Policy Options

The short story of Budget 2012, the landmark of new majority government, is one of continuity. The structure of the federal economic house is well in order and the...

This is a time of worldwide economic uncertainty and fragility. Canada is emerging from a global economic recession, but there is increasing competition from emerging market countries, and Canadian leaders...

Budget 2012 proclaimed a “new approach to supporting entrepreneurs, innovators and world-class researchers.” Speculation and expectations had mounted in the months and weeks preceding the budget, particularly in the...

To conclude that communications efforts in support of Budget 2012 were a triumph one must possess a thesis that denies the apparent. Because on the face of it, the...

The 2008-09 economic downturn in Canada was global in scope. This worldwide financial meltdown affected our economy through trade and financial linkages. As we know, Canada’s real GDP experienced...

The consensus on Canadian politics today among the Hy’s restaurant hangers-on is that it is a superhighway. Four aging and somewhat battered opposition vehicles trundle down the slow lanes,...

On March 23, I arrived at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for my first ever NDP convention. It was the third party convention I attended in a span of...

Canadian policy-makers have for decades expended considerable effort and devoted large amounts of tax revenue toward ensuring adequate standards of living for the elderly. The introduction of the Canada...

Two of the three northern territories now exercise, or will soon exercise, jurisdiction over their lands and natural resources — Yukon from 2001, and the Northwest Territories (NWT) probably...

À l’heure où j’écris ces lignes, près de 200 000 étudiants des cégeps et des universités sont en grève illimitée, dont certains depuis déjà plus d’un mois. Il est bien...

Rare are those public servants singled out for praise through awards of excellence or merit. Rarer still is the individual recognized through an award named in his or her...

L’élection fédérale de mai 2011 a ébranlé la vie politique québécoise dans ses fondements. Présence incontournable à Ottawa depuis le début des années 1990, le Bloc québécois a été...

Welcome to our annual issue on the federal budget. This budget seemed to offer mixed messages, that on the one hand it was transformational, and on the other, in...

POLICY OPTIONS: Mr. Flaherty, thank you for doing this. FINANCE MINISTER JIM FLAHERTY: My pleasure. PO: There seemed to be a bit of a mixed message in the budget....

Economists are often asked to comment on government budgets and provide analysis on the financial implications. Most of the time, though, there’s not really too much an economist can...

Budget-making is never simple, but in the immediate postbudget punditry its complexity is often lost. Good fiscal planning deals with the today and the beyond; it attempts to balance shorter-term...

The purpose of this article is to explore the pressures that are experienced by a federal finance minister in the task of putting together the budget. One has to...

The hallmark reform of the 2012 budget is the change in the age of eligibility for Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) benefits from 65...