Rising land costs, not construction, to blame for housing unaffordability
Commentary
The Declaration That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen
It’s been a continuing mystery for three years, at least to me but many others too. In October 2020, in the midst of a genuine crisis, three scientists made a very short statement of highly public health wisdom, a summary of what everyone in the profession, apart from...
Etam: On Low Natural Gas Prices…
Is there any critical industrial material as bizarre as natural gas? The stuff holds almost zero interest for the general public, for the same reason no one is interested in the sound of a washing machine. Both boring. Both ubiquitous. Natural gas isn’t even sold on...
Alberta’s COVID-19 Report Clearly Shows the Way
Alberta’s Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel has made 90 sound recommendations which that, frankly, all provinces should enact. The panel chaired by Preston Manning examined whether the province needed better structures and legislation to handle public...
Featured News
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...
What Is A University Student?
As a result of government and university policies in both the U.S. and Canada, university students are not seen as individuals with records of educational achievement and the potential for both success in higher education and for contributions beyond in the wider...
Independence, Leadership, Even Existence of the Bank of Canada Should Be Debatable
The Conservative leadership campaign caused consternation by calling for the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, be fired - creating outrage in the political and media commentariat. Yet, at a time when all sorts of institutions are being called into...
Part 3: The Lloydminster Bi-Provincial Upgrader Doubled the City in Size
Part 3 of a 6-part series examining the impact the construction of two heavy oil upgraders during Saskatchewan’s Grant Devine Government. The discussion hails from the recently published Frontier Centre book “So Much More We Can Be: Saskatchewan’s Paradigm Shift and...
Pushing Woke Ideology in Schools
If you’ve been around for a while, you probably remember the phrase “politically correct.” Being called politically correct was not a compliment. Rather, it meant that you had an unhealthy obsession with not offending anyone, even if you had to say some rather silly...
The Disgrace of the Old Guard
The news was everywhere this morning: Liz Truss, foreign secretary, is the new British Prime Minister. As usual, one had to dig deeper than the mainstream media line to find out why she won over Rishi Sunak, former chancellor of the Exchequer. Sunak had belatedly said...
Are Land Acknowledgements Justified?
Recently, Canadians have seen various institutions implementing Indigenous Land Acknowledgments (ILAs) to recognize the institution as situated on previously occupied Indigenous land. They are widely accepted, but privately disputed. It is obvious that the moral...
Fertility in Canada’s Provinces and Metropolitan Areas: 2020
Canada, like virtually all regions classified as “more developed” by the United Nations (Europe, Canada, the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) is experiencing a dropping birth rate. The favored international indicator is the total fertility rate (TFR),...
Part 2: Grant Devine’s Motivation to Build Upgraders While They Had the Chance
This is part 2 of a 6-part series examining the impact the construction of two heavy oil upgraders during Saskatchewan’s Grant Devine Government. The discussion hails from the recently published Frontier Centre book “So Much More We Can Be: Saskatchewan’s Paradigm...
Poilievre’s Complicated Tax Issue Made Simple
The new Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is correct when he says governments discourage work by taxes and clawbacks. The Marginal Effective Tax Rate (METR) measures what government takes from each new dollar earned in taxes and in clawbacks of income-related...
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...