From: Colin Busby and Nick Dahir To: Canadian economic observers Date: July 21, 2026 Re: The NATO Pledge Will Transform Federal Finances – Show Us How A rear-view glance to this month’s NATO summit should prompt a concentrated stare to the future, asking how Canada plans to achieve its commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence […]
Published in the The Globe and Mail. A rear-view glance to this month’s NATO summit should prompt a look to the future, asking how Canada plans to achieve its commitment to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035. For Canada to meet the NATO pledge, it will have to make difficult choices on taxes, […]
Since 2012, Canada’s 10-year bond yield has been 49 basis points on average lower then the US’ giving Canada a borrowing-cost advantage. This was not always the case. In the period from 1960-1990, before the introduction of inflation targeting, when inflation generally ran higher in Canada than in the United States and both countries’ federal governments took on significant debt, […]
From: Don Drummond and Nicholas DahirTo: Fiscal and monetary policy decision-makersDate: June 29, 2026 Re: Keeping Our Edge: The Benefits of Sound Monetary and Fiscal Policy For much of the second half of the twentieth century, the United States enjoyed a borrowing-cost advantage over Canada. Today, the advantage is in Canada’s favour. That reversal should serve […]
From 2008 to 2023, Canada’s real Gross National Income (GNI), a measure of the income available to Canadians after accounting for income flowing to foreign investors and adjusting for inflation, grew much more slowly than the OECD and G7 averages. Over the past decade, Canada ranked last in the G7 and 32nd out of 35 […]
From: Don Drummond, William B.P. Robson and Nicholas Dahir To: Canadian fiscal observers Date: May 13, 2026 Re: Ottawa’s Perverse Guardrail Fallacy In its 2020 and 2021 budget and updates, Ottawa talked a lot about “fiscal guardrails,” a term that met with much derision. Hard targets like a balanced budget or a dollar reduction in total spending are clear commitments to which a government can be […]
From: Alexandre Laurin To: Budget watchers Date: May 12, 2026 Re: Automatic Tax-Filing is No Panacea Tax time has come and gone, and once again, at least a million Canadians have likely not filed, and don’t intend to. Those who don’t file potentially miss out on various valuable tax credits, including for children, to help workers or to supplement spending on groceries and other essentials. Ottawa’s […]
Published in Financial Post. In its 2020 and 2021 budget and updates, Ottawa talked a lot about “fiscal guardrails,” a term that met with much derision. Hard targets like a balanced budget or a dollar reduction in total spending are clear commitments a government can be held to account for (which, of course, governments usually […]
From: Colin Busby and Nick Dahir To: Canadian fiscal observers Date: May 5, 2026 Re: The Tough Choices That Loom Over Our New 5-Percent Defence Target Having finally reached the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 2-percent target of GDP defence spending – set in 2014 – Canada now faces a far steeper, and more critical climb. Raising that share to […]
The trajectory of spending projections in each successive spring federal budgets (and last week’s Economic Update) since 2022 continues to tell a story of fiscal drift. The 2022 Budget’s total spending projections for 2026/27 was at $504 billion. Now, according to the Spring 2026 Update, the government plans to spend $595 billion, an increase of […]
In this episode, host Michael Hainsworth speaks with Kate Koplovich, Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, about Ottawa’s proposed Canada Strong Fund and what a new $25 billion sovereign wealth fund could mean for Canadians. They break down how sovereign wealth funds work, why Canada’s model differs from successful funds in places like […]
In this episode, host Michael Hainsworth speaks with Kate Koplovich, Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, about Ottawa’s proposed Canada Strong Fund and what a new $25 billion sovereign wealth fund could mean for Canadians. They break down how sovereign wealth funds work, why Canada’s model differs from successful funds in places like […]
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From: Colin Busby and Nick Dahir To: Canadian economic observers Date: July 21, 2026 Re: The NATO Pledge Will Transform Federal Finances – Show Us How A rear-view glance to this month’s NATO summit should prompt a concentrated stare to the future, asking how Canada plans to achieve its commitment to spend 5 percent of GDP on defence […] 
Published in the The Globe and Mail. A rear-view glance to this month’s NATO summit should prompt a look to the future, asking how Canada plans to achieve its commitment to spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence by 2035. For Canada to meet the NATO pledge, it will have to make difficult choices on taxes, […] 
Since 2012, Canada’s 10-year bond yield has been 49 basis points on average lower then the US’ giving Canada a borrowing-cost advantage. This was not always the case. In the period from 1960-1990, before the introduction of inflation targeting, when inflation generally ran higher in Canada than in the United States and both countries’ federal governments took on significant debt, […] 
From: Don Drummond and Nicholas DahirTo: Fiscal and monetary policy decision-makersDate: June 29, 2026 Re: Keeping Our Edge: The Benefits of Sound Monetary and Fiscal Policy For much of the second half of the twentieth century, the United States enjoyed a borrowing-cost advantage over Canada. Today, the advantage is in Canada’s favour. That reversal should serve […] 
From 2008 to 2023, Canada’s real Gross National Income (GNI), a measure of the income available to Canadians after accounting for income flowing to foreign investors and adjusting for inflation, grew much more slowly than the OECD and G7 averages. Over the past decade, Canada ranked last in the G7 and 32nd out of 35 […] 
From: Don Drummond, William B.P. Robson and Nicholas Dahir To: Canadian fiscal observers Date: May 13, 2026 Re: Ottawa’s Perverse Guardrail Fallacy In its 2020 and 2021 budget and updates, Ottawa talked a lot about “fiscal guardrails,” a term that met with much derision. Hard targets like a balanced budget or a dollar reduction in total spending are clear commitments to which a government can be […] 
From: Alexandre Laurin To: Budget watchers Date: May 12, 2026 Re: Automatic Tax-Filing is No Panacea Tax time has come and gone, and once again, at least a million Canadians have likely not filed, and don’t intend to. Those who don’t file potentially miss out on various valuable tax credits, including for children, to help workers or to supplement spending on groceries and other essentials. Ottawa’s […] 
Published in Financial Post. In its 2020 and 2021 budget and updates, Ottawa talked a lot about “fiscal guardrails,” a term that met with much derision. Hard targets like a balanced budget or a dollar reduction in total spending are clear commitments a government can be held to account for (which, of course, governments usually […] 
The trajectory of spending projections in each successive spring federal budgets (and last week’s Economic Update) since 2022 continues to tell a story of fiscal drift. The 2022 Budget’s total spending projections for 2026/27 was at $504 billion. Now, according to the Spring 2026 Update, the government plans to spend $595 billion, an increase of […] 
In this episode, host Michael Hainsworth speaks with Kate Koplovich, Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute, about Ottawa’s proposed Canada Strong Fund and what a new $25 billion sovereign wealth fund could mean for Canadians. They break down how sovereign wealth funds work, why Canada’s model differs from successful funds in places like […]