Bank Of Canada Must Explain Its Focus On ‘Data-dependency’ – Globe And Mail Op-ed
In its interest-rate announcement on Wednesday, the Bank of Canada once again underlined that future changes in rates would be conditional on the data. Wednesday’s news statement noted that the Governing Council will continue to focus on how sensitive the economy is to interest rates, how economic capacity evolves, and changes to wages and inflation.
That is fine as far as it goes, but for households and businesses trying to anticipate changes in the overnight rate, and therefore changes to market rates, knowing that monetary policy is “data-dependent” – as the phrase has it – leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
To clear up the uncertainty, the bank should consider publishing its projected path forward for interest rates…
Ben Dachis – Mobility Pricing and Transportation Investment Go Hand-in-Hand
From: Benjamin Dachis To: Metro Vancouver Mobility Pricing Independent Commission Date: Oct. 26, 2017 Re: Mobility pricing and transportation investment go hand-in-hand Your Commission has quite the task to submit your recommendation of how to tackle congestion in the Vancouver region by next April. You’ll need a way to think about balancing the economic cost of congestion […]Mergers and Inquisitions? Competition Bureau’s Merger Review Needs Improvement
Report of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Competition Policy Council
The Competition Bureau and the government should work to introduce measures to improve the efficiency, consistency, and predictability of the Canadian merger review process, according to the consensus of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Competition Policy Council, which held its fourteenth meeting on October 17, 2017. The Competition Act provides for reviews of mergers by the Commissioner of Competition, who heads the Competition Bureau, to determine whether such transactions are likely to prevent or lessen competition substantially. The Bureau’s merger review process is taking longer, although part of the delay may be due to matters outside of the Bureau’s…Farah Omran – Life after OHIP+
From: Farah Omran To: Canada’s healthcare officials and policymakers Date: October 25, 2017 Re: Life after OHIP+ Ontario’s 2017 budget announced a universal drug program for youth under the age of 25 starting in 2018. Dubbed OHIP+, it will allow Ontarians under 25 free access to prescription drugs. Although OHIP+ is a step forward in addressing […] Rosalie Wyonch – To Tax Or Not To Tax, That’s Not The Question
From: Rosalie Wyonch To: Ministers of Finance Date: October 24, 2017 Re: To Tax or Not to Tax, That’s Not the Question Recently, there has been much ado about Netflix: whether it should be regulated or taxed and whether it is destroying Canadian content production or it is a new global platform that will export Canadian content to the […] Canada needs to follow Quebec lead on taxing Netflix – Toronto Star Op-Ed
Recently, there has been much ado about Netflix: whether it should be regulated or taxed and whether it is destroying Canadian content production or it is a new global platform that will export Canadian content to the world. The federal government recently touted an agreement with the company for a $500 million investment in Canadian content over five years alongside a “first ever” strategy for the Canadian creative economy.
The Quebec legislature swiftly and unanimously voted for a motion to “ensure the Quebec sales tax is imposed on all foreign companies that offer products and services online, notably in the cultural sector, as soon as possible.” However, Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao said the province won’t take any…
Bill Robson on BNN – What analysts are saying about the fall economic update
“It’s not all that impressive, a budget balance when the economy is going as well as it is. What’s clear in the out years is that there’s going to be some negative revenue impact from cutting the small business tax rate.”
– Bill Robson, President & CEO, C.D. Howe Institute, on BNN October 24th, 2017
Ben Dachis – An Unhappy Tenth Birthday To Toronto’s Land Transfer Tax
From: Benjamin Dachis To: City Councils across Canada Date: October 23, 2017 Re: An Unhappy Tenth Birthday to Toronto’s Land Transfer Tax This week is an anniversary of sorts for the City of Toronto. It marks 10 years since it applied a Land Transfer Tax (LTT) on most real estate transactions. On October 22, 2007, Toronto City […] Philip Cross – Policymakers Need Not be Passive Victims of Economic Data Revisions
From: Philip Cross To: Concerned Canadians Date: October 20, 2017 Re: Policymakers Need Not be Passive Victims of Economic Data Revisions Policymakers need not be the passive victims of revisions to the economic data they are scrutinizing. They should proactively take measures to anticipate revisions. To paraphrase Kierkegaard’s observation about life, economic policymaking must be lived forward, but the […]Hsieh, Li, Ossa, Yang – Free Trade is More Complex Than You Thought
From: Chang-Tai Hsieh, Nicholas Li, Ralph Ossa, Mu-Jeung Yang To: Concerned Canadians Date: October 19, 2017 Re: Free Trade is More Complex Than You Thought Most trade economists have come to believe that the gains from trade liberalization go beyond lower prices for imported goods. Inspired by the ‘new’ trade models of Paul Krugman and Marc Melitz, they now […]Bank of Canada Should Hold Overnight Rate at 1.00 Percent Next Week; Hike to 1.50 Percent by October 2018: C.D. Howe Institute Monetary Policy Council
October 19, 2017 — The C.D. Howe Institute’s Monetary Policy Council (MPC) called for the Bank of Canada to keep its target for the overnight rate, the very short-term interest rate it targets for monetary policy purposes, at 1.00 percent at its next announcement on October 25, 2017, and keep it there at its December setting. The MPC called for the Bank to hike to 1.25 percent by April of 2018, with a further increase to 1.50 percent by October 2018.
The MPC provides an independent assessment of the monetary stance consistent with the Bank of Canada’s 2 percent inflation target. William Robson, the Institute’s President and CEO, chairs the Council. Council members make recommendations for the Bank of Canada’s…
Trump’s Zero-sum Game Has Likely Doomed Nafta – Globe And Mail Op-ed
Round 4 of the NAFTA negotiations ended in exceptional bitterness on Tuesday, with the United States presenting a series of deeply disturbing and unacceptable proposals. While the negotiating deadline was extended into early 2018, the talks are heading downhill and will likely hit the wall before then.
It’s interesting that commentators are now talking about the need for a Plan B (or C or D) for Canada, when it should have been clear that these talks were on a perilous slope from the outset.
While policy wonks were once full of naive optimism about modernizing the North American free-trade agreement, a cold shower of realism would have doused that rosy glow. The problem is these negotiations were never born of common…