BI in the News

Joe Friesen / Globe and Mail

Canadians under 35 are more left wing than the rest of Canada and could transform the political landscape if only they voted, according to a new study.

The study, set to be released Friday, found evidence of an emerging generational divide in Canadian politics. Younger Canadians are consistently more favourable to the idea of government intervention in the economy, ensuring a decent standard of living for all...

Mark Kennedy / Ottawa Citizen

Former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow, who led a federal inquiry into medicare more than a decade ago, says the public health care system is deteriorating and close to a “tipping point.”

In an interview with the Citizen, Romanow called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government to adopt a more activist federal approach to health care, including working to create a national pharmacare scheme. Romanow also urged Harper’s government...

Stephen Hume / Vancouver Sun

Is Prime Minister Stephen Harper Canada’s equivalent to Richard Nixon, that U.S. president who was eventually impeached for using state powers to punish critics of his government and policies?

Whether or not you dismiss such a comparison as casual water cooler opinion, there are real grounds for a perception that Canada’s politicians can use government to silence critics, the Environmental Law Centre at the...

Garry Marr / Financial Post

The two men who might be considered the fathers of tax-free savings accounts in Canada, now worth more than $132 billion, appear to be in disagreement over what happens next to their brainchild.

Jonathan Rhys Kesselman, who co-authored a report back in 2001 with Finn Poschmann, vice-president of policy analysis at the C.D. Howe Institute, is suggesting it’s time to rein in the...

Rhys Kesselman / iPolitics

The federal government has delivered on the first of its two major tax promises from the 2011 election campaign. Income-splitting has been extensively assessed and widely criticized for its revenue cost, its tilt toward higher-income families, and its failure to accomplish anything beneficial for the economy.

Soon the other shoe may drop: The Conservative Party of Canada’s second major tax promise from the last election was to double the...

Sheena Goodyear / QMI Agency

If the Tories go ahead with plans to double the contribution limit on tax-free savings accounts, it will cost the government billions of dollars and benefit only the very wealthy, two separate studies released Tuesday say.

The Parliamentary Budget Office, Canada' budget watchdog, and the Broadbent Institute, a left-wing think-tank, both released scathing reports about the Conservative government's plan to double the TFSA limit...

Bill Curry / Globe and Mail

A plan to double the amount people can put in a tax-free savings account is facing new criticism that – like income splitting – it would benefit mainly the most well-off Canadians.

Rhys Kesselman, a professor at Simon Fraser University who holds the Canada Research Chair in public finance, is releasing a report on Tuesday that says most people – except very high earners, some older workers and retirees –...

James Fitz-Morris / CBC News

A new study into tax-free savings accounts says there is no justification "on either economic or equity grounds" for doubling the contribution limit without conditions.

In the last election campaign, the Conservatives promised to double the annual savings account contribution limits once the budget is balanced — and it remains among the few big-ticket promises that have not been fulfilled.

However, economist Rhys Kesselman says...

Lee-Anne Goodman / The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Two studies on tax-free savings accounts sound alarm bells about their long-term fiscal impact if the Conservative government keeps a 2011 campaign promise to allow people to park almost twice as much money in the popular savings vehicles.

The report from the left-leaning Broadbent Institute says a pledge to up the TFSA contribution limit to $10,000 from the current $5,500 would ultimately cost...

Peter O'Neil / Vancouver Sun

OTTAWA — Prominent B.C. economist J. Rhys Kesselman is horrified by the Frankenstein’s monster that has evolved from a tax policy idea he advanced in 2001.

Kesselman, in a paper he co-wrote with Finn Poschmann of the C.D. Howe Institute, proposed a form of tax-free savings that was aimed particularly at encouraging low-income Canadians to save for retirement.

That idea ended up in the 2008 Conservative budget and has been...