Category Canadian economy
Promoting Consumption Taxation in Canada
Consumption taxation is making the news again in Canada. Manitoba’s PST hike to 8 percent that was announced in April’s provincial budget kicked in on July 1st. At the public hearings into the increases and in the media, the increase has received a lot of criticism despite the claim the increase will be temporary and […]
The National Dream’s Economic Legacy
The completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1885 was more than an impressive engineering achievement; it was also a significant joint economic undertaking by the public and the private sectors and a key ingredient in Canadian nation building as it provided the east-west transport corridor that made the Canadian west an investment frontier. […]
Explaining the Health Spending Slowdown
Canadian Institute for Health Information numbers show that there is a moderation in health expenditure growth underway. From a growth rate of 6.1 percent in 2010, the CIHI estimates growth in total nominal health spending of 3.9 percent in 2011 and 3.4 percent in 2012. Over the same period, the health expenditure to GDP ratio […]
Fiscal Death Watchlist
I found Nick Rowe’s post Is Japan Already Dead quite inspiring so I decided to dig up the most current IMF World Economic Outlook Database for numbers on net debt to GDP ratios. Japan – which may already be dead – has a net debt to GDP ratio in 2012 of 134 percent. An estimate […]
Fiscal Equity, Taxes and GTHA Transit
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has shot down Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne’s proposal that the 34 billion dollar Metrolinx Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) transit expansion plan could be funded by a special regional increase in the provincial portion of the HST. For this to happen, Ottawa would have to agree to Ontario’s request […]
The Interest Rate Time Bomb
The recent policy debate over whether its time for interest rates to start to rise after being at the lowest levels since the Great Depression for nearly five years shows just how much of a policy box governments are in when it comes to fiscal and monetary policy. Never mind the debate over whether there […]
If you don’t like low interest rates, you want the Bank of Canada to loosen monetary policy now
Two weeks ago I wrote a post "Monetary stimulus vs financial stability is a false trade-off". My opening lines in that post were: "There's an idea floating around out there that I fear may be influential. And that idea is horribly wrong. Which makes it dangerous. And I want to try to kill it." Today, […]
Monetary stimulus vs financial stability is a false trade-off
There's an idea floating around out there that I fear may be influential. And that idea is horribly wrong. Which makes it dangerous. And I want to try to kill it. But macro is hard. And it's not easy to explain clearly and simply. I can only try. And I can only hope that others […]
Montreal: An Island of Calm?
The latest release on the value of building permits for Canada's CMAs by Statistics Canada provides an interesting perspective on a slowing economy. The numbers show that there has been a downward trend in the total value of permits since late 2012.
Who Gets What Federalism
The recent Mowat Centre report on Ontario’s fiscal gap with Ottawa and the lament that Ontario puts more into Confederation than it gets out brought to mind a poll done in 2005 by EKOS that showed that 51 percent of Canadians believed their province was putting more money into Confederation than it gets out. Of […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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