Benjamin Dachis – Budget 2023 Interswitching Changes will Derail Supply Chains
To: The Hon. Omar Alghabra, Minister of Transport From: Benjamin Dachis Date: May 15, 2023 Re: Budget 2023 Interswitching Changes will Derail Supply Chains Ottawa’s 2023 Budget re-introduced a controversial railway policy abandoned in 2017. For the next 18 months, railway customers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba will have access to extended interswitching. This change […]Benjamin Dachis – The Canada Infrastructure Bank Legislative Review
From: Benjamin Dachis To: The Hon. Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities Date: March 31, 2023 Re: The Canada Infrastructure Bank Legislative Review In 2018, the federal government launched the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB). After some initial set up steps, and criticism on rollout, the CIB is now providing significant investment financing […]Canadians Deserve Access to More Transparent City Budgets – Op-Ed from The Globe and Mail
City budgets are a mystery to most Canadians. The municipal services they fund are central to our quality of life, and they affect our property taxes and charges for services such as water access and garbage collection. Yet few of us delve into these seminal documents that lay out plans for revenue and expenses for the coming year – and if we do, we likely come away bewildered. Canadians need and deserve more transparent city budgets.
If you have not yet peered into the murk of municipal budgets yourself, we encourage you to visit your own city’s website and search for its most recent budget. We are now well into March, so your municipality’s 2023 budget should be online. If it is not – the lateness of many city budgets is a…
Glen Hodgson – Watch Your Wallets When New Rinks Are in the Air
From: Glen Hodgson To: Calgary and Ottawa Taxpayers Date: February 13, 2023 Re: Watch Your Wallets When New Rinks Are in the Air Interest is ramping up again in Calgary and Ottawa about new NHL arenas for each city’s downtown, after earlier projects failed to launch. Modern downtown arenas have obvious attractions for owners and fans in both […]New NHL arenas in Calgary and Ottawa better not cross-check taxpayers – Financial Post Op-Ed
Interest is ramping up again in Calgary and Ottawa about new NHL arenas for each city’s downtown, after earlier projects failed to launch. Modern downtown arenas would have obvious attractions for owners and fans in both cities. If the projects proceed, however, it’s a lock that taxpayers will be asked to provide financial support. Should they? And, if they do, on what conditions?
The main purpose of any new building is to help the private owners of the franchise make more money by selling more tickets, luxury boxes, refreshments and advertising, including naming rights. In an ideal world, buildings would be completely privately financed and operate profitably thanks to strong demand, with frequent use…
Howell, Jang, Kim, Weisbach – Privatizing Infrastructure: Evidence from Airports
To: Canadian Travellers From: Sabrina T. Howell, Yeejin Jang, Hyeik Kim, and Michael S. Weisbach Date: January 27, 2022 Re: Privatizing Infrastructure: Evidence from Airports Canada’s now-chronic airport problems may result from a systemic problem of a lack of investor discipline in Canada’s airport management. Canada is the only country in the world that has transferred its largest […]Looking Ahead with Andrew Coyne
What will 2023 bring for inflation, the housing market and healthcare? In episode one of the C.D. Howe Institute Podcast’s fifth season, the Globe & Mail’s Andrew Coyne joins host Michael Hainsworth for insight into the year ahead.
Andrew Sancton – Putting a Lid on Development Charges
From: Andrew Sancton To: Canadian Housing Watchers Date: December 9, 2022 Re: Putting a Lid on Development Charges “Growth should pay for growth.” This slogan – the common justification for development charges – is rarely challenged in municipal circles. Development charges evolved from post-1945 subdivision agreements and were initially accepted by most developers as a mechanism for enhancing the […]Canada’s Small Enterprises Hampered by Costly Financing
In this edition of Graphic Intelligence, we compare Canada’s lending conditions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to that of a set of OECD countries we are often measured against. Canadian small and medium businesses pay a premium for financing relative to SMEs in other OECD countries. Canada’s SMEs face numerous challenges that impede their ability to scale up. […] Tax Support for R&D and Intellectual Property: Time for Some Bold Moves
Ottawa’s Review of the SR&ED Credit Needs Bolder Thinking Ottawa’s review of the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) program is welcome news, but bolder thinking is needed to substantially improve the effectiveness of the tax credit, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Tax Support for R&D and Intellectual Property: […] Grootendorst, Moradpour – Resurrecting Connaught Labs not the Answer for Vaccine Self-Sufficiency
From: Paul Grootendorst and Javad Moradpour To: Public Health Agency of Canada Date: July 14, 2022 Re: Resurrecting Connaught Labs not the Answer for Vaccine Self-Sufficiency The COVID-19 pandemic has focused attention on Canada’s preparedness for the next pandemic, especially in terms of vaccine development and self-sufficiency. The mad scramble for vaccines early last year led many politicians, […] Canada’s economy is decapitalizing – Financial Post Op-Ed
Yet another alarming inflation number from Statistics Canada — 7.7 per cent from May to May — has underlined that something is seriously wrong with Canada’s economy. Prices are rising fast because spending is rising fast while production is not. The capacity of our economy to produce is flatlining because business investment has been so weak that the stock of productive capital per worker is falling. If we do not turn that around, the outlook for real growth in living standards in the coming months, years and decades is bleak.
The basic problem is chronically low business investment, which has been the highlight — or lowlight — of Statistics Canada’s quarterly GDP reports for several years now. The cumulative effect of low rates…