The Conservative Party of Canada’s proposal to double contribution limits for Tax-Free Savings Accounts (TFSA) has received inadequate critical scrutiny to date. This gap may stem from the notion that little revenues will be lost and the perception that most taxpayers would benefit. Both beliefs are erroneous.

Read our new study, authored by Broadbent Institute Policy Fellow Rhys Kesselman, Canada Research Chair in Public Finance with the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University. 

Last week, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau appeared to back away from a national carbon price. He said some of the provinces have already implemented carbon pricing, so the federal government will be left to "oversee."

What Trudeau is actually saying isn’t quite clear, but it certainly seems like he is giving up on creating a national carbon price and leaving it to the provinces.

Forbidden to text while driving, you can waste your time checking the fluctuating price of gas at every gas station you see and how at each station it differs from yesterday. All you will learn is that the price shifts up and down over space and time – the operation of that seductive beast called the market – with corresponding effects on your pocketbook or credit card balance.

The words “industrial policy” have been virtually banned from polite company, and should certainly never be uttered in the presence of small and impressionable children.

Many mainstream economists and conservative think-tanks believe that governments should seek only to create a favourable business climate through low taxes and light regulation, and should not intervene in the investment decisions of private corporations.

And yet, industrial policy (which should be called strategic economic policy) persists, and arguably has a greater impact on investment and jobs than broad framework policies like deep corporate tax cuts.