Canada is getting older. Not just us Canadians as individuals, but our population as a whole.
Our fertility rate dropped below the replacement rate of 2.1 required for population stability way back in 1971. Life expectancy at birth has increased by more than nine years since then.
One consequence of low fertility and increased longevity is that the number of people past what we traditionally consider working age is rising relative to the people of working age. The ratio of Canadians age 65 and older to Canadians age 18-64 rose by more than 10 percentage points over the past 40 years, and will rise by more than 10 percentage points again over the next 40.
An aging population puts pressure on living standards, dampens…
The budget federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau delivered on Tuesday confirmed that federal deficits – far from disappearing in two years, as the 2015 Liberal election platform promised – will continue indefinitely. Economists argue that with the economy on a roll and unemployment at record lows, Ottawa should be in surplus. But that critique misses a key point. Mr. Morneau and his colleagues could easily have pursued the path toward surplus outlined in the platform. They made a deliberate decision not to. Deficits, and the overspending that creates them, are signature policies for this government.
For those of us used to debating federal fiscal priorities in terms of tempering booms and busts, keeping interest costs manageable…
We got a blunt and sobering message last week from Steve Verheul, Canada's head NAFTA negotiator, telling us that negotiations with the Americans are bogged down and, apart from some agreement on peripheral things, there's absolutely no movement on the really tough issues.
The fundamental problem, Mr. Verheul said, is that the United States isn't approaching the negotiations with the objective of concluding a balanced deal. The Trump administration's position is "America First" and "America Only," reflecting the tone of the President's bellicose inaugural address. As a result, the United States has tabled one-sided, intransigent positions, non-starters for Canada from day one. U.S. negotiators have no room to compromise because…
