Incoming Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has confirmed her partyt’s intention to raise the minimum wage in the province to $15/hr. Like many things this sounds good but in fact isn’t,…
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Is Aboriginal Canada, mired in poverty and poor education, nonetheless opposed in principle to doing anything to change their circumstances? You might be forgiven for thinking this if you read…
Income splitting is often portrayed by its opponents as an inexplicable effort to give tax relief to the already wealthy at the expense of everyone else. I think that is…
In today’s Globe column I weigh in on the issue of whether balanced budget legislation is worth while or not. My view is that the history of parliamentary democracy is…
MLI hosted a debate earlier this week about whether Canadians should worry about income inequality. One of the common economic fallacies that found its way into the debate was the…
Thanks to the generosity of the Japanese government I have just returned from two weeks in the land of the rising sun. A fascinating visit that gave me a week’s…
My latest musings for the Globe/ROB’s Economy Lab revolves around the context and significance of the year’s most important budget: Quebec’s. After years of failed attempts, the new Liberal government…
The critics of judicial activism tend to focus on the Supreme Court (SCC) and its individual decisions. I think that’s a mistake. There are systemic forces at work undermining the…
We all know that uncertainty is the great enemy of prosperity, but people often forget why that’s true. Uncertainty’s great cost is that most forms of investment require years to…
One of President Obama’s recent themes in his criticism of the Keystone XL pipeline is the dismissive comment that it will transport “Canadian oil”, as if that were obviously a…