Much of Canada lags international leaders in adopting management systems for assuring safe drinking water. Despite some clear progress in individual provinces, Canada, and small communities in particular, need a system that better promotes and rewards competence among drinking water providers....

A lively debate is underway about replacing Canada’s 2 percent inflation target with a target for lower inflation or a target for the price level itself when Canada’s inflation-control arrangement expires at the end of 2011. Either change could reduce uncertainty about changes in the value...

In its upcoming budget, Quebec must stay on a tough road to fiscal balance.This study examines how Quebec’s fiscal balance has deteriorated. By 2009, after 10 years of balanced budgets, the province faced an unsustainable structural deficit which, if left unchecked, would reach a staggering...

The marginal cost of public funds measures the welfare loss a society incurs in raising an additional dollar of tax revenue. Tax increases distort economic decisions and erode tax bases because of tax avoidance and tax evasion by taxpayers. This Commentary uses econometric estimates of the...

The Commentary released today its 2011 federal Shadow Budget with a five-step plan to end the flow of red ink in Ottawa ahead of the government’s five-year timeline. In this paper, the authors show how Ottawa can return to budget surpluses in four years through more ambitious spending...

The federal government’s role in mortgage markets is pervasive and should be scaled back, while encouraging more competition in the mortgage insurance business, according to this study. The author notes that the mortgage insurance book of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, which is...

The Bank of Canada’s inflation-targeting framework, since its inception in 1991, has proven itself a success. Yet further improvements in the system should be considered seriously for inclusion in a renewed monetary policy agreement, between the Bank of Canada and the federal government, and...

The current monetary policy agreement between the Bank of Canada and the Department of Finance is set to expire at the end of 2011. Among the policy options under consideration is the adoption of either a lower inflation target or a switch to price-level targeting. The recent financial crisis...

Quebec’s Aboriginal poverty is severe, and the large gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal education levels is the most important factor in explaining it. In the report, the author examines the relationship between education levels and employment for Quebec Aboriginals. Comparing outcomes...

The recent financial crisis has driven many plans for improving the stability and resilience of the global financial system. One concept, managing the risk of default in securities or financial derivatives markets through central counterparties, receives scrutiny in this report. The author...