When Canada’s premiers journey to Manitoba for a crucial Council of the Federation meeting from July 10 to 12, the route to health care reform should be top of mind. Rarely has a summer road trip been so vital to the present and future of Canada’s once cherished health care system. The premiers need to come out of the meeting prepared to follow a roadmap back home on real health reform.
From coast to coast to coast, Canadians are increasingly worried that health services will not be there for them. Memories of the record number of deaths from COVID-19 in long-term care homes still linger. There are millions of Canadians without family physicians and other providers of primary care, while long wait times and even closings of…
The cost of housing in Canada has increased dramatically in recent years. In some cities, barriers to getting new homes built are a major reason why.
Barriers to constructing new single-detached homes drive a wedge between what it costs to build and the market price. On average between 2011 and 2021, a single-detached home in the Vancouver area cost homebuyers $2 million. But the construction cost of a new home was only about $700,000. The $1.3-million difference reflected high costs for the right to build on the limited land governments allowed housing to be built on. Homes in the Toronto area now cost homebuyers $350,000 more than they cost to build. In the Montreal area, however, the difference between cost…
Steve Ambler is professor of economics, Université du Québec à Montréal and David Dodge Chair in Monetary Policy at the C.D. Howe Institute, where Jeremy Kronick is director, monetary and financial services research.
Amid conflicting signals, the Bank of Canada decided to press the brakes on the economy a little harder this week, raising the overnight target rate by 25 basis points to 4.75 per cent. And with that, the conditional pause the Bank of Canada announced in January ends. We aren’t so sure it should have.
First, the case for the hike.
The year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index (headline inflation), rose in April from March, from 4.3 to 4.4 per cent – the first…
