What To Do About Dutch Disease?
In response to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s complaint about oil and the exchange rate, several (conservative) commentators argued that this “Dutch disease” is not what ails Ontario manufacturing. Andrew Coyne…
Ontario
Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your pre-debate reading. – Dave connects a few more dots as to who’s behind Robocon. Guy Giorno helpfully acknowledges that the Cons were supposed to have business-style…
The Affordability of Post-Secondary Education
Carleton University’s Ted Jackson teaches a graduate seminar course on post-secondary education in Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Earlier this month, I was invited to give a guest…
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Erin notes that the revenue gap being used as an excuse to demand massive cuts in Ontario is nearly entirely closed with…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that the McGuinty Libs’ choice to emphasize austerity rather than stabilizing Ontario’s economy may lead down exactly the same…
Grant Gordon: The Real New Progressive Politics
These videos are both fantastic for similar reasons. They both show how positive and energetic Mr. Grodon is and how he is the progressive voice that Toronto-Danforth needs in Ottawa.…
Ontario To Reintroduce Trans Rights Bill
A bill protecting the trans community from employment and housing discrimination in Ontario is expected to be introduced in the provincial legislature today. This will be the fourth time the…
Full day kindergarten or… pointless tax breaks for profitable corporations
Economist Erin Weir digs up an interesting nugget about the results of the McGuinty government’s changes to corporate tax structure in the Drummond Report. The government claimed that adding HST…
Drummond Misdiagnoses Ontario’s Economy
The Harvard International Review has posted an interview with Don Drummond. I have posted the following response: It is good Drummond confesses that his free-market policy prescriptions failed to improve…
Questioning “The Prophet Drummond”
In the Commission report that bears his name, and in all of his media appearances since its release, Banker Don Drummond has ably played the disinterested expert, taking no pleasure…
McGuinty’s Business Tax Breaks
An interesting nugget in last week’s Drummond report is Table 11.1, an updated version of Table 2 from “Ontario’s Tax Plan for Jobs and Growth” (2009). It provides a sectoral…
YAY! Team Lets Hammer Them Some More
I’ve found it extremely nauseating to engage in my favourite pastime of reading newspapers these past few days. Their cheerleading for Drummonds all too predictable evisceration of Ontario’s civil society…
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Susan Riley brilliantly slams the message that austerity is necessary for everybody but those who already have the most: Is anyone else getting…
More on the Drummond Report…
As some of you know, I have a deep interest in and am involved with Ottawa’s childcare community. One of the working assumptions we have had in our forward planning…
Tell me why…
… Drummond did not recommend eliminating Ontario’s wasteful and discriminatory duplicate education system? Anybody? As well, it was good to hear the Chair of the OCDSB note on CBC this…
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Erin nicely summarizes Don Drummond’s report on Ontario’s finances. But it’s worth noting that leaving aside Drummond’s own choice not to follow…
Drummond: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
The Drummond Commission reported today. The Good While the McGuinty government prevented the Commission from considering tax rates, it proposes some sensible measures to raise revenue. Chapter 18, “Revenue Integrity,”…
Could McGuinty’s cuts be worse than Harris?
The Ontario government’s long awaited and much discussed report of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario’s Public Services (aka, the Drummond report) was finally publicly released this afternoon. As…
Catholic Schools Unveil Their Tax-Paid GSA Replacements
The Ontario Ministry of Education has long recommended that all schools offer student-run Gay Straight Alliances. GSAs intend to improve the lives of GLBT students, giving them positive role models,…
Transparency isn’t a cost – its a cost saver (a note for Governments and Drummond)
Yesterday Don Drummond – a leading economist hired by the Ontario government to review how the province delivers services in the face of declining economic growth and rising deficits –…