Inter-city bus service is vital to rural Canada, yet has diminished throughout the country over the last few decades. The old model of cross-subsidizing unprofitable rural routes with profitable urban routes has broken down. The study recommends full liberalization of provincial inter-city bus markets, and the introduction of a least-cost subsidy system for unprofitable, socially desirable routes.
Media Release
Media Release – Empower Local Voters to Increase Government Accountability and Efficiency: Strengthening Fiscal Responsibility Through Decentralization
This study proses a way to develop greater spending transparency by way of enhancing fiscal autonomy for the provinces and municipalities
Media Release – Canada’s Organic Certification System is an Emperor with No Clothes: Lacks field testing, unannounced inspections or meaningful definitions
Canada lacks a system for testing organic products, making the system open to abuse, conflict of interest situations and foreign exploitation.
Media Release – Freshwater Fish Monopoly is Impoverishing Aboriginal Fishers: Communities need freedom to market their fish
A new Frontier Centre study suggests that many Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal fishers need to withdraw from the monopoly of the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation as market conditions have changed and today’s fishers are quite capable of marketing their own fish.
Featured News
Fostering a Constructive, Business-Friendly Regime Sustains Innovation, Not Government Money
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....
Big Tech Influence Can Tip Elections
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...
Media Release – More Government Constraints on Saskatchewan’s Commercial Crowns = Less Value Over Time
Commercial Crown corporations face a different set of operating constraints than do private companies. These constraints might be expected to result in a diminished company value over time, perhaps to the benefit of achieving other public policy goals. As such, commercial Crowns should be subject to periodic reviews to clarify the costs and benefits of this trade-off.
Media Release – 23rd out of 32 countries
The Frontier Centre and European Consumer Powerhouse released their annual comparison of health care among Europe and Canada. The Euro-Canada Health Consumer Index 2009 showed Canada compares reasonably well with the best performing healthcare systems on outcomes, is average on the generosity scale, and at the absolute bottom when it comes to patient’s rights, waiting times and availability of pharmaceuticals. Canada is also dead last in the “Bang-for-the-Buck” index.
Media Release – The Perfect Gift for Mother’s Day: Child Care Choice
Provincial child care policies vary widely across the Prairies. In particular, Saskatchewan and Manitoba actively discourage for-profit child care centres by denying them access to government subsidies and grants. Alberta treats both for-profit and non-profit centres equally. Because of these policies, Saskatchewan has just one commercial daycare in the entire province. Only five percent of the child care centres in Manitoba are for-profit. Alberta has a majority of for-profit centres. Saskatchewan also has the lowest level of child care coverage in the country. Manitoba and Alberta are both near the national average. Evidence suggests that Alberta has been better able to meet rising demand for new child care spaces than either Saskatchewan or Manitoba. Further evidence suggests that Alberta is more efficient in turning government funding into new daycare spaces. Alberta is able to create twice as many spots per $1,000 in government expenditure than Manitoba, and three-times as many spots as Saskatchewan.
Media Release: 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.
$11.2 billion in 2009: The cost of Alberta’s extra spending above inflation and above population growth
Whether one uses 1996 or 2001 as the baseline from which to measure Alberta’s program spending, the result is that Alberta has consistently spent far more than inflation and population growth would justify.
Media Release – 1000+ Leading Economists, Policy Makers and other Distinguished Persons Call on Governments to Reject Protectionism and Eliminate Trade Barriers
The open letter is available at a new website – www.freedomtotrade.org – which will feature news stories, exclusive webcasts, statements by signatories of the open letter, and many other items.
Media Release: Back to the Drawing Board
Homework is an important part of the schooling process and it would be better to reform and improve its use than to abolish it entirely according to a new report from the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
Media Release – Rowdy Activists Offer Noise But Not Solutions To World’s Water Woes
Only five percent of global water management today is private. It is governments who mismanage and misallocate water to farmers and other special interests, as well as the politically connected, especially in poor countries. Not only does public ownership and management of water resources harm the poor, it also harms the environment by encouraging waste.
Media Release – 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.