Home / Publications / Intelligence Memos / Intelligence Memos: 2024 in Review
- Intelligence Memos
- |
Intelligence Memos: 2024 in Review
Outline
Outline
Related Topics
Files
To: Our Faithful Readers
Date: January 2, 2025
Re: Intelligence Memos: 2024 in Review
Intelligence memos are a key way C.D. Howe Institute researchers share their insights about current events.
And 2024 had no shortage of material: Canada’s healthcare struggles, housing affordability, the Bank of Canada’s inflation fight, a host of questionable fiscal policies from Ottawa and the provinces, and, of course, the return of Donald Trump.
Here’s a sampler of the year.
Fiscal and Tax Policy
John Lester and Alexandre Laurin – The Federal Debt is Not Sustainable: Three ways federal GDP ratio projections are implausible.
Munir A. Sheikh – Cure for the Public Debt Pandemic: An Economic-Principles-Based Fiscal Anchor: It is time for a fiscal anchor rooted in economics.
Jack Mintz – Let’s Abandon Vacant Property Taxes: Some politicians believe underused property is an economic dead weight. That’s hogwash.
William B.P. Robson and Don Drummond – Junk Fiscal Policy Can Cost More than Mere Billions: Canadian governments are loud and zealous about protecting us from potentially addictive stuff that could hurt our physical and mental health. Yet they push fiscal junk.
Monetary Policy
Jeremy M. Kronick, Steve Ambler and Mawakina Bafale – New Tools to Analyze the Real Economy: A key part of the Institute’s new Centre on Financial and Monetary Policy is a set of unique data that offers insights not necessarily available with other publicly (or for policymakers, privately) available data.
Jeremy M. Kronick and Steve Ambler – Bank’s Big Rate Cut an Exercise in Risk Management – The Bank of Canada’s 50-point cut in December was a tough call, but the right one. And more is likely coming.
Financial Services
Paul C. Bourque and Gherardo Gennaro Caracciolo – How to Improve Financial Regulation. Pruning Would Help: Regulation is an important part of Canada’s financial landscape. And to ensure the rules support an efficient and effective financial regulatory framework, regulators need to be “constant gardeners.”
Mark Zelmer – Change is Afoot. Prudential Regulation Must Change: Canada has not had a bank failure in over 30 years. But banking is changing, and so prudential regulation of deposit-taking institutions may need to change, too.
Trade and International Policy
Lawrence Herman – Preserving Brian Mulroney’s Free Trade Legacy: Three decades after the Mulroney government’s achievements, at least two overarching trade differences with the Americans are percolating.
Chris Christie – Canada Should Embrace the Opportunities of a Second Trump Presidency: A second Donald Trump presidency, if approached strategically, offers Canada more opportunities than risks.
Innovation and Business Growth
John Lester – Rethinking How We Support R&D: Ottawa is considering reforms to its scientific research and experimental development support program. Its review should recognize some realities.
Brian Lewis and Damian Dupuy – Nostalgia Should Not Drive Ontario’s Economic Development Policy: The province needs to move past the nostalgic view of the manufacturing sector in its subsidies, and instead focus on an economy based on innovation and advanced technologies.
Demographics and Immigration
Mikal Skuterud and Parisa Mahboubi – Shrinking Canada’s NPR Population: How Best to Do It: As Canada recalibrates its immigration policy, it must do a delicate balancing act between reducing the non-permanent resident population and doing it soundly, effectively, and sustainably.
Henry Lotin – Ottawa has No Process to Determine Skills for Half all Migrants: Without accurate information on new arrivals’ skills, we cannot effectively gauge whether they are matched with employment opportunities.
Health Policy
Chris Bonnett – Aspiration and Ambiguity. That’s the Pharmacare Story: The transition to a national, universal, and comprehensive pharmacare plan may be a little closer now, but more likely it is a long way off, if it happens at all.
Rosalie Wyonch – Ozempic: Economic Ripple Effects, Equity and Side Effects: The surge in demand for Ozempic (and other GLP-1 medications) has implications for healthcare's future, creating opportunities for complementary products and services and disrupting other markets.
Energy and Natural Resources
Charles DeLand – Let Consumers Lead the Way on Green Vehicles and Heat Pumps: Historically, consumers drove energy transitions. The same will be true for EVs and heat pumps: If they are better choices, people will choose them.
Charles DeLand – Inhibiting Investment: Don’t Let the Oil and Gas Emissions Cap Limit Canada’s Prosperity: Ottawa’s latest climate initiative – a cap on oil and gas emissions – is like bringing an excavator to plant flowers. It's unnecessary, expensive, and likely to do more harm than good.
Public Governance and Accountability
Michael J. Trebilcock – Cracking Canada’s Policy Silos: In the absence of institutional innovations, we are not optimistic that Canada’s deteriorating performance in many key policy areas can be effectively redressed.
Peter Weltman – What Our Winter Tires and Infrastructure Have in Common: We know that maintaining assets in a state of good repair is critical for reliability. But with so many unknown variables about the future do governments need to add to their long-term budget outlook?
Michael Wernick – Unlocking Productivity in the Public Sector: Focusing on Internal Services: It is difficult to have a wide-ranging, national conversation about having a more productive economy without touching upon the public sector's role and its efficiency. Here’s how to measure it.
To send a comment or leave feedback, email us at blog@cdhowe.org.
Related Publications
- Intelligence Memos
- Intelligence Memos