Recently, both Brian Mulroney and Justin Trudeau claimed free-market reforms brought great prosperity to Canada. Mulroney said, his tax reforms (that primarily benefited the wealthy) and trade initiatives were the…
Justin Trudeau has rolled out his economic platform in a speech to Vancouver’s Board of Trade. It’s a 5-point plan that focuses mainly on trade with Asia and exporting resources.…
A couple days ago, I wrote a blog on Jim Flaherty that took the politically correct position: Flaherty was a good person, but not-so-good finance minister. Today that got me…
Although I probably disagree with everything Andrew Coyne has to say on economic issues, he has great insight on Proportional Representation: “It’s true, as opponents point out, that PR would…
Jim Flaherty is being remembered by Canadians across the country as a kind, decent person and dedicated public servant. But some pundits are taking things too far. In a shallow…
According to ThreeHundredEight.com, the Harper Conservatives have averaged just under 30% in the polls over the past year. That’s about as low as Harper can go. The 30% makes up…
Fair Vote Canada has decided to take, what I call, the fascist approach to voting reform. They are proportional representation zealots who think they’ll win by waging a war against…
The purpose of economics is to find a system that allocates resources in the most effective way possible for the greatest benefit of society. Even right-wing, free-market ideologues like Ronald…
One of the lines of persuasion Liberal supporters like to use on voters is what I call electoral blackmail: either vote Liberal or Harper will win a majority! Well that’s…
Maclean’s author Paul Wells won a political-writing prize for his book on Stephen Harper, The longer I’m Prime Minister. As a person who likes to curl up with an e-book…
Some Canadian economists are saying we don’t have to worry about a housing bubble. For example, Stephen Gordon from Maclean’s blogs, “Odds are on a soft landing for the Canadian…
Jim Flaherty tried pawning himself off as a prudent manager of Canadian banks and diligent tamer of the housing bubble. But in reality, he was trying to undo damage the…
Proportional Representation true-believers are fond of saying there’s no difference between First-Past-the-Post and Ranked Ballot Voting. Both, they say, are "winner-take-all" systems. Of course, if we had RBV in 2011,…
This is a variation on the fringe-party-explosion fallacy. It’s based on the idea that if we have a low 3% threshold — the vote required before a party can get…
Harper tries to boast he has provided “tax relief” for Canadian families. But the fact is all his boutique tax expenditures, tax-free tax havens and failed corporate tax cuts have…
Neo-con economist Stephen Gordon has nothing but praise for Harper’s “starve the beast” hidden agenda. He boiled it down to a 4 step process: Recklessly cut taxes. Manufacture a budget…
There are two kinds of electoral reform: proportional representation and ranked ballot voting. PR distributes votes to parties, federally, so they get the same percent seats they got in votes.…
Tom Mulcair’s position to not raise income taxes doesn’t seem to be very progressive. According to a poll, 83% of Canadians favor higher taxes on the wealthiest Canadians — the…
It’s depressing to see the only mention that “electoral reform” gets from the corporate-owned media in Canada is to the Cons’ Orwellian-titled “Fair Elections Act.” So now when Canadians look…
When Harper appointed Stephen Poloz to head the Bank of Canada, many in the financial world were taken by surprise. There was speculation his background at Export Development Canada would…
