Billions of dollars in spending announcements allow politicians to burnish their green credentials. But they don't get the job done
“Around the world, businesses, governments and experts agree that carbon pricing is the cheapest and most efficient way to cut carbon pollution,” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, recently tweeted. If what she says is true, it means all other anti-carbon strategies – including regulations and subsidies – are unnecessarily expensive and inefficient.…
While the U.S. is curtailing the strength of such unions, Canadian government finances are stretched by the cost of public-sector workers
American taxpayers and workers won a big victory recently, with the United States Supreme Court ruling 5-4 in Janus versus American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) that government employees not part of a union could not be forced to pay union dues. Previously, government employees in 22 states were forced to pay…
Lowering corporate taxes means massive increase in business investment, higher wages for workers, lower prices for consumers
This is a tale of two very different Alberta budgets and a lesson on the impact of corporate tax rates. In 2001, the Progressive Conservative government aggressively attacked the province’s corporate tax burden. “Alberta should respond to the worldwide trend to lower corporate income tax rates,” the budget document noted. “If we don’t, we risk…
There’s no better way to waste public funds than to have programs where everyone is spending everyone else’s money
Premier Doug Ford has already broken a key promise. Instead of putting money back into the pockets of Ontarians, the new Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario is apparently hiking expenses. We know this because that great bastion of sound fiscal logic and clear economic thinking – the Toronto Star editorial board – says so. The Green Ontario Fund, which Ford plans to cut, “is putting money…
An overwhelming number of studies show that raising the minimum wage actually eliminates employment opportunities
What does the evidence about the impact of raising minimum wages actually say? It's one of the most contentious public policy debates of recent years. Opponents of raising the minimum wage say it will result in job losses – making it more expensive to hire workers means businesses will hire fewer workers. Supporters point to…
It’s not a too-generous minimum wage. It's the desire of other employers to hire workers whose value is beyond their current pay
Some people think it’s the government that protects workers, through minimum wage laws and regulations that ensure workers get a decent living wage and good working conditions. But in reality, minimum wages and labour regulations don’t protect workers at all – they actually reduce the protection workers enjoy. Take the case of a low-skilled worker…
Government green programs impose costs on third parties. Consumers and taxpayers must pay for those policies, and the environment actually suffers
In a 1999 interview, the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman remarked that there were good arguments for having government take action to reduce pollution, like smoke from power plants. That’s because the smoke imposes costs on third parties – for example, by dirtying property as well as surrounding public spaces. A power plant produces…
Governments should abolish the fruitless minimum wage if they want to do right by young and low-income persons
By Marco Navarro-Genie and Matthew Lau Contributors High unemployment in Atlantic Canada is a longstanding problem. For over four decades, unemployment rates have consistently exceeded the national rate. It is critical for the provinces to reduce barriers to work. Yet governments do the opposite when they raise the legislated minimum wage, as all four Maritime…
“Around the world, businesses, governments and experts agree that carbon pricing is the cheapest and most efficient way to cut carbon pollution,” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, recently tweeted. If what she says is true, it means all other anti-carbon strategies – including regulations and subsidies – are unnecessarily expensive and inefficient.…
