Faced with soaring health-care costs, Canadian governments should consider creative ways to enable the population to stay healthy — and making it possible for Canadians to reduce their sodium intake is an extremely cost-effective way to do so. Excess sodium consumption is a risk factor for...

Canada is a safe and stable resource-rich nation in an increasingly energy- hungry world. While this state of affairs imbues our riches with strategic importance, it also creates an acute need for accurate data collection guided by nationally accepted methods, tools and approaches, to cut...

Government interference in markets arouses heated emotions on both sides of the political spectrum. But the fact remains that governments of all stripes routinely play a direct role in the economy. Motivations run the gamut from the economic (correcting perceived market failures) to the ethical...

Policy to address the environmental impacts of transportation fuel derived from conventional oil is frequently focused on the promotion of alternatives such as biofuels. While there are some biofuels that can be developed with relatively few impacts, others can result in broader, complex social...

The central argument of this paper is that Canada should better align provincial own-source revenues with provincial expenditures by turning over the GST to the provinces while simultaneously reducing federal transfers. The paper begins by broadly outlining of Canada's present fiscal...

Over the last decade, the Canadian government has not managed to produce a comprehensive climate change statute and has failed to adequately consider the constitutional implications of doing so. The Clean Air Bill, an unsuccessful 2006 amendment to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act...

Although the Investment Canada Act (ICA) is often criticized for leaving investors and the public in the dark on government decisions regarding proposed foreign investments in Canada, nothing in the Conservative government's platform suggests that the ICA's basic framework will be changed....

Homelessness in Alberta is overwhelmingly concentrated in Calgary and Edmonton, with almost two-thirds of total provincial shelter usage in the former. Calgary also experiences much greater fluctuations in shelter use. Three interconnected economic factors — the supply of rental...

Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario all maintain separate income-support programs for the disabled. This paper examines the criteria applicants must meet for each program and traces variations in monthly payment levels in relation to political exigencies and inflationary pressures affecting...

Fossil fuel subsidies are of enormous import to policy-makers and public opinion, making it critical to properly define them. However, traditional methodologies tend to place subsidies in the realm of tax expenditure analysis, presenting a flawed picture. A recent report on government subsidies...