The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has just released Inter-municipal co-operation and reform: Municipal Amalgamations. This paper is co-authored by Wendell Cox and Ailin He. Wendell Cox is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the principal...
Originally appeared in the National Post. If you’re really worried about the performance of governments across Canada, and beyond, I have some good news and some bad news. We know what we have to do to fix it. I’ve just attended a “Restoring the Alberta Advantage”...
It’s 2036 and Manitoba’s population just passed three million. The economy is booming. Imagine for a moment the events needed to bring Manitoba to such a result. In 2018, let’s suppose, Manitoba finally confronted its slow-growth, deficit-ridden crisis by abandoning...
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has today released "Restrictive Land-Use Regulation: Strategies, Effects and Solutions," a new report by Wendell Cox, a senior fellow with the Frontier Centre. The report evaluates currently in-vogue housing regulation strategies...
Artificial intelligence has come a long way. Unlike the rudimentary software of the past, modern-day programs such as ChatGPT are truly impressive. Whether you need a 1,000-word essay summarizing the history of Manitoba, a 500-word article extolling the virtues of...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made a recent rush visit to the Saskatchewan Research Council’s experimental rare earth refining facility in Saskatoon. He touted his government’s efforts to promote rare earth discovery, development, and extraction, along with the...
The 2013 southern Alberta floods were needlessly costly and destructive. The overwhelming costs arise not as a result of an ill-executed response and recovery, but because of a failure to prepare for the possibility of severe flooding by the provincial and municipal...
Executive Summary • The response to the 2013 southern Alberta floods was effective. Volunteers and governments organized quickly to provide aid and information to the affected communities. • Though the flooding was unprecedented in scale, it was not unexpected. The...
Last Friday, Shawn Micallef, a Toronto Star author, wrote a very bad article about why he believes that de-amalgamating Toronto would be a bad idea. I wrote a letter to the editor to the Star, pointing out how ridiculous the article was, but they ran a letter from the...
The Winnipeg Police Service operational review is making a lot of noise, but the biggest news is what’s not in the report. While the report did get into issues such as the WPS not taking full advantage of its CrimeStat software for tracking and predicting where crime...
On Sept 25th, residents of Regina will vote in a referendum for the first time in more than 20 years.
The referendum, organized by unions, will decide whether the council is allowed to proceed with its unanimous decision to construct a new wastewater treatment plant via a Public Private Partnership [P3], or whether they will be forced to use a traditional construction method.
Last week, the Frontier Centre for Public Policy held an event in Regina aimed at raising awareness in the community about Public Private Partnerships and how they work.
The sold-out event was opened by the Honourable Don McMorris, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Highways and Infrastructure, who gave us an overview of the province’s plans for a large number of new P3s that will go ahead regardless of the result of the city vote.
PowerPoint Slides for Leonard Gilroy’s Event.
Two sitting Toronto city council members are facing off against each other in Thursday’s Ontario by-election, and a former councilor is running in another riding. Each is representing a different party. While this may seem banal, it is highly problematic.
Dwight Duncan, who up until a few months ago was Ontario’s Minster of Finance, recently suggested that his colleagues at Queen’s Park should force the Mayor of Toronto from officeover un-proven substance abuse allegations. Soon after, the federal Minister of Finance indicated he would prevent the Government of Ontario from setting variable sales tax ratesto raise revenue for its Greater Toronto Area transit plans. While not connected, these two incidents underscore the troubled state of Canadian federalism.
Given the opportunity, I would support a move back to two councils and a shared services agreement.