Tag Archives: Ontario
Federal Transfers, Equalization and Ontario’s Cries for Reform
Transfers and equalization often flare up in Canadian policy discussions with the cry that there is a need for reform. A recent Cohn column in the Toronto Star on Ontario’s economic stall concluded “Outdated equalization and transfer payments cry out for reform, but will likely continue to bleed Ontario’s taxpayers of about $12 billion a […]
Minimum Wages as Macroeconomic Stimulus?
The minimum wage debate has heated up in Ontario given the Ontario Ministry of Labor’s Minimum Wage Advisory Panel is travelling the province looking for input on how to adjust the minimum wage in the province and sparking debate as to whether the minimum wage should be raised from the current general minimum of $10.25 […]
Why Ontario Will Not Be Balancing the Budget Anytime Soon
Ontario released its fall economic statement this week and the government insists that it will be balancing the budget by 2017-18. From an actual deficit of 9.2 billion dollars for 2012-13, it is anticipated that the deficit will be 11.7 billion dollars in 2013-14 and will go down to 3.5 billion dollars by 2016-17. Yet, […]
What’s a Billion?
I have finally been able to catch my breath this week and ponder the situation in Ontario over the report on the final cost of cancelling two natural gas electricity plants in the Oakville-Mississauga area ostensibly in order to retain seats for the Ontario Liberal government given local opposition to the plants. The Ontario auditor […]
Wealth, Religion and Inequality
In nineteenth century Canada, religion was a very important institutional and social force and via its social networks affected employment opportunities and ultimately income. Via both direct and indirect effects, religious affiliation invariably affected asset accumulation and wealth and by extension must also have affected wealth inequality. Indeed, when it comes to examining the wealth […]
University Debt: The Perils of Being Small
You may recall my recent post on Ontario university financing in which I focused on the university debt levels of Brock, Wilfrid Laurier and Guelph given that they were undergoing program reviews designed to address “sustainability”. Well, I have done a bit of an update by getting information on long-term debt, total revenues and enrolment […]
A Digression on University Finance
Well, you may have caught Alex Usher’s HESA post this week on university finances. He presented data on university operating budgets from the CAUBO/Statistics Canada financial survey for the period 2007-08 to 2011-12 that shows that university budgets went up by 28 percent. This is quite intriguing because while universities maintain they have been having […]
Who Gets What Federalism
The recent Mowat Centre report on Ontario’s fiscal gap with Ottawa and the lament that Ontario puts more into Confederation than it gets out brought to mind a poll done in 2005 by EKOS that showed that 51 percent of Canadians believed their province was putting more money into Confederation than it gets out. Of […]
Minding the Gap
The Mowat Centre has issued a new report on Ontario’s fiscal balance within the Federation called "Filling the Gap: Measuring Ontario's Balance within the Federation." The report finds that: “based on the latest available figures, Ontarians transfer approximately $11B on net to the rest of Canada. This transfer is equivalent to 1.9% of the province’s […]
Inheritance
Well, Ontario has a new finance minister – Charles Sousa – and according to the Toronto Star: “Charles Sousa, the two-term Mississauga South MPP who finished fifth in last month’s leadership race, will succeed the retiring Finance Minister Dwight Duncan at the treasury. An affable former Royal Bank executive, Sousa inherits a $11.9-billion deficit that […]
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
Recent Comments