Oil Sands Development and Canada's Economic Future
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is doubling down on his strong commitment to oil sands development, charging that the opposition's call for greenhouse gas reductions and a thorough environmental review process of pipeline and new energy projects would be an economic disaster.
This approach is wrong on at least three grounds.
Read moreEven Conservatives should embrace a decent minimum wage
Few Canadian economic debates are as long-standing and as predictable as that over the pros and cons of raising the minimum wage. Progressives call for a higher wage floor to combat inequality, low pay and poverty. But employers and the political right generally argue that a decent minimum wage comes at the cost of jobs, and harms those it is intended to protect.
Read moreFraser Institute is wrong on the Canada Pension Plan
A recent study from the Fraser Institute claims boosting premiums to pay for higher Canada Pension Plan benefits would not work, since individuals would simply save less in RRSPs and other individual savings vehicles. Thus there would be no overall increase in retirement income, and individuals would have less flexible access to their savings because CPP contributions are effectively locked in.
Read moreCorporate Tax Cuts, Lost Revenues and Lagging Business Investment
Corporate tax cuts have been central to the Harper government's economic agenda. The result has been a huge loss of public revenues for negligible economic gain, suggesting that we need a major policy rethink.
Read moreFiscal Austerity Causing Long Term Economic Damage
While Canada's short term economic prospects are pretty gloomy, longer term projections are even worse. A major reason is that policy-makers here and in all of the advanced industrial countries have been content to settle for a very slow recovery which undermines our longer-term economic potential.
Read moreBalanced Budget Law is Poor Economics
The balanced budget legislation introduced as part of the federal budget is based on dubious economic principles that should raise the eyebrows of even fiscally conservative economists.
Read moreInequality and Inter Generational Unfairness
There has been a great deal of recent media commentary on inter generational unfairness, much of which misleadingly argues that affluent older Canadians are benefiting from current economic and social arrangements at the expense of youth.
Read moreThe Harper Record on Jobs, 2006-2014
There are many factors other than federal government policy that strongly influence the quantity and quality of Canadian jobs including resource prices, business decisions, the state of the American and the global economy, and the actions of provincial governments to name a few.
That hasn’t stopped Stephen Harper and his Conservative government from trumpeting their record as good economic managers and pursuing a successful jobs and growth agenda. Harper’s supposedly “steady hand” on the economy is central to Conservative election messaging and his perceived economic acumen a frequent talking point of the mainstream press.
So on the eve of the tabling of the federal budget for 2015-16 and during this election, it is relevant to ask: has the job market improved under Harper’s watch from 2006 to 2014?
Read moreFinancial markets signalling stagnation
Which gives us a better picture of where the economy is headed -- near record low interest rates on government bonds or a stock market that is not far below record highs?
In Canada as well as the United States, bond yields are just above record lows. The interest rate on 10-year Government of Canada bonds is about 1.4%, meaning that investors are prepared to lock in their money for 10 years for a return well below the official 2% inflation rate target.
Read moreQuebec model balances greater equality with economic progress
Glance at just about any publication from the Fraser Institute and other conservative think tanks, and you will be told that too much government social spending and too much regulation of the job market damage growth and job creation. There is, we are told, an ineluctable trade off between social equity and economic efficiency.
Yet this does not readily show up in international comparisons. Germany and some Northern European countries have built highly productive economies and enjoy low unemployment despite being much more equal societies than the United States or Canada.
There is also little evidence of an equity-efficiency trade-off within Canada. Consider the case of Quebec's social and economic performance compared to other provinces.