By Ben Eisen and Alex Whalen Among the many challenges emerging from the COVID-19 crisis, a worrying story has emerged from Newfoundland and Labrador and other provincial governments across the country should take notice.On March 20, Newfoundland Premier Dwight Ball wrote a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau asking Ottawa for assistance in funding the provincial [...]
Appeared in National Newswatch, March 27, 2020 By Alex Whalen and Niels Veldhuis Aside from the enormous health-related challenges due to the COVID-19 virus, employers and workers are feeling major economic pain with job loss, reduced income and revenue. The ability of businesses to adjust quickly will be key to stabilizing the economy and laying [...]
Appeared in the Fredericton Daily Gleaner, March 16, 2020 By Jake Fuss and Alex Whalen Last week, the Higgs government tabled its 2020 budget. While the future of this government remains unknown, the budget highlights some of the important challenges facing the province. On the positive side, the government forecasts its fourth consecutive balanced budget, [...]
Appeared in Calgary's Business, January 5, 2020By Alex Whalen and Jake Fuss Last month, before the holidays, the Trudeau government released its fall economic update, which revealed—among other issues—that Canada’s federal debt-to-GDP ratio increased, meaning Canada’s debt has grown faster than the economy. This is particularly important because the government chose the debt-to-GDP ratio to guide [...]
Appeared in the Chronicle Herald, December 24, 2019By Bacchus Barua and Alex Whalen Nova Scotians are worried about health care—and rightly so, as the province’s wait times are among the longest in the country. According to a new study from the Fraser Institute, patients in Nova Scotia in 2019 waited 33.3 weeks, from referral by [...]
Appeared in the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, December 22, 2019By Tegan Hill and Alex Whalen Policymakers in New Brunswick too often take the mistaken view that more spending on education means better results. In reality, the province spends well above the national average on a per-student basis, but performs relatively poorly on student tests. Simply put, [...]
AIMS' study The Size and Cost of Atlantic Canada's Public Sector was referenced in a CBC Newfoundland article by former Premier Brian Peckford on federal assistance for the province. "...our spending is out of control, with the largest public sector expenditures in Atlantic Canada" Read the article here Read the study
News outlet Huddle quoted AIMS Vice President Alex Whalen in an article discussing the release of our study Rethinking Student Job Subsidies: The Case For Regional Equity in the Canada Summer Jobs Program. Read the article here: https://huddle.today/economists-say-subsidy-for-student-jobs-shouldnt-vary-so-greatly-across-the-country/
AIMS' study Rethinking Student Job Subsidies: The Case For Regional Equity in the Canada Summer Jobs Program was quoted in an article from the Calgary Herald discussing federal grant money allocation. Read here: https://calgaryherald.com/news/politics/study-argues-alberta-short-changed-by-canada-summer-jobs-funding-allocation
AIMS VP Alex Whalen joined the Sheldon MacLeod Show to discuss AIMS' latest study Rethinking Student Job Subsidies: The Case For Regional Equity in the Canada Summer Jobs Program and why the Canada Summer Jobs program should be reformed. Listen here:
