A report released today by The School of Public Policy offers a national scan of social assistance usage rates to identify trends amongst the Canadian provinces. Based on their analysis, Ron Kneebone and Katherine White conclude that Ontario has the biggest problem with welfare usage (over 7 per cent in 2012) – Alberta maintains the […]

In a report published today in advance of the upcoming federal budget by The School of Public Policy, Jack Mintz and Philip Bazel argue that efforts to revamp the Canada Pension Plan should take a backseat to a couple of straightforward policy reforms that would take 50-75% of single impoverished seniors, living alone, out of […]

Natural resources can be a curse or a blessing for countries. Resources mean revenue, but can also create dependency, lack of diversification, large currency swings, and costly economic and political instability.  The lesson for Canada, delivered at a press conference in Ottawa today by renowned economist Alan Gelb, is that we need to manage our […]

A report published today by The School of Public Policy identifies staggering costs associated with autism and advocates increased support for families dealing with this challenge. “An autism diagnosis of a high-needs child at age two represents the equivalent of telling the family that they must make an immediate lump-sum investment on that day of […]

In the summer of 2012, then Defence Minister Peter MacKay declared the effort to update Canada’s maritime helicopter fleet with 28 new Cyclone aircraft as the worst procurement in Canadian history. Harsh criticism indeed, but the fact is that almost 30 years have passed since government decided to update its dying fleet. Sadly, this example […]

The past year has seen a disconcerting trend for Canada in terms of its global tax competitiveness and attractiveness to investment. In their Annual Global Tax Competitiveness Ranking, Jack Mintz and Duanjie Chen of The School of Public Policy examine the tax environment of 90 countries and find that Canada has fallen 11 spots over […]