Op-Eds
Published in the Financial Post on February 6, 2013
By Philippe Bergevin and Finn Poschmann
North America’s population in the 19th century spread from east to west, driven in the main by farming. And where farmers planted themselves, so grew a demand for farm credit, and eastern bankers followed them.
Drought and crop failure repeatedly parched farmers’ credit, and their bankers’, and when fresh credit got tough to get, the farmers turned to government for help. Here, farm economics and politics led to the 1920s’ Canadian Farm Loan Board, created to offer mortgages to respond to a perceived lack of credit for Western farmers.
The Farm Credit Corporation replaced the board in 1959, with a broader mandate…
Published in the Financial Post on April 12, 2012
By Geoffrey Young
Two budgets — in Ottawa and Ontario — have announced reforms to rich defined-benefit pension plans enjoyed by government employees. The federal government will raise employee contributions and the normal age of retirement to 65 for new employees, while Ontario will consider reducing benefits to future pensioners to help fund potential pension plan deficits.
Governments are scrambling to keep employee defined-benefit (DB) pension plans sustainable because their employees love them — yet many government employees would be better off if the plans were redesigned. These DB plans systematically transfer income away from groups of employees in…
Published in the Globe and Mail on January 19, 2012
By William Robson
Debate over retirement income is hot. It’s partly that Canadians are getting older. But it’s mainly the growing realization that the next generation of retirees may live less comfortably than their parents have done. People are living longer, and returns on investment are lower. So hitting the targets their parents achieved means today’s workers must retire later and save more.
Further raising the temperature is Canadians’ learning that the stresses affecting their own retirements do not affect the government employees whose pensions they backstop – federal employees heading that list.
Ottawa’s pension plans provide benefits far richer and…
Published in the Globe and Mail on February 11, 2011
By Benjamin Dachis
Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s announcement that he intends to contract out more of Toronto’s waste services is causing reverberations across Canada, not because what’s news in Toronto is news elsewhere, but because this could be the start of a rethinking of municipal waste services in city halls across the country.
Labour contracts in Toronto and Vancouver expire on Dec. 31 – in the last round, agreements in both cities were settled after strikes – and Calgary’s contract with its public employees expired a month ago. Contracting will be a major theme in these labour negotiations.
Most Canadian cities contract out their waste services. But in…
Published in the Globe and Mail on July 13, 2010
By William Robson
A battle is raging over Canada’s 2011 census. Two weeks ago, the Canada Gazette published the questions all Canadian households must answer next May – the “short form.” Absent from the announcement was the “long form” – which one-fifth of households received in the past – with its more than 50 additional questions on subjects such as ethnic origin, disability, educational status, household work, income and housing. A new voluntary “national household survey” is to replace the long form. The rationale for the change is to reduce the burden of compliance for Canadians, and lessen the government’s intrusion into their personal lives.
Researchers –…
