In October, Apple Inc. warned that draft rules from the European Union that would require the technology company to open up its mobile operating system to third-party apps would pose a security risk to its users. Expanding on comments already made by CEO Tim Cook, a...
In September 2021, the U.S., the United Kingdom and Australia formed an alliance to improve their defence capacities. The goal of this alliance, whose acronym is AUKUS, is to bolster the presence of Western countries in the Indo-Pacific and to counter China’s...
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...
Asia is a significant continent for the economic interests of Canada and its Prairie Provinces. India is among the most powerful countries in this region of the world and can be an asset for the Prairie Provinces as a future market. If economic relations can be...
In this essay, I explain that young people should come to university to be educated, and not to become credentialed; the public should support universities because universities educate young people, not because they produce credentialled workers. Why should a...
During the whole of recorded history, the empire has been the most constant and common form of political organization. A basic, self-evident feature of all empire-building has been the successful occupation of the lands of the local, Indigenous inhabitants by outside...
Sometimes I wonder what people will say 100 years from now about the unprecedented events of 2020—not just about the pandemic, but about the extraordinary legal and economic measures imposed by governments around the world, purportedly for the purpose of saving lives....
Two of the major issues surrounding the current medical emergency and lockdown are how much it would cost to prepare for a similar such emergency, and how would Canadians pay for it – as well as pay for the one we are enduring right now. Potential answers are already...
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is staring bankruptcy in the eye. This is what we have heard in the news lately, and to be honest, it is not a fully incorrect assessment. As to the why, there is a mixture of reasons typical for provincial politics....
Recently, the US state of Oregon has become the latest devotee of a variation of congestion charging; a sort of tax on road use, that is more commonly directed at motorists and commercial vehicle drivers who access the central area of a city, presumably adding to...
Of late, it has been remarked that most of the active ingredients for key pharmaceuticals in North America come from abroad - usually from China; in the case of generics, often from India. In turn, India often imports its key ingredients from China. So, diverting...
Following employment losses of over one million in March, employment fell by nearly two million in April as the impacts of physical distancing and economic shutdowns on labour market activity became more apparent. Over one half of the employment losses in April were...
Amidst the pandemic, the federal government has just given Canadians an extra month to file their taxes (the new deadline is June 1). As people prepare their tax returns, some might wonder if they are getting good value for all the taxes they pay. The answer is that...
Competitors Mean Less Power for Incumbents, Central Bank Financial intermediation outside the banking system, also known as shadow banking, is growing by leaps and bounds in Canada. It is a CAD$1.5 trillion industry that expanded by 30 percent between 2015 and 2017,...
We are spending double the amount of time on our streaming platforms compared to last year, close to 45.4 billion minutes spent on Netflix alone in the first few weeks of March 2020. Movie titles such as: 28 Weeks Later (2007), Quarantine (2008), Carriers (2009), and...