Sen and Wyonch – LCBO Workers Strike Is Not About Public Revenue
From: Anindya Sen and Rosalie Wyonch To: The Ontario Minister of Finance Date: May 17, 2017 Re: LCBO Workers Strike Is Not About Public Revenue Ontario Public Sector Employee Union (OPSEU) members at the LCBO have overwhelmingly voted in favor of giving their bargaining team the mandate to call a strike, if negotiations with management […] Jeremy Kronick – Home Capital: How Did We Get Here?
From: Jeremy Kronick To: Maureen Jensen, Chair of OSC Date: May 15, 2017 Re: Home Capital – How Did We Get Here Housing market news over the last couple of weeks has zeroed in on Home Capital, an alternative mortgage lender that is bleeding deposits. There are obvious concerns of contagion, but perhaps the bigger […] Konrad von Finckenstein – Modernizing Communications Legislation
From: Konrad von Finckenstein To: The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Date: May 5, 2017 Re: Modernizing Communications Legislation The recent budget announced the following upcoming legislative review. “To ensure that Canadians continue to benefit from an open and innovative Internet, the Government proposes to review and modernize […] Competition Bureau Should Not Have Power to Compel Information for Market Studies
Report of the C.D. Howe Institute Competition Policy Council The Competition Bureau should not have the ability to obtain orders to compel Canadian businesses to produce information for use in a market study, according to the majority view of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Competition Policy Council, which held its thirteenth meeting on April 17, 2017. Such investigatory orders could result in significant costs for Canadian businesses. Council members were also of the view that the Competition Bureau has not identified how previous market studies were systematically deficient or that information obtained voluntarily from market study participants was inadequate so as to justify the potentially significant costs arising from investigatory…Jeremy Kronick – Why Rent Control is Doomed to Fail
From: Jeremy Kronick To: The Ontario Minister of Housing Date: May 1, 2017 Re: Why Rent Control is Doomed to Fail One of the pillars of your recently announced plan aimed at making housing more affordable is to extend rent controls to all recently built rental units. This measure can be assessed through a number of […] Jonathan Hall – On Rent Control, the Devil is in the Details
From: Jonathan Hall To: The Ontario Minister of Finance Date: April 28, 2017 Re: On Rent Control, the Devil is in the Details In response to quickly climbing rents in the Greater Toronto Area you have proposed imposing rent control to all rental units, rather than just those built before 1991, as legislation currently stands. However, […] Anindya Sen – Cannabis Act Good First Step
From: Anindya Sen To: Bill Blair, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice Date: April 20, 2017 Re: Cannabis Act Good First Step So far so good. In earlier research, I set out broad guidelines for marijuana legalization, which have been reflected in the work of the Federal Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and the recent Cannabis Act proposed […] Ben Dachis on Bloomberg: Policies to Cool Toronto and Vancouver Housing Markets
Ben Dachis from the C.D. Howe Institute and Jean-Francois Perrault from Scotiabank discuss the merits of housing polices such as a vacant homes tax and a foreign home buyers tax to cool markets such as Toronto and Vancouver.
Ben Dachis on BNN: Toronto’s Housing Issue Comes Down to Zoning Laws & Density Targets
Ben Dachis, Associate Director of Research at the C.D. Howe Institute, joins BNN for reaction on the government’s meeting on housing policy.
Dachis, Mhadi & Pinto – Ontario Shouldn’t Follow Vancouver’s Lead On Foreign Buyers Tax
From: Benjamin Dachis, Hamza Mhadi, and Jairo Pinto To: The Hon. Charles Sousa, Ontario Minister of Finance Date: April 12, 2017 Re: Vancouver’s Foreign Buyers Tax Meant Fewer Homes For Sale – Ontario Shouldn’t Follow Suit Housing affordability has been a growing concern among many first-time homebuyers in Canada’s major metropolitan regions, particularly in Greater Toronto and […] Rosalie Wyonch – With Legal Weed the Government Must Choose Revenue or Regulated Market, Not Both
From: Rosalie Wyonch To: The Honorable Bill Blair, Parliamentary Secretary to the Justice Minister Date: April 10, 2017 Re: With Legal Weed the Government Must Choose Revenue or Regulated Market, Not Both The federal government is rumored to be releasing its plans to legalize marijuana for recreational consumption this week. Budget 2017 also assured everyone […] How Ontario Can End the Cycle of Meddling in Electricity Markets: Globe and Mail Op-Ed
Every 10 years or so, the government of Ontario finds it necessary to freeze or cut electricity prices because the costs of an ambitious energy policy prove to be politically unacceptable. This leaves every generation of electricity customers paying for the cost of a failed experiment from a previous generation. We should learn from this experience and implement a governance model for the sector that reviews and mitigates costs before a policy is adopted, not after.
In 1993, the government froze prices because the costs of Ontario Hydro’s massive nuclear expansion were leading to double-digit rate increases. In 2002, the government froze prices because the electricity market opening resulted in higher and more volatile prices. In…