Support Digitization of Small Businesses and Boost Interprovincial Trade: Crisis Working Group on Business Continuity and Trade
August 20, 2020 – Canada should provide additional supports for businesses facing the costs of digitizing operations due to the pandemic, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute.
The report from the Crisis Working Group on Business Continuity and Trade also emphasized a need to reduce barriers to interprovincial trade and mobility, accelerate private sector capital spending, and clarify confusion around Canada’s foreign investment regime.
The group of industry experts and economists, co-chaired by Dwight Duncan, Senior Strategic Advisor at McMillan LLP and former Ontario Minister of Finance; and Jeanette Patell, Vice-President of Government Affairs and Policy for GE Canada, held its final meetings on June 16 and…
Robert Mysicka – Protecting Consumers Against Costs Of Increased Professional Regulation
From: Robert Mysicka To: Canada’s Premiers Date: August 20, 2020 Re: Protecting Consumers Against Costs of Increased Professional Regulation Amid the economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to overlook the hidden costs to consumers from the increase in the regulation of occupations. The economic rationales for increasing occupational regulation, in many cases, can […] Robson, Omran – Fiscal Accountability: Our Annual Report Card
From: William B.P. Robson and Farah Omran To: Canada’s Ministers of Finance Date: August 19, 2020 Re: Fiscal Accountability: Our Annual Report Card With Canadian governments responding to the COVID-19 crisis with unprecedented spending and borrowing, the quality of the financial information they present is becoming more important than ever. While much of the financial information presented to legislators […] Ambler, Kronick, Omran – When Can We Say The Recession Is Over?
From: Steve Ambler, Jeremy Kronick, and Farah Omran To: Canadians Worried About Debt Date: August 18, 2020 Re: When Can We Say the Recession Is Over? The art of calling the start and finish of economic recessions might seem a trivial pastime, but it is critical to understanding how policy decisions can affect the economy. This is normally a […] Van Dijk, Hodgson – Addressing Canada’s Covid-19-induced Public Debt Ailment
From: Peter van Dijk and Glen Hodgson To: Canadians Concerned about Government Debt Date: August 17, 2020 Re: Addressing Canada’s COVID-19-induced Public Debt Ailment Last month’s federal fiscal snapshot projects a pandemic-induced deficit of $343 billion and a debt-to-GDP ratio jumping from 30 to 49 percent this fiscal year. Don’t forget provincial debt, too. An Ontarian’s combined government debt-to-GDP […] James Feehan – Andrew Furey Takes On A Fiscal Nightmare
From: James Feehan To: Those who worry about Newfoundland and Labrador’s solvency Date: August 14, 2020 Subject: Andrew Furey takes on a fiscal nightmare On August 19, Andrew Furey M.D. will be sworn in as Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. He was elected by the governing Liberal Party to succeed the outgoing premier, Dwight Ball. […] Covid Threatens Governments’ Fiscal Accountability
Many of Canada’s senior governments have made impressive progress with the transparency and accessibility of their financial presentations, but these gains are under threat from the COVID pandemic, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “The ABCs of Fiscal…Peace in the trade valley? Not likely – Financial Post Op-Ed
Media reports last month signalled a stand-down in trade battles between the United States and China, ostensibly because both are increasingly focused on other geopolitical disputes, over such things as espionage, human rights and intellectual property. By contrast, U.S.-China trade seemed to be emerging “as an area of calm.” I wouldn’t be so sanguine.
For decades, it was taken for granted that fixed tariff rates, agreed to under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and later the World Trade Organization (WTO), were pretty much sacrosanct. Governments made formal commitments not to increase their duty rates, meaning in trade parlance that these rates were “bound.” This stabilized the global trading system and was one…
The ABCs of Fiscal Accountability: Grading Canada’s Senior Governments, 2020
COVID Threatens Governments’ Fiscal Accountability Many of Canada’s senior governments have made impressive progress with the transparency and accessibility of their financial presentations, but these gains are under threat from the COVID pandemic. In the C.D. Howe Institute’s annual report card on the accessibility, timeliness and reliability of governments’ financial documents, the authors assign grades […] Jon Johnson – Section 232 Aluminum Tariffs: Classic Bait And Switch
From: Jon Johnson To: Canadians and Americans Fed-up with Section 232 Tariffs Date: August 13, 2020 Re: Section 232 Aluminum Tariffs – Classic Bait and Switch With CUSMA in effect for barely a month, the Trump Administration announced that it will re-impose 10-percent tariffs on non-alloyed unwrought aluminum from Canada. The basis is Section 232 […] Schirle, Skuterud – Job Search, New Jobs, And What It Means For Future Policy
From: Tammy Schirle and Mikal Skuterud To: Bill Morneau, Minister of Finance Date: August 12, 2020 Re: Job search, new jobs, and what it means for future policy It is now widely recognized that the economic burden of COVID-19 shutdowns in March and April overwhelmingly fell on Canada’s lowest-wage workers. Between February and April, aggregate […] If This Recovery Sustains, This Recession Could Be Shortest On Record — Or One Of The Longest – Financial Post Op-ed
The art of calling the start and finish of economic recessions might seem a minor one but it is critical to understanding how policy decisions can affect the economy.
Making such calls is normally a backwards-looking exercise, with business cycle analysts waiting for the accumulation of enough data before they feel comfortable issuing even a nuanced interpretation of whether the economy has reached key points in a cycle. This spring, however, the sheer depth and size of the economic losses stemming from the COVID-19 lockdowns left no room for doubt. The C.D. Howe Institute’s Business Cycle Council was able to declare by May 1 that Canada had entered a recession in the first quarter of 2020 and that the peak of the…