Op-Eds
Published in the Globe and Mail on April 17, 2015
By: Ben Dachis
Benjamin Dachis is a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute
The Advisory Council on Government Assets, led by Ed Clark, announced this week that big changes are in store for the province’s beer sales and electricity system. Although much public attention has been on the locally novel idea of allowing beer sales in grocery stores, the biggest potential consequence of the Clark report is to enable cities to sell their electricity assets.
The main money maker for the province, in the current plan, is selling a majority interest in its Hydro One transmission and distribution business. That would bring in $5-billion to pay…
Published in The National Post on March 11, 2015
By: Benjamin Dachis
Benjamin Dachis is a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.
The following is an excerpt from a C.D. Howe Institute report entitled “Tackling Traffic: The Economic Cost of Congestion in Metro Vancouver.”
Voters in Metro Vancouver will soon decide whether to approve a transportation and transit plan financed with a region-wide 0.5 percentage point increase in the provincial sales tax. In an upcoming plebiscite, voters across the 21 municipalities in Metro Vancouver … must consider how to deal with the bane of most metropolitan areas — growing congestion. They will need to weigh whether the economic costs of…
Published in the Toronto Star on November 26, 2014
By: Benjamin Dachis
Benjamin Dachis is a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute and the author of “Congestive Traffic Failure: The Case for High-Occupancy and Express Toll Lanes in Canadian Cities.”
The Pan Am Games will last only a few weeks next summer. But the province wants the benefits from the Games to last long afterward. Its plan to create temporary carpool lanes on Toronto highways during the Games will worsen traffic next summer on Toronto’s highways. If the province wants to use the Games to benefit drivers for years to come it should convert the temporary carpool lanes into toll lanes.
The province recently unveiled its transportation…