legal and constitutional basis for this status, how the courts have interpreted and applied it and how governments have or have not attempted to deal with this inequity is outlined. A fairly simple and uniform legislative solution is then proposed.
Back To The Drawing Board
Even though homework opponents have claimed that homework is a poor use of students’ time and should be abolished, the reality is that there are solid reasons for making it a key part of the learning process.
Manitoba’s School-closure Moratorium One Year Later
The school closure moratorium in Manitoba makes little sense as it forces empty schools to remain open while doing nothing to address the greater problem of declining student enrolment across the province.
Investment Managers Liable as Greenhouse Theories Unravel?
Has climate change frenzy created a colussus built on sand? There is a diversity of risk analyses being carried out by investors in today’s climate change market place. Practically without exception, all of these organizations, many of them among the most successful and respected in the world, completely ignore the risk that the very foundation of all of these activities might be shown to be faulty.
An Inconvenient Court Ruling
Teachers need to ensure that students receive a rigorous education where they learn the facts and all the different perspectives regardless of whether they fit into the popular version of environmentalism.
The Case for Selling Public Housing in Manitoba
The Manitoba government should sell its residential real estate holdings to the private sector and then concentrate on providing targeted subsidies to low-income Manitobans, this according to a new backgrounder from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. The report, from Frontier research associate Dan Klymchuk, shows how $25 million could be shaved off annual operating costs now paid by the provincial government, and instead redirected to those Manitobans in need of subsidized shelter. That $25 million could help subsidize 21,000 more people with their housing costs.
What Saved the Bloc Quebecois in the 2008 Election: Public Money
Over the past several decades, there have been several key changes to how Canada’s federal political parties are funded. The most recent and significant changes took effect in 2004 with federal legislation (Bill C-24, passed in 2003) which banned corporate and union donations.
The Impact of Teachers’ Unions on Education Policy
The primary goals of teachers’ unions are different from, and often incompatible with, those of effective schools.
Separating the Twins
The purchaser-provider split is one of the main findings in the Euro-Canada comparison. The top six providers – Austria, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany and Sweden –have purchaser-provider splits, as do other countries trying to move up in the rankings.