Canada has unfinished business when it comes to preparing for the next big financial crisis. Certainly, our financial system held up comparatively well in the 2008 crisis, and lots has been done, but we have shortcomings still to address.
When the International Monetary Fund last reviewed Canada's financial system in 2014, it recommended we do better in managing federal-provincial co-ordination around systemic risk oversight, and improve systemic risk management in capital markets. The IMF will return soon for an update assessment. So the question is, how are we doing?
As argued in a recent C.D. Howe Institute paper, Canadians should expect a higher level of preparedness from all relevant federal and provincial…
Physicians, especially those in Ontario, are furious at the federal government's proposed changes to small-business taxation. The federal changes follow successive unilateral fee decreases imposed by the government of Ontario and will further sour bargaining negotiations, likely resulting in an undesirable arbitration process.
This is the basic state of physician compensation today: Doctors are self-employed small-business entrepreneurs (with one payer) who bargain as a non-union unit with no ability to strike and binding arbitration rights. It is an awkward structure, to put it mildly.
At the outset of Canadian medicare in the 1960s, the major obstacle to making a public-insurance scheme reality came from physician groups…
Ontario has announced that it will restrict retail of recreational marijuana to LCBO-run stores. Only 40 of these locations will be in place by next July 1, the federal target date for decriminalization, with a total of 150 locations expected by 2020. While this plan gets some things right, it is a missed opportunity and nearly the most ineffective possible choice to accomplish the goals of minimizing the black market and protecting public health.
First, while 40 retail locations may sound sufficient, compare that with the at least 100 retail storefronts and delivery services for marijuana currently advertised in Toronto alone. Having few retail locations means that access to recreational marijuana will be inconvenient for a…
