Favoured friends
After the Campbell Liberals were elected in 2001, influences of special business interests grew rapidly. Under Christina Clark's leadership, non-renewable resource companies wield great political power and they use it…
taxation
Truth found in numbers, lies found in words
I am reading budget documents and will soon be writing more about the provincial government's financial smoke and mirrors but I have initial comments.Natural GasBC Liberals, particularly Premier Clark, are…
Vanishing revenues
With land developers, the largest funders of the BC Liberal Party are natural resource companies. They've contributed millions of dollars to encourage government sympathetic to their needs. No administration in…
Redistribution, Inequality, and Federal Policy: Guest Post by Edgardo Sepulveda
We are pleased to present this rich guest post by a new PEF member, Edgardo Sepulveda. Edgardo has been a consulting economist for more than two decades advising Governments and…
Medical services poverty program
Readers of an age to receive a monthly Old Age Security cheque will be thrilled to notice a 57¢ increase in January. As I mentioned on Twitter, cautious saving of…
Dix choses à savoir sur les défis associés avec mettre fin à l’itinérance au Canada
Le 18 novembre, j’ai fait une présentation sur les défis en ce qui concerne « mettre fin à l’itinérance » au Canada au 7 Cities Leadership Summit à Edmonton. Ma…
When industry buys a government…
Who knew that Christy Clark would make Gordon Campbell look like an effective, if somewhat dishonest, Premier. #bcpoli— Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) December 4, 2015Did gas industry get a good deal…
Ten Things to Know About the Challenges of Ending Homelessness in Canada
On November 18, I gave a presentation on “ending homelessness” at the 7 Cities Leadership Summit in Edmonton. My PowerPoint slides can be downloaded here. Here are ten things to…
Trusted editorial content may not be trusted
Postmedia is a company in trouble. It cannot sustain crippling debt to American debt holders with revenues from traditional advertising, circulation and digital paywalls. One of its responses is Postmedia…
Ten Things to Know About Homelessness in Canada
This afternoon I gave a presentation at Raising the Roof’s Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit in Toronto. My slide deck can be downloaded here. To accompany the presentation, I’ve…
Dix Choses à Savoir sur l’Itinérance au Canada
Cet après-midi, j’ai fait une présentation au Child & Family Homelessness Stakeholder Summit, organisé par Chez Toit, à Toronto. Ma presentation, illustrée de diapositives, peut être téléchargée ici. Pour accompagner…
Small Business Taxes, Big Loopholes
by: Kaylie Tiessen & David Macdonald Small business taxes made the news last week when, during a CBC interview, federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau suggested many business owners are using…
The economics of the possible and beyond
Last week, I wrote a short piece for Ricochet on the kind of simple but serious economic thinking missing from the Canadian election debate so far. Here, I want to…
Avoidance / Evasion: often a fine line
The price isn’t right, Corporate profit-shifting has become big business, The Economist: DURING THE TAX-EVASION trial of Leona Helmsley, a flamboyant hotelier, a former housekeeper testified that she heard her…
Serving public or corporate interests?
The audio file below is a recording of my time with Ian Jessop June 17. We talk about LNG and resource taxation, inter-provincial cooperation on resource matters and oil spill…
Remembering the desperate nineties
Much of British Columbia’s recent political history has been written by a Liars Club sponsored by beneficiaries of corrupt public administrations. One fable claims that BC Liberals rescued the provincial…
Horgan speaks to the Premier
Hansard, May 28, 2015 The notion of a Debt-free British Columbia — hard to imagine when you’ve seen $135-billion increase in debt and contractual obligations under the B.C. Liberal watch.…
"Jobs, jobs, jobs" Or, maybe not
Your browser does not support this audioThe audio file above is a recording of my time with Ian Jessop May 12. We talk about jobs and natural resources but we…
Myth busting
Andrew Nikiforuk wrote advice for Albertans in his recent article Eight Steps to Reform the Broken Petrostate: Behave like an owner: Alberta’s oil and gas resources belong to Albertans. The…
Flawed analysis
Following the passing of Alberta’s Conservative party, Macleans writer Colby Cosh described a drawn-out illness that made the result inevitable. Followers of British Columbia politics will recognize symptoms also found…