Today’s column, as was last week’s, is in response to an article in this newspaper last week that read, in part: “City staff is fending off criticisms that it refused to disclose records on public spending, saying the municipality has made great strides to give the public access to government reports and budgets.”
Municipal Government
Is Multi-Party Democracy Emerging Alberta
it now looks like the province will be presented with a choice of voter options
How to Get Young People to Vote
If you know a young person that isn’t likely to vote in the upcoming provincial election, show them this column — it should get them motivated. You see, there’s a big financial iceberg headed toward our province and young people are going to get the shaft unless we change course now.
How Declining Cities Can Reverse Their Fortunes
Florida economist Dean Stansel, who analyzed the growth records of the 100 most populous U.S. metropolitan cities across the past 30 years, says economic growth tracks state and municipal tax rates. The lower the rates, the greater the growth.
Featured News
To Infinity and Beyond
Space exploration is fraught with a wide variety of hazards; solar storms could irradiate astronauts, collisions with small, unseen objects could cause instant death, and the acts of both leaving Earth and coming back are high risk maneuvers that involve high speeds...
Global Minimum Tax Is Cartel Scam with Loopholes
Rhetoric is one thing; reality is another. As is becoming increasingly clear, the OECD’s July 1 proposal for a 15 per cent global minimum for corporate taxation is nothing of the sort. Although the awaited initiative slated for 2023 will not and cannot achieve a level...
Alberta Senate Nominees Bert Brown, Betty Unger and Link Byfield
Alberta is electing its Senators, but Ottawa refuses to appoint them. Three nominees discuss the issue.
Let’s Make All Voters Turn Out: Senator
MANDATORY voting reduces the power of special-interest groups, ensures the concerns of minority groups are addressed and restores public trust in the political system, Liberal Senator Mac Harb said yesterday. Harb was in town yesterday to promote the idea of mandatory...
Living with Proportional Voting
New Zealand reformed its electoral system, and wishes it hadn’t.
DeSmedt’s Amalgamation Folly
The City of Winnipeg should be eager to sell services to surrounding muncipalities, not eager to gobble them up based on the false dogma of amalgamation.
The Unintended Consequences of Electoral Reform
Proportional voting systems increase government spending which damages the economy’s growth performance. Therefore moves to such systems should be accompanied by legislated spending limits.
Negative Impacts of Montreal Amalgamation
Study looks at negative impacts of Montreal amalgamation.
Demergering Cities
The myth that mega-cities are more efficient bites the dust. In Québec, they’re going in the other direction.
Reassessing Local Government Amalgamation
A Frontier analysis of US Census data indicates the reverse, that higher expenditures per capita are generally associated with larger municipal units and that consolidated governments are more costly than governments typified by multiple government units.
David Littmann, Chief Economist, Comerica Bank
An economist has devised an intriguing methos of measuring a city’s progress . . .