• A recent University of Toronto paper by Jeff Allen and Steven Farber examines work access as measured in travel time to get to work. The “30-minute job access” is a rounded-up average in all heavily populated regions in Canada. • The 2021 census revealed that...
The latest urban planning fad to sweep across Canada is the 15-minute city, which proposes to redesign cities so that all urban residents live within an easy, 15-minute walk of schools, retailers, restaurants, entertainment, and other essentials of modern life. This...
Big Topics & Big Ideas
Canada’s first subway line, which opened in Toronto in 1954, was 7.4 kilometers long and cost $6.8 million per kilometer—$76 million per kilometer in today’s money. That seems a bargain compared to a subway line Toronto is now constructing at a projected cost of well...
For the past 14 years, Vancouver surgeon Dr. Brian Day has led the charge for health-care reform, pushing for the right of patients to pay for private care if their health and well-being are threatened as a result of waiting in a stagnant and overburdened public...
The path to net zero, based on the much disputed belief that carbon dioxide is a pollution, is more steep and impractical than most people realize. Replacing fossil fuels with clean electricity will require much more power generation and a greatly upgraded grid to...
Some people out there have an inner itch to do things different. Maybe it’s art, or music, or some other glorious pastime that we as the rest of humanity benefit from, far, far more than we pay. What sort of car these types drive is fascinating; usually something...
Despite credit cards, e-transfers and online banking having already made money go pretty much digital, the Bank of Canada is busily working on a much bigger transformation. Canada is one of about 100 countries that – in uncanny synchronicity – several years ago joined...
The rise of remote and hybrid work has brought about a significant shift in how people access employment opportunities, reducing the need for physical commuting. This article examines the latest data for major metropolitan areas in the United States (with over one...
Canada’s economy is slowing, Manitobans are being buffeted by dramatic interest rate hikes and are worried about impacts on the economy and employment. Policy makers hope that higher interest rates will reduce Canada’s high inflation rate as people respond to higher...
There’s a disturbance in the force of global shipping, as if a major transit point started slipping away. There’s a very serious problem occurring a few thousand miles to the south of us, one that Canada could have taken tremendous advantage of, if only we had built...
When one thousand Liquor Mart workers walked off their job Tuesday, Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union president Kyle Ross called it a “last resort.” “We hope it ends sooner rather than later,” Ross said at a press conference. That’s funny. Many...
Manitoba has a chance to prove it’s not the weakest link in an agreement struck between it and the other Prairie provinces to explore the possibility of building a deep-water harbour at Port Nelson on the Hudson Bay. Manitoba must do its part to not mess this...
Manitoba has a problem. Actually, it has a lot of problems but proper cell phone and internet service is a glaring one. Many years ago, as in about 150 years ago, Manitoba, as it is today, was a land of opportunity. Farming was starting to take hold, the fur...
The debate continues about the Route 90 expansion (Kenaston Boulevard) and whether it is a good investment for Winnipeg. Some arguments have been tabled to the extent that there is no use in expanding highways, or that transit would be better, or that nothing should...