Author Archives: wciecon
Howler of the day
The courier company UPS has filed a claim under NAFTA’s Chapter 11 against Canada Post, in which it claims that the government-owned corporation is using its profits from its first-class mail business – for which it has a government-mandated monopoly – to unfairly subsidise its courier division. Today’s Toronto Star – the connaisseur’s preferred choice […]
Too much change
When I was younger, I would occasionally get irritated waiting in line at a cash register while an older citizen sorted through a handful of coins to pay the exact amount. After all, it was faster to pay with notes and let the cashier – who had the various coins in a conveniently-arranged tray – […]
Alberta’s oil sands
Jim Hamilton at Econbrowser talks about Alberta’s oil sands: One of the reasons for interest in oil sands is the potential magnitudes involved. The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates the ultimate volume of Canadian bitumen in-place at 2.5 trillion barrels, which if it could somehow all be extracted would be enough to satisfy by […]
Surprise! Foreign ownership is a good thing
Or at least, not as bad as we once feared. Foreign ownership has been a hot-button issue in Canada since, well, forever. In itself, foreign investment is a Good Thing of course, since it increases the demand for Canadian labour. But it is possible to imagine having too much of a good thing: foreign firms […]
The Toronto media notices the world outside the 416 and 905 area codes
The Globe and Mail’s John Ibbitson visits my old high school: Mr. Croswell is one of a half-dozen 18-year-olds graduating this year from Orillia District Collegiate and Vocational Institute who have agreed to talk about the federal election and what it means to them. As it turns out, it means nothing to them. What does […]
The Conservatives propose cutting the GST
As was speculated earlier, the Conservative Party of Canada is proposing to cut the Goods and Services Tax rate from 7% to 5%. So far, the best reaction come from the University of Western Ontario’s Jim Davies, in this CBC story: "Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid," he said. Aside from minor quibbles about the number of […]
We made the front page of The Economist!
This never happens. Do you think that they’ll start regularly including Canadian data in their cross-country comparisons? Nah. Too much to hope for.
Does government size matter?
In today’s National Post, William Watson says ‘Voters deserve to know where parties stand on size of public sector’. I suppose that’s true, but I really don’t see why it matters much. Here’s a graph of various rich countries’ GDP per capita and social spending: I don’t see any obvious tradeoff there. Nor has the […]
Breaking news: Canada’s current account balance hits near-record levels!
What with the fall of the federal govt last night and the upcoming election, I’m pretty sure that few paid much attention to today’s StatsCan Daily. That’s too bad, because there was some interesting stuff there – and of far more importance than the tsunami of polls and election speculation that dominated today’s media headlines. […]
An elegant summary of what ails GM
Courtesy of William Watson, in today’s National Post: Here’s the problem with General Motors. Would you buy a car, used or new, from a company that wrote the following sentence: "The Buick LaCrosse is conquesting sales at impressive rates … "? "Conquesting"?
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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