By Sylvain Charlebois (AIMS Senior Fellow) Most people expected an electoral budget, and that is exactly what Canadians got. For the agrifood sector, the budget was underwhelming at best, and provided little hope for the near future. Let’s start with supply management. It was interesting to see that the Liberals opted to do exactly what [...]
By John Risley (AIMS Chair of the Board) Being a glutton for punishment I took myself off to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas early in January. I subject myself to the agony of endless slot machines and neon everything because the Show itself is truly international, has the latest of literally almost everything and [...]
By Sylvain Charlebois (AIMS Senior Fellow) and Simon Somogyi (AIMS Author) As most people know, Health Canada released a new version of Canada’s Food Guide just a few weeks ago. Advocating a diet focused more on plant-based eating and reductions in meat and dairy consumption. The new guide has gained much attention, particularly amongst the [...]
As Canadians, we earn our keep by trading. Millions of Canadian jobs contribute to our international trade, and those jobs, in turn, rely on Canadian businesses having secure access to many foreign markets. Canadians have an even longer history of getting secure access to domestic markets Canadians know a strong and principled commitment to [...]
By Sylvain Charlebois (AIMS Senior Fellow) Relations between China and Canada have never been more uncertain. The SNC-Lavalin Affair has exposed the Trudeau government to attacks from Chinese authorities, who claim Canada has unfairly treated Huawei’s executive Meng Wanzhou. She was arrested in Vancouver in December, at the request of the U.S. due to allegations [...]
By Sylvain Charlebois (AIMS Senior Fellow) If some were still looking for signs that the powerplay between brands and consumers is shifting, they got what they were looking for last week. Kraft Heinz, the owner of major brands we all know and have been buying for years, like Oscar Mayer, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, and Kraft’s Mac [...]
By Michael Zwaagstra (AIMS Research Fellow) P.E.I. plans to continue using standardized tests in schools and may even look to expand them. This should come as little surprise, particularly since a recent review by RMJ Assessments, an Ontario-based consulting firm, concluded that P.E.I.’s standardized tests had a positive impact on student achievement. Since these tests were [...]
By Sylvain Charlebois (AIMS Senior Fellow) Calgary Business, 24 January 2019 Net News Ledger, 25 January 2019 Say goodbye to the four food groups; they are now gone. Almost 12 years after the launch of the previous version, the new food guide celebrates food by displaying a plate filled with greens, fruits, plant proteins and [...]
In a recent CBC article discussing a series of proposals created by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, AIMS Vice President Alex Whalen was quoted saying "I don't think taxpayer interests would be served by those proposals. The concern has to be that there are public dollars involved." Read the full article here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-post-green-technology-banking-cupw-unions-1.4982899
By Matthew Lau (AIMS Author) The federal government began 2019 by taking a bigger bite out of workers’ paycheques, with the combined employer and employee CPP payroll tax rising from 9.9 percent of earnings to 10.2 percent, the first of five annual payroll tax hikes. By the time the CPP tax hike is fully phased [...]