Country singer Kenny Chesney’s lyric “Everybody want to go heaven, but nobody want to go now” is perhaps an apt metaphor for the current debate over Bill 64, the Education Modernization Act. Everybody knows that Manitoba students underperform academically, but when...
The pandemic has taken the countries, the governments and the people by surprise. Most of them were not prepared to face this crisis. After all, initially, most Western countries refused to panic and wanted to manage the situation like other illnesses like the flu....
One of the eternal questions of public policy is: should governments get into bed with private businesses? Whether it is called a Public-Private Partnership, buying a controlling interest for taxpayers, investing in the technologies of tomorrow or just, avoiding a...
Liberty of expression is the oxygen of democratic arrangements. As journalists exercise their craft independently and unencumbered, they are canaries in the political coal mine. By this gauge, if left untreated, Nicaragua’s polity will be eroding towards...
As public attention in Ottawa focuses on accusations of skullduggery and jiggery-pokery in the awarding of government contracts to certain charities, it may be useful to remember that corruption is as old as civilization. Those in authority, from the loftiest of...
In 2020, for many Canadians in remote and Northern regions – in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities – access to reliable cell phone coverage is still a distant reality. That should be a national scandal. Politicians of all stripes continue to promise...
Wendell Cox Recently the city of Calgary released its municipal census report, which included data on how people commute to work. One newspaper headlined "Calgarians continue love affair with cars," noting that driving alone far outpaced the number of people using...
Barry F. Cooper This paper looks at the 1982 Saskatchewan provincial election, which brought Grant Devine to power, as a “critical election” in the sense that it had long-term consequences regarding what would subsequently be acceptable as public policy in that...
Ross McKitrick August 8, 2016 The more the wind blows, the bigger the losses and the higher the hit to consumers. You may be surprised to learn that electricity is now cheaper to generate in Ontario than it has been for decades. The wholesale price, called the Hourly...
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark recently announced that the days of self-regulation are over for the real estate industry. The Real Estate Council of B.C. had previously been tasked with ensuring that people who are buying and selling homes in the province are...
Decades of steady trade liberalization have served Canada’s economic development. As the Montreal Economic Institute’s Mathieu Bédard noted recently in FP Comment (“Trump’s anti-NAFTA myths spread north,” July 14), the NAFTA years...
Canadian energy producers have been dealing with a triple whammy of low oil prices, unfavourable policy changes and the Fort McMurray wildfire. Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia’s new oil minister declared a ceasefire in the two-year-old oil war with the shale industry....
Having been in the United Kingdom for the last 10 days of the Brexit campaign, the victory of the Brexiteers over the Remainers was expected. The debate pitched economics against politics. Maybe, as David Smith wrote in The Times, “the economics and...
A public advocacy campaign to amalgamate the 13 municipal governments in Greater Victoria has been underway for a few years. As elsewhere in Canada and around the world, much of the justification for the amalgamation proposal is cost savings. However, the results have...
Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Maxime Bernier has come out against the long standing practice of agricultural supply management for dairy, poultry and eggs. It is rare for a Canadian politician to take on this issue, but the evidence is overwhelming...