In theory, management of public funds by Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments reflects the preferences Canadians express through their elected representatives. In practice, the revenues and expenses that Canada’s senior governments report after year-end, and the resulting...

Recent figures on Canada’s stock of capital and new business investment are worrying. Canada’s capital stock is not keeping pace with its workforce. New business investment per worker is declining. Not only have areas of traditional strength in Canadian business investment –...

The budgets governments present around the beginning of their fiscal years and the financial statements they publish in their annual reports after their fiscal years have ended are critical tools for legislators and voters to hold them accountable. The transparency of these documents to...

Canada’s municipalities deliver services that are critical to their citizens’ quality of life. Those services require revenue from taxes, fees and transfers from other governments. Yet municipal budgeting is opaque: in most of Canada’s major cities, non-experts cannot make the simplest...

Business investment in Canada lags investment in the United States and in other advanced economies. The gap has widened during the COVID-19 crisis, notably in intellectual property products. Without public policies that promote saving and investment, Canadian workers will not get the capital...

The COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the revenues and expenses of all governments will make the fiscal capacity of Canada’s municipalities a pressing topic for years to come. All the more reason for municipalities to present budgets and other financial information that let Canadians...

William B.P. Robson, a co-author with David Slater of a series of papers on pension issues, has written an ambitious survey of the state of Canadian economic policy in the areas of pensions and health care. He argues that it is appropriate to tackle both issues in the same paper because they are...

Cities are the most visible level of government for most Canadians, providing services such as waste collection, policing and transit. Yet their budgets are the most opaque of any level of government. Municipalities generally use accounting in their budgets that does not match what they use in...

With annual spending of about $4.5 billion dollars in 2010, Canada’s largest drug plan - the Ontario Drug Program (ODB) - will become harder to afford as the babyboomers age and workforce growth slows. A business-as-usual approach to funding the plan, which provides publicly funded drug...

Government-mandated cartels in eggs, dairy and poultry products impose high costs on consumers and harm Canada’s standing in international trade. The authors offer compelling evidence of the high costs to Canadian consumers and limited benefits to farmers arising from the supply management...