Op-Eds
Published in the Financial Post on April 23, 2013
By Stephen Fyfe
Debate has flared in Ontario about how to deal with its local electricity distributors – particularly the prospective need for mergers and the system’s investment requirements. The upcoming provincial budget gives the government the opportunity to fix its tax policy.
The recent Report of the Ontario Distribution Sector Review Panel noted the need for investment to transform the local electricity distribution sector into one that uses modern technology to put its customers first. The report anticipated billions of dollars in required funding.
Most electricity distributors in Ontario are owned by municipal governments, which are unlikely to…
Published in the Globe & Mail on March 21, 2013
By Alexandre Laurin
Faced with disappointing economic growth projections pushing tax revenues down, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty was left with very little room in this budget to balance the government’s books, let alone to bring in new bold spending initiatives or popular tax cuts.
Under these circumstances, the budget does a magnificent job of coming up with a few big-ticket items funded through reallocating funds already committed – the new Canada Job Grant for example – or simply continuing and republicizing existing programs, such as the $5-billion a year in transfers to municipal governments for infrastructure investments. About half of the modest $3.6-…
Published in the Globe & Mail on March 20, 2013
By Finn Poschmann
Every once in a while, budget day brings something truly big that people fail to appreciate until much later.
Something big happened with Canadians’ savings in the 2009 budget, when tax-free savings accounts appeared. The change has repercussions that will reverberate, mostly to the good, for generations to come and will make Canada a world leader in the savings and tax field.
From a standing start, the number of Canadians holding TFSAs has jumped from zero to about nine million, or about one-third of taxpayers. If you had said about a decade ago, when Rhys Kesselman of Simon Fraser University and I first proposed the Canadian TFSA…
Published in the Globe and Mail on Nov. 15, 2012
By William Robson
A lesson from fiscal consolidations around the world is that spending restraint is necessary. It may not do the trick alone, but no program can succeed without it – and especially when a government is a major employer, controlling public-sector compensation will be front and centre in the effort. So provinces seeking balanced budgets must control spending – the question is whether Ontario’s approach can deliver the lasting improvements and efficiencies in public services that will make the savings sustainable.
Ontario’s current efforts are controversial not just because the employees affected would like more money, but because they emphasize freezes…
Publié dans Les Affaires le 22 Octobre 2012
Par Alexandre Laurin
Le maintien de la contribution santé rendue «progressive» et financée par une légère hausse d'impôt, selon l'annonce du ministre des Finances, sera bien moins dommageable pour l'économie que les fortes hausses d'impôt promises au départ. Cependant, même si le gouvernement a grandement amélioré son plan fiscal, il reste que la hausse du plus haut taux d'imposition - qui atteindra environ 50 % sur chaque dollar gagné au-delà de 100 000 $ - est une mauvaise politique économique.
Alors que l'économie tourne au ralenti, le moment semble bien mal choisi pour lui mettre des bâtons dans les roues. Lorsque les recettes de la hausse d'impôt se révéleront…
