Category Livio Di Matteo
Supporting Ontario
One of the Mowat Centre’s recent policy forays on behalf of Ontario is the Federal Economic Agenda Project, which recently released a discussion paper detailing the objectives of what a federal government economic agenda to support Ontario should be. According to the report, the federal agenda for Ontario should focus on: increased labour force participation, […]
Urban GDP
Statistics Canada has released experimental estimates of gross domestic product for the period 2001 to 2009 for 33 census metropolitan areas. The results of course reinforce what we already know – that Canada’s economic activity is concentrated in its cities and half of our GDP is produced in just six cities – Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, […]
Bond Finance and the Great Depression
Attending the Social Science History Association Meetings in Toronto this weekend provided as usual an opportunity to take in new papers and ideas, digest them and then think about what further insight they might add to our knowledge of past economic events. One such paper was Richard Sutch’s (University of California) “Financing the Great War: […]
Comparing Health Spending Restraint: Past and Present
Adjusting for inflation and population growth, the new CIHI numbers show per capita provincial and territorial government health expenditures have declined since their peak in 2010. From a high of $2,584 (1997 dollars), real provincial and territorial government health spending per capita has declined by 3.9 percent to reach an estimated $2,483.
New CIHI Health Numbers: Health Care Cost Curve Still Bending
The Canadian Institute for Health Information has released its 2014 edition of health spending data – National Health Expenditure Trends, 1975 to 2014 – and the numbers seem to show a continuing trend towards slower growth of health expenditures in Canada.
The New Mercantilists
In its search for new revenues, Ontario commissioned a government panel to examine how to wring more money out of government assets. In recent days, the panel led by TD Bank CEO Ed Clark has revealed several ideas including selling off Hydro One’s distribution business, restructuring Ontario Power Generation so it provides more revenues and […]
Government Dependency – Recent CMA Building Permit Composition in Canada
Ultimately all economics is local. Ontario municipalities are in the final throes of a municipal election race and in my own community the question of municipal economic development via public sector construction spending has come up. The concern is that much of the economic activity in my community over the last four years has been […]
Where is a Kenneth Carter When You Need One?
I would imagine that the name Kenneth Carter is not well known outside of a narrow range of economic specialists and accountants working in the tax or public finance area. Kenneth Carter was appointed in 1962 by a Conservative Prime Minister – John Diefenbaker – to examine and report on the federal tax system. The […]
Universities as Federations
Alex Usher had an interesting post on how universities are basically conflicted between their central authorities and the interests of the assorted disciplines that make up a university. He stresses that the actual point of a university is that it serves to advance knowledge by getting disciplines to work together to tackle problems in a […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
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