Thanks to sharply rising transfer payments and provincial debt, spending per capita by the Province of Manitoba increased 65% between 1999 and 2010, 2.75 times the rate of inflation.
Equalization
Balancing Act: Gradually Reducing The Size and Cost of Manitoba’s Public Sector
Ben Eisen and Jonathan Wensveen examine the cost of Manitoba’s relatively large public sector. By taking into account projected population growth, they argue that Manitoba can significantly reduce the size of its public sector in the medium-term without resorting to drastic cuts, by either freezing or making small, gradual reductions to government employment over the next decade.
David Henderson, Economist
David Henderson, the author of Canada’s Budget Triumph, was interviewed August 10, 2011 during a recent visit to Winnipeg.
Manitoba in ‘Cycle of Dependency’: ‘Easy street system’ will be reformed
While many support the principles of federal equalization, they do not realize the distortions it causes, including bloated public sectors and a perverse incentive to raise taxes.
Featured News
What Must Be Done to Curb Canada’s Household Debt
Canada is struggling economically. From inflation and deficits to investment and employment, everything that should be up is down, and everything that should be down is up. One striking symptom of economic rot is household debt, which is rising faster than incomes....
Crown Utilities’ Unfair Advantages Reduce Competition, Innovation
Largely unique among state-owned enterprises, ‘SEOs’, worldwide, Canadian Crown corporations have two key advantages over current and future private sector competitors: non-taxable status and access to low-cost public sector borrowing rates. Other implicit edges...
Calgary Congress Powerpoint – Killing with Kindness
Powerpoint slides to Killing with Kindness speech by Peter Holle to the Calgary Congress, September 30, 2006.
How the West Can Save Canada
Funny thing how the new ideas in politics come out of the West, these days. There was a time when the philosophers were in the East, working Quiet Revolutions, or bilingualism and multiculturalism in the name of centralized government. Then, it was as though the...
Saskatchewan Should Lead Transformational Equalization
Saskatchewan has nothing to lose by leading a discussion on transformational equalization, whose goal is to make recipient provinces self-sustaining and dynamic economies.
Killing with Kindness
Well intended equalization keeps Manitoba in a “have not” province purgatory
Go West, Young Man…
The tax policies pursued by western Canada over the past few years are quintessentially supply-side. That is, the tax relief is largely focused on improving incentives for work, savings, investment and entrepreneurship.
Reviewing Federation – With Peter Holle
Watch Peter Holle discuss Federation here. (13 minutes)
Equalization, Boon or Boodle?
A new study on regional transfers in Britain confirms the experience of other countries. Equalization harms recipient areas by allowing them to avoid reform of economically destructive policies.
Whitehall’s Last Colonies
The transfer payment system in Britain is causing a pattern of inequities, as richer regions subsidize large public sectors and economic malaise in poorer parts of the country.
The Flypaper Effect
This paper jointly published by Halifax’s Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and the Frontier Centre demonstrates that equalization subsidies simply inflate the size of the recipient province’s public sectors, more government personnel with higher salaries, at the cost of more effective public services.