“When Byrd became senator in 1959, West Virginia ranked No. 39 in median family income, and No. 42 in per capita income. Today, it’s No. 48 in both categories.”
Worth A Look
Send for the Wonks: A new government creates a new opportunity to influence policy
Public services may be facing cutbacks, but the right-of-centre think-tanks are enjoying a boom.
Residential Schools Generate Anger But Also Pride
There are fundamental questions which have never been answered by those who condemn the residential school system. Were we to leave people by virtue of no common language, illiterate, innumerate and unable to deal with the larger society?
The Traditional Census is Dying, and a Good Thing Too: Leviathan’s spyglass
America’s constitution requires it to conduct a shoe-leather census, which is why this year’s effort is going to cost it over $11 billion. The Finns, by contrast, spent about €1m ($1.2m) on their last one. That’s about $36 per head in America and 20 cents in Finland. Denmark has been keeping track of its citizens without a traditional census for decades; Sweden, Norway, Finland and Slovenia, among others, have similar systems. Germany will adopt the approach for its next count, also due in 2011.
Featured News
‘Side Issues’ Result in Much Higher Costs to Our Health and Social Systems
As we enter the year 2022, most Canadians will have lived their entire lives under the shibboleth that says we have the best health-care system in the world. Our beloved medicare is universal in scope, free of charge and offers equal access to all. What country could...
Touted Climate Emergency for Calgary is Deceitful and Undemocratic
Calgary has sworn in its first female mayor. A week earlier, less than 24 hours after winning the mayoral race, she gave her first post-election talk-radio interview to Ryan Jespersen, mostly involving a series of softball questions. He asked her the obligatory woke...
Parties United Against The Free Market
The only answer I can come up with is this: Most voters have no idea how supply management works. They don’t realize they’re paying more for their weekly groceries because of it. Big Farm, though, knows all about it.
Rent Control Is the Real New York Scandal
There is a better way to address the lack of reasonably priced housing in the city. If Rep. Rangel, Gov. Paterson and all the other well-to-do New Yorkers lost their rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments, there would be a loud public outcry to loosen regulation and allow more new construction.
The Post-Lehman World
It’s just that there’s a big difference between dreaming of some ideal regulatory regime and actually putting one into practice. Everybody says we’re about to enter a new political era, rich in global financial regulation. The herd might just be wrong once again.
It’s Time For Spending Control And Tax Cuts
The key to improving incentives for productive behaviour is reducing marginal tax rates. That is, the government must reduce the tax rate people and businesses face on the last dollar of income earned.
Elections Canada Clears Skeptics Group of Campaign Wrongdoing
A group of global warming skeptics has been cleared of wrongdoing following an investigation by Elections Canada into radio ads which ran in key Ontario markets during the 2006 election campaign.
Dysfunctional Democracy On Reserves
When First Nations push for enhanced powers of self-government they need to push for the bastions of good governance too — transparency, accountability and a strict electoral protocol. Until that happens I will not vote in a reserve election. Until the requirements for chieftainship are held to a higher covenant than how many people you know or can influence, I will not vote.
12 Facts about Global Climate Change That You Won’t Read in the Popular Press
What will it take for the media to let go of their biases and begin doing their job, reporting the truth?
Affordable Housing No Accident In Houston
Houston’s great strength has been its ability to stop political and commercial elites from capturing control and denying Houstonians the ability to make their own decisions about how and where they wish to live and work. It is indeed “the people’s city.”
Province Rethinking Nitrogen Removal
The Doer government wants to take a second look at whether removing nitrogen from Winnipeg’s waste water is worth the huge cost. The move is an about-face for the province, which has steadfastly maintained nitrogen should be removed from waste water along with phosphorus and ammonia. The review comes as many in the scientific community say nitrogen removal is costly and will have little impact on reducing pollution in Lake Winnipeg, where Winnipeg’s waste-water pollution eventually ends up via the Red River.