Federal tax incentives could help solve the rental housing crisis – Financial Post
Do you know anyone looking for an affordable rental apartment in a major Canadian city? If you do, good luck to them.
Rentals are tough to find, and rents are getting very expensive. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), purpose-built apartment vacancy rates nationally fell to a 20-year low of 1.9 per cent in 2022, while average rents rose 6.1 per cent. Would-be tenants increasingly find themselves in desperate bidding wars over sub-standard accommodation in areas far from where they want to live.
Canadian policymakers should be very concerned about the rental housing crisis. According to the 2021 Census, 33.1 per cent of Canadians rent. That number is higher in big cities, where about half of…
Benjamin Dachis – What Municipal Financial Audits are Likely to Find
To: Ontario Municipalities From: Benjamin Dachis Date: August 23, 2023 Re: What Municipal Financial Audits are Likely to Find In late July, the Ontario government announced details on a financial audit of select municipalities to assess the impact of provincial changes to development-related fees. The audit will likely find that the change had some financial […] G. Kent Fellows – Renewables Moratorium Risks Harming Alberta’s Investment Climate
To: Nathan Neudorf, Alberta Minister of Affordability and Utilities From: G. Kent Fellows Date: August 21, 2023 Re: Renewables Moratorium Risks Harming Alberta’s Investment Climate Your government’s move last week to pause approvals for new renewable electricity investments sends a strong signal: The free-market fundamentals underpinning the province’s approach to electricity are no longer as […] Supply management is a disaster, and the terrible Bill C-282 will make it worse – Globe and Mail Op-Ed
Bill C-282 is a terrible piece of legislation. Yet it sailed through the House of Commons and is now in the Senate, the last hope for bringing some sanity to the matter.
Indications are that key senators, including Senator Peter Boehm, chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs and International Trade Committee, have serious problems with the Bill.
The Bill amends the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act to insert a provision that prohibits the government from concluding any trade agreement that would increase foreign access to Canada’s supply managed agriculture sector.
This is an unprecedented effort that further protects the dairy, poultry and egg producers from foreign import competition. But…
Ben Brunnen – It’s Time to Move on Canada’s LNG Opportunity
From: Ben Brunnen To: Canadian Energy Observers Date: August 17, 2023 Re: It’s Time to Move on Canada’s LNG Opportunity In the drive to reduce global greenhouse-gas emissions, provide affordable energy, enhance energy security and provide benefits to Canadians, the country has an opportunity to play a vital role: exporting liquid natural gas. According to the International Energy Agency, […] Benjamin Dachis – Why Not a Minister of Competition?
To: The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada From: Benjamin Dachis Re: Why Not a Minister of Competition? Date: August 16, 2023 The government’s 23-move cabinet shuffle last month missed out on one sensible extra move. As a major review of Canada’s competition policy continues, it’s a good time to highlight competition’s crucial importance in the economy […] Stop Throwing Money at Canada’s Productivity Problem With Charles Plant
We’ve been complaining about Canada’s productivity problem for 50 years. One of the secrets to solving our problem is by creating companies that scale up from start up to world class. According to Charles Plant, C.D. Howe Institute author and Founder of The Narwhal Project, the solution isn’t throwing more money at the problem: it’s turning Canadians into salespeople.
Inflation is making you pay more taxes: yesterday’s thresholds for today’s dollars – Globe and Mail
There’s been rampant inflation in Canada since early 2021. And while money losing its purchasing power hurts on its own, tax provisions that ignore inflation can multiply the pain for Canadians.
Inflation interacts with various tax provisions, often increasing their bite, with little transparency or legislative oversight. This happens in many ways, notably when prices and incomes rise, but the thresholds for determining tax payable and tax credits do not.
For example, if income tax brackets do not rise with inflation, people whose wages have simply grown with inflation can get inadvertently pushed into higher-taxed categories – even when the real value of their wages has not changed.
Some of these interactions…
Early warning signs for Canada from U.S. debt downgrade – Financial Post
Fitch’s recent downgrade of U.S. public debt, dropping it one notch below “AAA,” is good reason to examine the relationship between U.S. debt and the dollar’s future as a reserve currency. The greenback is just the latest in a series of preferred currencies that have been used for foreign exchange reserves and to denominate other assets. But reserve currencies, unlike diamonds, aren’t necessarily forever, and that affects their issuers’ capacity to manage their public debt.
The British pound was the world’s reserve currency in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with a typical exchange rate a century ago of around US$5, vs. US$1.25 per pound today. The pound faded after 1945 because of Britain’s massive war debts, the…
What’s Behind the Cost of New Single-Detached Homes?
This Graphic Intelligence breaks out the various components of the total cost of new single-detached homes in Canada’s six largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). A recent C.D. Howe Institute publication calculates the total construction cost using three components: the physical cost of construction (which includes labour and materials), an assumed amount of developer profit, and […] Charles DeLand – A Nuclear Blueprint for Alberta
To: Brian Jean, Alberta Minister of Energy and Minerals From: Charles DeLand Date: August 14, 2023 Re: A Nuclear Blueprint for Alberta Fans of Canadian nuclear energy have much to root for these days. Two recent Ontario announcements, one about small modular reactors and one for a new large-scale project, indicate meaningful commitment to nuclear energy to meet […] The productivity problem in Canada’s economy is really a marketing and sales problem – Globe and Mail
Our national “productivity gap” has spurred analyses, reports and media articles for decades. While public debate in Canada has focused on productivity improvement for more than 50 years, we have made limited progress. Fresh thinking is required.
While innovation through research and development (R&D) is certainly important to productivity growth – and has preoccupied the federal government over the past half-century – there is also a connection between firm size and productivity. The larger the firm, the more productive it typically is. Logically, then – and the research supports this proposition – one way to increase our productivity is to increase the size of our companies from small and medium to large. Something we have…