Category Livio Di Matteo
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 […]
Federal Budgetary Comparisons: Canada and the United States
It is federal government budget season in both Canada and the United States and I thought it might be useful to provide a few visual comparisons on federal government finance for the two countries. While the expenditure responsibilities and composition of the two federal governments as well as the relationships and responsibilities with lower tier […]
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 […]
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 […]
Happy New Year….Really!
Well, it’s the start of a New Year and traditionally there should be a sense of optimism to a fresh start. Indeed, at least one forecasting company feels that the global outlook for 2017 is at least stable despite the challenges of 2016 and indeed is expecting an uptick in commodity prices. However, given the […]
No Health Deal. Now What?
Well, I just finished watching the federal health and finance ministers discuss the failed federal transfer health deal on the news. I suppose coming just a few days before Christmas, a dispute over federal health transfers can become a new sort of Canadian holiday tradition given it has happened before with the December 2011 unilateral […]
New CIHI National Health Expenditure Numbers Out
The Canadian Institute for Health Information has released the latest version of its annual report on public and private health expenditure at both the provincial and federal levels. As always, the CIHI provides a wealth of health data and information resources and its site is an enormous asset to health researchers, health care administrators and […]
Why the USA Has A Trump and We Don’t (Yet…)
In the wake of the US presidential election and Donald Trump’s ascension to the mantle of “leader of the free world”, one is left pondering the factors that differentiate Canada from the United States. When I was a young boy and visited relatives in Italy, much to my confusion we were invariably referred to as, […]
Another Foray into Data: New Macro-Financial Data
I think Stephen Gordon's Project Link and its piecing together of fragments of Statistics Canada data is a solid step in the right direction. If our national statistical agency is not going to provide long-term consistent data series, then I suppose its up to the researchers to lead the way. Another case in point is […]
Is it Banking Crisis Season?
One really has to wonder if having the season move into “fall” is correlated with the fall of the financial sector. While some time in the making, the 2007-08 subprime financial crisis moved into crisis mode during August of 2007 and by early fall central banks had moved to lower discount rates and pump liquidity […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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