With the potential of precarious work to limit consumer willingness to spend, delay family formation and create too much uncertainty in the labour force, governments are paying close attention to these issues in Canada and abroad. Further, they are looking at a number of tools to address these...

In nearly all Canada's larger cities, obscure financial reports – notably inconsistent presentations of key numbers in budgets and end-of-year financial reports – hamper legislators, ratepayers and voters seeking to hold their municipal governments to account. Simple questions like “How...

The performance of band-operated, on-reserve schools, while much better than the residential schools they replaced, remains very weak in comparison with provincial schools. Among young adults aged 20-24, nine of 10 non-Aboriginals have at least high school, as do eight of 10 Métis and seven of...

Improvements, not an overhaul, are needed for Employment Insurance (EI) eligibility, states a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Unequal Access: Making Sense of EI Eligibility Rules and How to Improve Them,” authors David Gray and Colin Busby find that the degree of alleged...

For many seniors, their greatest health concern is the ongoing care that many of them will need as their ability to cope with the routine tasks of daily life declines. Due to various chronic health problems or just old age, supportive services for seniors – often referred to as continuing care...

Is expanding the scope for parents to choose among competing schools an effective policy lever for improving the quality of education? What lessons can we take from British Columbia’s experience with greater school choice? In 2002, British Columbia implemented a new policy that makes it easier...

Control over public money is fundamental to democratic government, and presents huge challenges to legislators and taxpayers. Getting the information needed to answer simple questions such as how planned spending in the upcoming year compares to actual results in the prior year can be hard, and...