A certain segment of the Canadian population is at risk of being ill-prepared for retirement. These people will likely not have enough pension income when they retire to maintain their current lifestyle. It sounds like a problem that calls for urgent government action. Only, these people are not underprivileged or lowincome earners. They are middle- and higher-income earners who lack an employer-provided pension, but presumably have the capacity to save for retirement on their own....

If there is one thing to question about the recently signed free-trade deal between Canada and South Korea, it is this: What took us so long? South Korea is a long-time trading partner with Canada, with a democratic political system and a rapidly expanding free-market economy offering strong protections for commercial rights. The country is an excellent place for Canada to begin a deeper economic integration with the larger Asian market. The details of the...

Fuelled by the province’s booming energy sector, Alberta’s two largest cities have experienced unprecedented levels of growth. As a result, they face a choice about how to best accommodate their expanding populations — whether to grow out or grow up. For decades, Calgary and Edmonton accommodated almost all growth through the former, suburban expansion. Indeed, the postwar period was marked by a focus on contiguous outward growth to ensure housing affordability and the efficient use...

Canada’s roads, bridges, wastewater treatment centres and sewer systems are already past their prime. On average, and across the country, these key elements of municipal infrastructure are now past the halfway point of their useful lifespans. In the next 10 to 15 years, Canadian cities will face some very expensive bills for replacing critical infrastructure. But there are better means of funding needed infrastructure than raising local taxes or pleading with the provincial and federal...

As anyone paying attention during the 2008–2009 financial crisis is aware, the Canadian financial system weathered the storm uniquely well. Exactly why Canada’s system remained so comparatively stable, while so many other foreign systems broke down, is a question that remains largely unsettled. One explanation may be that the regulatory system that emerged from a very specific history of prior crises had both prepared Canada well for such a crisis, and responded effectively as the...

Last year featured a high stakes battle between two mighty protagonists. On one side, allegedly representing the interests of all Canadians, the federal government. On the other side, Bell, Rogers, and Telus. The issue at stake: What institutions should govern the allocation of resources in the provision of wireless services? Should the outcomes — prices, quality, availability, and other terms of service — be determined by the market? Or should the government intervene? The answer...

Canada may be a Pacific nation, but one would hardly know it, given its history of merely sporadic and inconsistent engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. The idea of a proud legacy of special relations with Asian nations is clearly overblown. Canada’s relations with the Indo-Pacific region are in need of serious attention and forethought. There is cause for concern: With the spectacular economic rise, and growing influence, of certain Asian nations, Canada’s pattern of Indo-Pacific...

The equalization system has long been considered a vital underpinning of the Canadian federation: a means to create some purported fairness or justice among the provinces, by redistributing the wealth of provinces with larger fiscal capacities to allow those with weaker fiscal capacities to provide roughly equivalent services to their citizens. However, the mechanics of the equalization formula have long been suspected of being flawed. Since grant-receiving provinces can adjust the way their fiscal capacities...

Canada’s equalization program is supposed to ensure that provinces that lack the same ability to raise revenue as other provinces, due to economic differences, are still able to provide their residents with roughly similar levels of public service. The equalization program itself is ostensibly based on a formulaic approach, with automatic equalization payments kicking in where and when they are needed, while federal social transfers to the provinces are, at least by name, purportedly intended...

Recent waves of political controversy over military procurement programs, most notably the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project, are symptoms of an ongoing and increasingly strategic choice Canada is making in the way it equips its military. From the failure to settle on a design for the Arctic/Offshore Patrol Ship (which had an originally planned delivery date of 2013), to the un-awarded contracts for new fixed-wing search and rescue aircraft (initially anticipated nearly a decade ago)...

The concept of “Housing First” has taken on a powerful status in the complex of government, non-profit and academic systems that study and seek to eliminate homelessness. It is a compelling concept, in that it has brought our society to the realization that housing instability itself is often the culmination of various underlying and intersecting issues, ranging from mental health and addiction issues to domestic abuse and poverty. The “Housing First” principle holds that homeless...

When the government establishes a social program whose primary purpose is to help provide support to low-income people with disabilities, its success should be measured on how well it achieves that purpose. Unfortunately, there are reasons to seriously question the usefulness of Canada’s disability tax credit since it is helping so very few of the people it is intended to support. In fact, the credit is helping only a small number of Canadians with disability...

The global economy can be viewed today as a myriad of border-crossing supply chain networks of production, supply, distribution and marketing systems. Given the enormous value embodied in these systems, and an environment increasingly characterized by uncertainty and vulnerability, it is not surprising that concern about supply chain security has intensified. Concern takes many forms. For example, how supply chains might be used as vehicles for criminal activity (smuggling, trafficking of narcotics and importing counterfeit...

With its 2016 budget, the Government of Alberta laid out the basic details of the carbon tax rebate. The rebate is constructed to increase based on household size, and will decrease with income after a pre-set cutoff. The government has stated six in 10 households will be eligible for a full rebate, with an additional six per cent receiving a partial rebate. This paper examines the income distribution of Albertans, to determine how the rebate...

The disclosure of information on the granting of stock options as part of senior managers’ compensation packages can be a cumbersome and patchy process in terms of both regulatory compliance and public accessibility. Closing the gaps to make the reporting and accessing of data less unwieldy and more timely, efficient and accurate, should be a priority for securities regulators Firms are required to disclose the issuing of stock options to their highestlevel executives in their...

Alberta’s new royalty regime has made the province a more rewarding place for anyone looking to invest in conventional non-renewable resources. After Alberta’s NDP government commissioned a review of the royalty regime to ensure the province was receiving its “fair share,” it ended up determining that revenue-neutral changes were warranted to the royalty system for conventional oil, with oilsands largely left untouched. However, the few changes that were made have had a substantial impact on...

It can be easy for Canadians who appreciate the qualities of their country to overestimate the power that it also has to lure investment in a world where so many other destinations are competing for capital. Canadians can take pride in our political stability and our highly educated workforce, and we do have good communication and transportation infrastructure, but a great number of other countries offer those things, too, at roughly the same level. Meanwhile,...

Municipal reliance on property taxes and the competing priorities of municipalities—in terms of where they plan and approve land development within their boundaries—in order to capture new property taxes, has led to political conflict between adjacent municipalities.1 Nowhere in Alberta is this more evident than in the Edmonton and Calgary metropolitan regions, where sustained high-levels of growth has led to the expansion of the core-cities, rapid residential development rates in peripheral urban centres and the...

For a century, oil and gas wells have been Alberta’s economic pride. That there could be a hidden cost in maintaining these wells past their productive life is difficult to imagine, much less accept. The financial burden of abandoning a well officially is no doubt why Alberta producers delay doing so as long as possible. Turning a blind eye, they routinely keep non-producing wells in a state of “inactive” suspension and refuse to rule out...

In April 2013, The School of Public Policy formally launched the Extractive Resource Governance Program, a platform to harness Canadian and international research and technical expertise to assist resource-rich jurisdictions in establishing sustainable and mutually beneficial policies for governance of the extractive sector. The program delivers applied policy research, technical assistance and executive training programs to countries with emerging or established extractive resources, working in collaboration with governments, regulatory bodies, academia, civil society, and industry....

Corporate income tax (CIT) incidence is an important and contentious issue in tax policy discussions. Much of the focus in the recent literature and in policy discussions concerns the allocation of the burden of the CIT between owners of capital and labour. Since income from capital tends to be concentrated with wealthier individuals, if the burden of the CIT falls largely on capital it increases the tax system’s progressivity. On the other hand, if the...

For Donald Trump ‘America First’ means ‘America First.’ Canada and likeminded nations will have to get used to it. Canada will have to actively engage with Congress, the states and the private and public interests that drive the American agenda. We will also have to put more effort and contribute more to the rules-based order of which we have been a beneficiary. Traditional statecraft is based on predictability and stability, both hallmarks of U.S. post-war...

Over the past two decades there has occurred a shift in economic power from central Canada to other parts of the country. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador have both claimed a noticeably larger share of Canada’s GDP since 1995 but easily the largest shift of economic output has been to Alberta. This adjustment in the Canadian economy is most easily observed in the large migration between provinces of Canadians seeking employment. Data from Statistics Canada’s...

Although the United States is finally showing signs of some slow economic recovery, in global terms North America is in relative decline as large emerging-market economies, particularly China, show much more promise for growth. But Canada, having relied on a north-south pattern of diplomacy and trade with the United States, is not well positioned to become part of this new economic world order. China is paying attention. It has not escaped notice among the Chinese...

A number of Canadian acquisition announcements over the past few years have generated significant debate about a variety of issues like whether or not Canada should have a separate procurement agency, whether or not industrial and regional benefits are appropriate and whether or not Canadian companies should be given preference over international companies. In discussions about improving our procurement process Australia is often used as an example because the nations are generally considered to be...