Category Canadian economy
Balancing Ontario’s Budget…In 1875
We often long for simpler times and search for them in our not so distant past. As an economist that does public finance and economic history, the public accounts of the past can offer me an interesting diversion. Governments, at any time in history always take in revenues and make payments and the budgets and […]
Project Link update: Labour Force Survey, 1953-2017
I've updated and expanded the data archived on Project Link, my attempt to take the fragments of data published by Statistics Canada and piece them together into a coherent whole. In my post introducing Project Link, I made note of a chart I came across while putting together the headline data from the Labour […]
Understanding Softwood Lumber: Another View
As we move into the latest iteration of the ongoing softwood lumber dispute with the United States, I thought it might be useful to look at some data to see if any additional insight can be gained. The conventional wisdom on the story is that the disagreements have been over the way the two countries […]
150 Years of Federal Consumption Taxation
In the run up to Canada Day and the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, here is another in a line of recent snapshots of the federal government – this time its consumption tax revenues. Why consumption taxes? Well, economists like to make the case for more emphasis on consumption taxation relative to income taxes, which […]
150 Years of Canadian National Defence Spending
Canada’s federal government is going to deliver a new defence policy that is expected to guide Canada’s military for the next generation. While in the works for months, it comes in the wake of President Donald Trump’s recent exhortation at the NATO meetings that NATO members are not spending enough and Tuesday’s speech by Minister […]
A Very Brief History of Federal Cash Transfers: Canada 1867 to 2017
This is a post in celebration of Canada’s 150th and similar in time span to my previous one on housing supply and dwelling starts. Canada is a federation and a key feature of its operation is a system of intergovernmental transfers between its fiscal tiers. Indeed, transfers and regional equity are enshrined in Section 36 […]
We Are Adding Less to Housing Supply
Housing prices particularly in places like Toronto and Vancouver are still a big issue and what is driving them is the subject of debate. There is Josh Gordon’s recent policy paper, which places the main emphasis on demand side factors and there is the recent story raising alarm on Toronto’s “housing bubble”. There are of […]
Supply Constraints and Ontario Housing Prices
A key feature of housing markets in Canada over the last decade is the sustained increase in prices particularly in larger urban centers such as Vancouver and Toronto. Data from Canada Mortgage and Housing (CMHC) on average MLS housing prices for Ontario as a whole shows that between 1990 and 2015 the increase was from […]
Apple Prices and Core Inflation
An economy produces two goods: apples and haircuts. The production function for apples shifts up or down every year at random, depending on the weather. The production function for haircuts never shifts. The weather causes relative prices to change. When there is good weather, and the apple harvest is large, the price of haircuts in […]
Infrastructure Overbuilds: Past and Present
Thomas Gunton of Simon Fraser University’s Resource and Environmental Planning Program had a piece in yesterday’s Globe and Mail raising the question if the statement of support for the Keystone XL pipeline and the approval of two other pipelines was moving Canada to a situation of surplus capacity when it comes to pipelines? Gunton’s answer […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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