Arthur Sweetman Re-appointed As C.D. Howe Institute Research Fellow
William Robson, President and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute, announces the re-appointment of Arthur Sweetman as a Research Fellow. “Arthur’s work in the fields of health economics and human capital make…Inflation may be back sooner than you think – Financial Post Op-Ed
Last week’s quarterly “Monetary Policy Report” (MPR) from the Bank of Canada sketched the long and likely winding road Canada’s economy needs to travel before it gets back to where it was pre-pandemic. And, with it, the long road inflation will have to take to return to its target rate of two per cent.
At the same time, the bank announced it would hold the target overnight rate of interest at its effective lower bound of 25 basis points (i.e., 0.25 per cent), “until economic slack is absorbed so that the two per cent inflation target is sustainably achieved,” which the bank estimates will not happen until sometime in 2023.
This amounts to “forward guidance” about the path of the overnight rate target — an effort to reduce…
Bishop, Shaffer, Ragab – Other Options For Time-of-use Electricity Pricing In Ontario
From: Grant Bishop, Blake Shaffer and Mariam Ragab To: Greg Rickford, Ontario Minister of Energy Date: November 3, 2020 Re: Other options for time-of-use electricity pricing in Ontario Starting November 1, Ontario consumers gained the option to pay for electricity at a fixed price regardless of the time of day. Ontario’s government eliminated time-of-use pricing from June 1 to […] Le Canada, L’élève Zélé Du Fmi – La Presse Opinion
Le Canada déploie le plus grand effort financier de toutes les économies avancées pour lutter contre la crise, effort que permet son endettement le plus faible. Dans l’ampleur comme dans la manière, il suit à la lettre les prescriptions du Fonds monétaire international (FMI). Il y a pourtant lieu de craindre un excès de zèle à Ottawa.
Le Moniteur des finances publiques, publié lors des récentes assemblées annuelles du FMI et de la Banque mondiale, tenues conjointement à Washington, permet de comparer la situation du Canada avec celle des autres pays développés.
Selon le FMI, le Canada enregistrera en 2020 un déficit de 19,9 % de son PIB, le pourcentage le plus élevé des économies avancées, dont le déficit moyen sera…
The Price of Power: Comparative Electricity Costs across Provinces
Power Consumers Face Widely Varied Costs Across Provinces Electricity prices and pricing structures vary widely across provinces, with Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia consumers facing the highest power costs. Authors Grant Bishop, Mariam Ragab and Blake Shaffer provide an interprovincial comparison of power prices across Canada, and explore how overall electricity costs matter for economically […] Power Consumers Face Widely Varied Costs Across Provinces
Electricity prices and pricing structures vary widely across provinces, with Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia consumers facing the highest power costs, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “The Price of Power: Comparative Electricity Costs across Provinces…Lawrence Herman – The Wto Was Ailing Long Before Trump
From: Lawrence Herman To: Canadians concerned about trade Date: October 29, 2020 Re: The WTO was ailing long before Trump The established order of things in international trade, the world we have been comfortable with for decades, has been shattered. This is often laid at Donald Trump’s door, given his disdain for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and relish […] For the Bank of Canada, the hard part begins now – Financial Post Op-Ed
The Bank of Canada recently announced an end to two short-term lending programs it introduced at the start of the pandemic. Their winding down is welcome news: it means the bank has been successful in stabilizing financial markets. But now comes the tricky part: encouraging economic expansion, which traditionally is inflationary, even while reassuring buyers of Canadian governments’ bonds it will not help these governments inflate away the debts they are incurring.
Key to such a strategy is recommitting, alongside the federal government, to the two per cent inflation target, even as short-term tactics may require temporary overshooting of it. Sticking with a target you may decide to miss temporarily is a mixed message, meaning…
Lessons from the First Wave of COVID-19: Public Health and Emergency Measures Working Group
October 28, 2020 – Canada’s healthcare system must learn the lessons of the first wave of COVID-19 and make the changes required to improve our capacity to tackle infectious disease outbreaks in future, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute.
The Public Health and Emergency Measures Working Group notes as case numbers grow across Canada, insights from the first wave can be applied to better manage infection risks, while also minimizing social and economic disruption caused by public health and social distancing-related restrictions on activity.
The group of health academics, professionals and business leaders is co-chaired by Janet Davidson, Chair of the Board of the Canadian Institute for Health Information and C.…
Testing Gaps: Prevalence Of Covid-19 And Antibodies
At the outset of COVID-19, access to diagnostic testing was inconsistent and provinces employed different testing strategies to direct limited testing resources. Since the beginning of the outbreak, testing rates and access to testing have been improved across the country. Most COVID-19 testing has been for diagnostic purposes – to determine whether or not someone is […] Restoring order to global trade – Financial Post Op-Ed
The established order of things in international trade, the world we have been comfortable with for decades, has been shattered. This is often laid at Donald Trump’s door, given his disdain for the World Trade Organization (WTO) and relish for unilateral actions like tariff surcharges. In reality, the global trading system was in trouble before Trump’s arrival on the scene. He and Robert Lighthizer, his spear-carrier as U.S. Trade Representative, have just been the instruments of disruption, bringing all of the inadequacies and shortcomings of the WTO system to the forefront.
Before Trump was elected, I believed that, whatever its shortcomings, the key legal principles and multilaterally respected norms governing the global…
William Scarth – Fiscal Policy After The Pandemic
From: William Scarth To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: October 27, 2020 Re: Fiscal Policy After the Pandemic Canadians have appreciated the federal government acting as a shock absorber in times of crisis, both during the Depression of the 1930s and at the present time. Luckily, the debt-to-GDP ratio had been reduced from its historical high (110 percent in […]