Downtown Calgary is a big deal (see photo below and photos following the text). Traditional American and Canadian downtown areas (central business districts or CBDs) are a holdover from the pre-auto era. Their geographical limits were largely set by the early Great...
Municipal Government
Defund the Police? No, Defund Sociologists!
The demand currently on the lips of youthful mobs and their academic enablers is “Defund the Police”, a catchy phrase that encapsulates both the innocence and ignorance of the young and the sinister intent of those who will use any crisis to bring down capitalism and...
Targeting Violent Crime: The Sequel of Unintended Consequences
Chicago has experienced a disturbing number of homicides, shootings, and overall violence during the past year. Chicago, like several other American cities, is once again experiencing unprecedented levels of violent crimes, shootings, and homicides, matching the...
The Masked Failure of Command
Police services are once again hard at work preparing annual budget submissions for the next fiscal year. The cost of policing continues to mount year after year, and the justifications seem to repeat year to year as well. The budget for Canada’s largest municipal...
Featured News
Weaponizing the Law
The indictment of former U.S. president Donald Trump for crimes invented by his political opponents is the most egregious example yet seen of the weaponizing of the law. The United States is now full of examples. However, in Canada, we also see the law being...
“Looking At” Seizing Control Over Western Canada’s Natural Resources
OTTAWA, REGINA - Last week, two things happened that could have profound impacts on natural resources development in Saskatchewan. One is a hint the federal government might want to take control of natural resources away from the provinces, and the other is the...
Administrative Firewall Key to Better Local Government
We are indeed fortunate to live in a free and open democratic society, where we can go to the polls, cast our ballots, and all the votes count to elect people that represent our interests even if they are competing interests. Citizens rely on their local governments...
Separation and Better Government: Adopting an Administrative Firewall
REGINA, SK - The Frontier Centre for Public Policy just released a new paper Separation and Better Government: Adopting an Administrative Firewall on October 1, 2017. This paper examines the centralized and decentralized models of local government in Canada,...
Inter-Municipal Co-operation and Reform: Municipal Amalgamations
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...
Frontier In The Media – Good and bad news from Alberta: we can fix our broken governments
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”...
3 Million Manitobans and an Ever-Stronger Economy
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...
Restrictive Land-Use Regulation: Strategies, Effects and Solutions
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...
Saskatchewan Political Culture and the Grant Devine Era
Barry F. Cooper This paper looks at the 1982 Saskatchewan provincial election, which brought Grant Devine to power, as a “critical election” in the sense that it had long-term consequences regarding what would subsequently be acceptable as public policy in that...
Amalgamation of BC Municipal Governments
A public advocacy campaign to amalgamate the 13 municipal governments in Greater Victoria has been underway for a few years. As elsewhere in Canada and around the world, much of the justification for the amalgamation proposal is cost savings. However, the results have...
In Alberta, We’re All Progressives Now.
In the 1960s, the phrase “we are all Keynesians now” was uttered by Milton Friedman, possibly as some sort of a lament about how Keynesian interventionist ideas had come to dominate mainstream thinking about economic policy. Here we are in 2016, and it...