Op-Eds
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 Globe and Mail on March 23, 2015
By: Benjamin Dachis and Lawson Hunter
Benjamin Dachis is a senior policy analyst and Lawson Hunter is a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute and co-author of “Scrambled Signals: Canadian Content Policies in a World of Technological Abundance”. From 2003 to 2008, Mr. Hunter served as executive vice-president and chief corporate officer of Bell Canada and BCE Inc.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) wants to give Canadians greater affordability and choice in their television viewing. But will the CRTC’s Thursday ruling, mandating partial channel unbundling, help on either of these counts?
Starting next…
Published in the Globe and Mail on February 20, 2015
By: Marcel Boyer
Marcel Boyer is the author of the recent C.D. Howe Institute publication “The Value of Copyrights in Recorded Music: Terrestrial Radio and Beyond.”
Anyone who watched this year’s Grammy Awards ceremony saw musicians calling for “fair pay across all platforms” through higher royalty rates, including radio and the Internet. Artists in Canada should be protesting too: The competitive value of recorded music is about 2.5 times greater than the current level of royalty payments.
Authors and composers (music publishers) and performers and makers (record labels) own the copyright for a set period on their musical works and…
Published in the Globe and Mail on December 10, 2014
By: Fin Poschmann
Finn Poschmann is vice-president of policy analysis at the C.D. Howe Institute and chair the organization’s Competition Policy Council.
Monday this week was a bad day for markets in Canada; Tuesday was a no good, very bad day for economics.
James Moore, the federal Industry Minister, followed through Tuesday on the government’s promise to address the “Canada-U.S. price gap,” aimed at ensuring that Canadians do not pay “unfairly” more than Americans or anyone else for the same goods.
Back in 1974, when the federal opposition offered price controls as a way of addressing inflation, prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s response was…
Published in the Globe and Mail on October 20, 2014
By Mati Dubrovinsky
Mati Dubrovinsky is a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.
A few days ago, The Globe and Mail reported that, following up on a spring 2014 federal budget commitment, the Department of Finance is holding negotiations with the two major credit card companies, Visa and MasterCard, as well as major banks issuing them. The goal is to achieve a commitment, or an outright regulation if that fails, to cap the fees credit card companies charge merchants.
When a consumer swipes, taps, or enters a PIN for a credit card transaction, the merchant pays for the service. If a consumer paid $100 for a…
