Don Drummond on Power & Politics – More Than 200 Economists Signed a Letter Defending Carbon Tax

Stephen Gordon, an economics professor at Laval University, and Don Drummond, a Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute and adjunct professor at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, join CBC’s Power & Politics to discuss the debate on the carbon tax.

What will you get for your tax dollars? The budget should be clear – The Trillium

It’s time for the Ontario government to provide better information to the public on service improvements and cuts and when capital construction projects will be completed.

Budget day is important for the government, but more so for the citizens that the government’s choices will impact.

It’s a time when the information provided to the public, including the media, needs to be presented in a transparent and clear manner. With a finite amount of taxpayer dollars, it’s ever the more important that the public obtain comprehensive budget information to clearly understand how government spending will impact them — in health, education, the justice system and social programs — by virtue of the programming and service level choices…

Drummond, Robson – There Are No Excuses for April Budgets

Responsible governments don’t present late budgets – The Hill Times

Along with rampant spending, erratic tax changes, and mounting debt, the federal government is developing another bad fiscal habit: its budgets are getting later.

The government has announced that it will present its budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025, on April 16. By then, we will be more than two weeks into the fiscal year. That is too late.

The record of the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was somewhat better before that. While only one of the four budgets they delivered from 2016-17 to 2019-20 appeared before March—and not by much: it came out on Feb. 27, 2018—none appeared after April 1. But their overall record is bad. Of the budgets they should have…

Garbutt, Harker – Choosing Which “Critical Minerals” Should Be Subsidized Is Problematic

Lennie Kaplan – Albertans Concerned with Preserving Fiscal Transparency and Accountability

The Art of Making an Ontario Budget

A look at the deliberation and scrutiny that goes into creating Ontario’s annual spending roadmap, with former Ontario finance ministers Ernie Eves, Janet Ecker, and Greg Sorbara.

Janet Ecker was the first ever female Finance Minister in Ontario, holding the job from 2002 to 2003. She is now a Senior Fellow with the C.D. Howe Institute.

William B.P. Robson – A Cheer for Nova Scotia’s New Inflation Indexing

Godbout, Samoisette – Maximiser le bon d’études canadien en l’offrant à tous les enfants de familles à revenu modeste

Godbout, Samoisette – On Its Anniversary, Has the Goal of the Canada Learning Bond Been Achieved?

Kudos to Nova Scotia for a budget that declines to profit from inflation – Financial Post

Nova Scotia’s budgets do not always make national headlines, but the one recently delivered by Minister of Finance and Treasury Board Allan MacMaster got some well-deserved attention. It indexed the province’s personal income tax to inflation. Starting next January, the thresholds for all Nova Scotia’s tax brackets and its non-refundable credits for spouses and dependents will rise with the consumer price index each year.

As Alexandre Laurin and I argued in a recent C.D. Howe Institute report, this move is long overdue. Price surges during the pandemic reminded everyone that inflation and taxes are a toxic combination. Governments that tax nominal amounts even when inflation is eroding money’s purchasing power dodge…

Laurin, Dahir – Here’s a Suggestion: A Revenue-Neutral Tax Reform for an Economic Boost