Op-Eds
By Christopher Ragan
As Alberta’s new government assembles its troops and redesigns its policies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the need for greater environmental protection will be an obvious rallying cry. But Premier Rachel Notley should also be sure to make the case that pricing carbon emissions is very much in Alberta’s economic interests.
Many will wonder whether that last sentence is a mistake. How can attaching a financial penalty to carbon emissions be in the economic interests of a province so rooted in the production of fossil fuels? There are two reasons, each regarding a different kind of “market access.”
Alberta produces far more oil and natural gas than it can use at home, so getting these…
By Christopher Ragan
Even if we weren’t in the middle of a federal election campaign, there would be several important policy issues being discussed this summer. One of the big ones is Canada’s part in the negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade agreement with several Pacific Rim countries. Another is the development of carbon-pricing policies in Ontario and Alberta. Policy makers and ordinary Canadians alike should note that these policies have two big things in common, and one crucial difference.
Both free trade and carbon pricing are undertaken in the pursuit of a major, long-run prize. In the case of free trade, the prize is that our consumers get access to a wider range of products, often with…
Published in the Financial Post on July 24, 2015
Benjamin Dachis is a Senior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute. Anindya Sen is the author of the C.D. Howe Institute study Peak Power Problems: How Ontario’s Industrial Electricity Pricing System Impacts Consumers.
The cost to an industrial business of consuming electricity during a single High-5 hour is $52,000 per MWh
A clumsy Ontario government program threatens Ontario’s industrial businesses with inordinately high electricity costs this month. The result is that businesses either shut down production or go off-the-grid to save money. But there is a better way.
July is historically the hottest month of the year in Ontario, giving July…
Published in the Calgary Herald on May 30, 2015
By Benjamin Dachis
Benjamin Dachis is a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.
Alberta’s new premier has promised a review of the province’s royalty system. However, her government should take a close look at the consequences the last time an Alberta government increased royalty rates. Raising royalty rates then did more harm than good.
Until the mid-2000s, the province relied mostly on royalties from natural gas. Now, most royalties come from oilsands bitumen and conventional oil.
The province applies a royalty for bitumen in which the province gets a large share during boom times, but low royalties when companies are not profitable…
Published in the Globe and Mail on May 19, 2015
By Christopher Ragan
Christopher Ragan is an associate professor of economics at McGill University in Montreal and a research fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute in Toronto.
Interest in “socially responsible” investing is growing quickly, and it’s often driven by concerns over climate change. The movement to divest from fossil-fuel companies is sweeping university campuses, foundations and institutional investors, with the latest high-profile announcement coming from a leading British newspaper. The calculus needed to drive such investment decisions is difficult – but it would be simplified considerably if carbon pricing were as common as income taxes.…
