Wealth redistribution has hurt some provinces, says former bureaucrat
Election campaign should focus more on Canada's crumbling "fiscal architecture" among other important, yet ignored, concerns, says AIMS Fellow David McKinnon. By: Robert Benzie
The Beacon – August 2015
Volume XXI, no. 11
Western premier says scales tipped against rich provinces
Appeared in the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal.
Radio: Declining Equalization Payments
All three maritime provinces rely heavily on equalization payments from the federal government to fund their programs. Ontario's emergence as a "have-not" province however has placed pressure on the equalization system and is leading to reduced equalization payments as a share of GDP in all three provinces. Last year, approximately two-thirds of all equalization payments were absorbed by [...]
Radio: Economic Growth and Education Reform
There is a clear link between high quality public education and economic development. Outstanding public schools provide the foundation for professional and advanced skills training and are necessary for the development of an educated, competitive workforce. Governments should make use of data analysis techniques to improve public education. For example, the government in P.E.I. used standardized testing data to [...]
Radio: Sovereign Funds
No matter how well-intentioned governments are, when it comes to resource revenue they and the people who elect them, tend to spend now and think later. We need a better model to avoid large swings that affect our budgets. Saving resource revenue and using the earnings pays off, no matter what governments want to use the resource revenue [...]