Tag Archives: canada

Tax Policy for Canadians with Disabilities: A Reading List

The amount of research on tax policy for Canadians with disabilities is fairly limited. Moreover, a number of key publications (such as the 2004 Brown and Torjman report) are hard to find. Thus, for my own convenience, and that of other researchers, I have created a reading list. Publications on this list are divided into […]

The Fuss Over TFSAs

Well, there seems to be a fair amount of fuss over the proposed doubling of the contribution limit to Tax Free Savings Accounts(TFSAs).  Kevin Milligan says the case for raising the annual TFSA limit is shaky as the benefit will be mostly to high wealth households rather than those at the middle or bottom of […]

Canadian Convergence

Mark Brown and Ryan MacDonald at Statistics Canada have just released a Research Paper on Canadian provincial convergence and divergence of per capita household disposable income from 1926 to 2011.  They find that while there has been convergence over time, it has proceeded in fits and starts with periods of external shock such as the […]

Another Canadian Debt Ranking

Statistics Canada has released provisional estimates of the Canadian Government Finance Statistics (CGFS) for financial flows and the balance sheets of general government and government business enterprises for the period 2007 to 2012. The net liabilities per capita picture for provincial and territorial governments has changed since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Comparing Manufacturing Employment Growth: Canada and the USA

According to the employment numbers just released, the United States is doing quite well with the preliminary Bureau of Labour Statistics numbers pointing to the addition of 252,000 jobs in December and an unemployment rate now at 5.6 percent. Meanwhile, Canada exhibited a much weaker performance with Statistics Canada reporting that Canada lost 4,300 jobs […]

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, […]

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.

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 […]