The Frontier Centre for Public Policy has just released Public Choice Alternatives: A Valuation of ATB Financial. This is the second paper in the Public Choice Alternatives series authored by Ian Madsen, a senior research analyst with Frontier Centre for Public...
People in modern societies generally view unfair lending practices with considerable disdain, in fact, recently there has been intensified efforts in regulatory control to prevent this type of behaviour. For example the government of Saskatchewan has recently...
Taxpayer handouts to private corporations are always thorny. They inevitably mean that another business' tax dollars go straight to the pockets of their competition. This distortion also means that dollars better spent elsewhere by taxpayers, or even by governments,...
British Columbia’s quandary: To keep Columbia Power, or add 15,000 teachers, nurses, or paramedics? There are two generally accepted methods for valuing a company: its intrinsic value as a cash-generating enterprise, and its standard market value in comparison with...
Carbon taxes at the borders are becoming a popular idea among some countries and world regions. For example, the European Commission, the EU executive institution, is proposing environmental tariffs “on imports from countries with less stringent climate-protection...
In his novel 1984, George Orwell envisioned a future that is arguably unfolding before our eyes where government authority was supreme and truth and freedom were not to be found. Perhaps he should have named his novel 2021 because our times seem more like his novel...
The issue of rail competition is getting some attention by shippers. I notice that the Keystone Ag Producers are encouraging members to express their views.
A while back, Laura Rance had an article on the subject in the Winnipeg Free Press where she made a couple of good points.
We’ve all heard tales of the inefficiencies that have plagued centrally planned economies in far-off places. The compounding effects — sluggish supply chains, lower productivity, missed delivery targets and people who could be working standing around with nothing to do — eventually drag the economy so deeply into an abyss it takes a revolution to get things rolling again. It turns out, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a tinpot dictatorship or railway executives running the show; if there isn’t enough competition in the system, or regulation that compensates for that lack of competition, efficiency falls off the tracks.
Manitoba’s Public Insurance’s arbitrary policy to destroy cheap used cars made before 1995 has dire unintended consequences for unemployed poor looking for jobs, and for the environment that the policy claims to protect.
Canada needed a dramatic reinvestment in its navigation infrastructure and technology to more efficiently link this country to the new hub of world economic growth. Enter Nav Canada.
The people of Saskatchewan play three competing roles in the Crowns; they are simultaneously the investor, the customer, and often the employee of the same companies. Too often, benefits for one role are promoted without considering what it means for the same people’s interests in the other two roles.
The people of Saskatchewan play three competing roles in the Crowns; they are simultaneously the investor, the customer, and often the employee of the same companies. Too often, benefits for one role are promoted without considering what it means for the same people’s interests in the other two roles.
“Canada’s dispute with the United Arab Emirates over airline landing rights lifts a curtain on a dispute between Ottawa and Western premiers over Canadian airline policy.”
It’s so trendy to deride the private car today that it often features in urban planning only as a necessary evil to be tolerated at best. Public policy should be more enthusiastic about what private motorised transport has done for people, and in particular how driverless cars, electric cars, and road pricing can alleviate the concerns that some people have about them.
The people of Regina and Saskatoon have been sold short by taxi industry studies that don’t look at all the available evidence, in fact ignoring all evidence published since 1993.
“What is especially bizarre about the supply-management mentality is the idea that the onus always lies on the would-be new entrant to an industry to prove why he or she should be allowed in.”