The PST hike was ostensibly meant to fund infrastructure. Yet, as Sam Katz pointed out, it will actually reduce the ability of the City of Winnipeg to meet its own infrastructure obligations. Katz argues that while Winnipeg residents pay 61 percent of PST revenue, they’ll only receive $7 million of the $277 million from the PST increase.
Municipal Government
A Taste of Reality for Alberta’s Public Sector
There are more than a few politicians in Canada delighting in what’s happening in Alberta these days. For years, provincial leaders have been driven mad by the often obscene deals that Alberta has struck with its public-sector employees, making everyone from doctors to teachers the best paid in the country. Not surprisingly, those same professions in other provinces have used these wage benchmarks as targets of their own during contract negotiations.
Saskatchewan Budget 2013
Well, the Saskatchewan Budget was released today and it was pretty boring, to be honest.
Saskatchewan Budget Tomorrow
All eyes will be on Saskatchewan tomorrow when the provincial government releases its annual budget.
Featured News
No Evidence of Climate Crisis
In his annual State of the Climate report published on April 14, 2022, Dr. Ole Humlum, Emeritus Professor at the University of Oslo, examined detailed patterns in temperature changes in the atmosphere and oceans together with trends in climate impacts. Many of these...
It Is Time to Move On
I wrote an opinion column immediately following the May 27, 2021 announcement of the “shocking discovery of 215 bodies found in a mass grave at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.” In that column, I correctly stressed the need to wait for real...
The Cost of Infrastructure
Getting to grips with what improved accounting standards are telling us about the real costs of municipal infrastructure. It’s not going to be pretty.
Change is Coming…
Wildrose Alliance will have a new electoral strategy; and the Alberta Tories will have a new leader, a new image, and may be even a new, reinvented party. The next Alberta election will be a dandy.
The Rise of the Efficient City: Smaller, more nimble urban regions promise a better life than the congested megalopolis.
“In fact, the era of bigger-is-better is passing as smaller, more nimble urban regions are emerging. These efficient cities, as I call them, provide the amenities of megacities—airports, mass communication, reservoirs of talent—without their grinding congestion, severe social conflicts and other diseconomies of scale.”
Municipal Amalgamation … Where’s the problem?: New Zealand (and Canada) still have time to “get it right”
New Zealanders still have time to correct problems with municipal amalgamation that have been identified in large amalgamated Canadian municipalities.
New Website Measures Local Gov’t Transparency
A Canadian think tank has embarked on an effort to satisfy the public’s growing thirst for information in a digital age where people demand instant information at their finger tips – and want a say in how they access it to boot.
National Post editorial board: Local politics matter
Where mayors and councilors have taken it upon themselves to improve citizens’ access to timely, reliable budget information, improvements in local-government services has followed.
Media Release – New Web Site Graphically Presents the Finances of 130 Municipalities: Find your municipality’s financial statistics and how they compare at www.lgpi.ca
As of December 3, 2010, the Frontier Centre’s living database of municipal financial statistics contains graphically presented data and comparisons of municipal finances.
Danielle Smith: ‘My Life Will Fall Under the Microscope’
“Danielle Smith remembers the exact moment when her political self was born. And, as it turns out, her father, not her mother, delivered her.”
A Conversation with Danielle Smith, Leader, Wildrose Alliance Party
Danielle Smith was interviewed after her Lunch on the Frontier speech in Winnipeg on November 22, 2010.