Category Livio Di Matteo
Is Ontario Spending Too Little on Hospitals?
Earlier this month, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions issued a media release for their The Fewer Hands, Less Hospital Care report, that made the following statement: “Based on the latest figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Ontario government funding for hospitals is $1,395.73 per capita. The rest of Canada, excluding Ontario, […]
Health Spending Numbers: An Update on the Long-Term
It is of course useful from time to time to take a look at the longer-term picture when it comes to health spending especially given that there is a slowdown in health expenditure growth. Figure 1 plots per capita total health expenditure in US PPP dollars from 1960 to 2014 for Canada (to 2014) and […]
Fiscal Balance and Unemployment
As we all know, Canada will be running deficits well into the foreseeable future. Based on the figures from the 2016 Federal Budget, as a percentage of GDP Canada will see its deficit go from a surplus of 0.1% in 2014 to -1.5% in 2016 and then will range from a low of -0.6 percent […]
Federal Budget 2016: Quick Comment
Well it is Budget Day in Canada! Today’s federal budget is designed to address Canada’s uncertain economy by running large deficits to stimulate spending. Interestingly enough, the spending is somewhat more skewed towards people rather than things (infrastructure) which probably makes it a long term calculated pre-election strategy.
Resources, Investment and the Current Canadian Slowdown
Real GDP growth in Canada slowed down during 2015 with the drop in the price of oil and the crash in the resource sector. The economic contribution of the main resource producing provinces to Canada’s economic performance is particularly important when it comes to recent capital formation as an economic driver.
Reforming Government: Do We Need a Human Investment Super-Ministry?
From time to time, I like to ruminate on what could be done to better develop or improve the delivery of government services especially given the tendency of government ministries to overlap when providing services. This gets a further push when I am teaching public finance – as I am this term. There is of […]
Ontario Universities: Is Change Coming?
Well Happy New Year! The start of the New Year is as good a time as any for reflecting on the state of things – including universities. As 2015 dragged to a close, a number of items came out which of course did not generate too much of a stir given the run up to […]
The Great Moderation: International Trends in Alcohol Consumption
December marks the start of the Christmas and holiday season in much of the world and celebration is often marked by the consumption of alcoholic beverages. The negative health effects of consuming too many alcoholic drinks are well documented and along with stricter laws on drinking and driving, the end result has been a decline […]
Health Spending: A Much Longer Term View
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has just released their 2015 report on health expenditure trends and they show that total nominal health expenditure in Canada continues to grow (1.6 percent in 2015) but at a slower rate. Health spending (public and private) has reached $219.1 billion dollars or $6,105 dollars per capita. As […]
Twitter and the Federal Election: A Last Update
Well, there is just over a week to go until Canada’s federal election and I finally managed to put together another update of the leader Twitter follower numbers I first began looking at with my August 13th post and then August 29th and September 19th. It has been a long election campaign and the final […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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