bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
REGULATING FINANCE TO PROMOTE GROWTH: THE QUEBEC EXPERIENCE IN PERSPECTIVE
Authors: Lortie Pierre
Published: August 2024

Canada has one of the largest and most developed financial systems in the world.  At the end of 2018, total assets of financial institutions reached 626 percent of GDP, placing Canada ahead of Japan, France, the United States and Germany on this metric, and the amount of debt securities outstanding and market capitalization amounted to 252 percent of GDP (IMF, 2019).

Canada’s financial system is highly concentrated.  Each segment of the financial system is among the largest in the world in nominal terms.  The six largest banks and Quebec’s "Mouvement Desjardins" – designated as financial institutions of national importance – account for about 90 percent of deposit-taking institutions’ assets, while the three largest life insurers account for about 70 percent of total net premiums.
Beef focus group: Challenges facing the sector
Authors: Drummond Rachelle , Lhermie Guillaume , Reynolds Caitland , Vinco Elena , Wiskar Shawn
Published: August 2024

The Simpson Centre initiated a focus group for agricultural industry stakeholders specifically in the Canadian beef sector to gauge their opinions on the current interaction of this sector with policy, the challenges that are specific to this sector, and their short-term and long-term priorities. The majority of concerns and frustrations that were voiced by participants involved a lack of parity and revenue flow between the various aspects of the beef industry, as well as a lack of accurate representation and industry knowledge by policy makers, which many believed had resulted in an abundance of red tape. Nearly all participants spoke to specific challenges they face within the sector that included the cold climate within Canada that makes it harder to compete on an international level and maintain the daily tasks of a producer, as well as challenges facing the longevity of the industry in Canada and incentivizing younger generations to join the sector.
Lost in Translation
Authors: Sidorova Evgeniia (Jen) , Ferguson Jenanne
Published: August 2024

The meaningful incorporation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into large-scale northern infrastructure construction can improve sustainability practises and broaden our conceptual understanding of nature (Sidorova and Virla 2022). TEK refers to systems of collective knowledge production, established gradually by members of Indigenous and local communities and transferred through generations (Agrawala et al. 2010). While
the ‘traditional’ part of the term TEK can be problematic, as the word may connote something old and static, we stress here that TEK is a dynamic, living tradition adaptable to new conditions and knowledge. Another key element in infrastructure projects is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). EIAs are used to evaluate the likelihood of negative environmental impacts before deciding whether to move forward with a project. They also attempt to develop and implement strategies to avoid or reduce those negative impacts as conditions of approval for the project (Agrawala et al. 2010). This paper examines a particular tension that arises between TEK and EIA.
The Canadian Northern Corridor Community Engagement Program: Results and Lessons Learned
Authors: Galley Emily , Koch Katharina , Fellows G. Kent , Mansell Robert , Pinto Nicole , Winter Jennifer
Published: August 2024

The Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) Research Program is an investigation of the feasibility, desirability, and acceptability of infrastructure corridors in advancing integrated, long-term infrastructure planning and development in Canada. The Corridor Concept involves a series of multi-modal rights-of-way across mid- and northern Canada — connecting all three coasts and linked to existing corridors in southern Canada — for the efficient, timely and integrated development of trade, transportation, and communications infrastructure. Corridors are expected to make public and private infrastructure investments more attractive by reducing the uncertainty associated with project approval processes; sharing the costs associated with establishing and administering rights-of-way; decreasing negative environmental impacts; and moving to a more strategic, integrated and long-term approach to national infrastructure planning and development. A key outcome of corridor development is decreasing the existing infrastructure gap that persists between northern and southern Canadian regions and communities. The causes of this gap are complex and will require a diverse set of tools and solutions to resolve; the CNC is a useful conceptual tool to initiate discussions on northern infrastructure and to identify feasible and lasting solutions to address Canada’s infrastructure gap.
Expanding Canada Pension Plan Retirement Benefits: Assessing Big CPP Proposals
Authors: Kesselman Jonathan R.
Published: August 2024

Current and growing deficiencies in many workers’ ability to maintain their accustomed living standards in retirement have evoked varied proposals for reform of Canada’s retirement income system. This study focuses on proposals for expanding the retirement benefits of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), and undertakes comparative analysis with proposals for reforms affecting workplace pensions and individual savings. It begins by reviewing key policy questions for the retirement income system and describing essential features of several proposals for CPP benefit expansion. It then uses these “Big CPP” proposals as a basis to assess the design issues for expanding CPP benefits and the implications for other components of the retirement income system. The paper assesses each of the major private and public savings vehicles based on multifaceted criteria for a well-performing retirement income system; a mandatory public scheme with defined benefits ranks most highly on almost all criteria other than individual flexibility. Additional behavioural and institutional factors also support the use of mandatory public pensions: myopia in savings, individual investment behaviour, scale economies and costs of fund management, adverse selection and annuitization costs, the Samaritan’s Dilemma, and labour market incentives.The study provides an overview analysis of key design issues for the expansion of CPP retirement benefits. Major issues include the desirable scale of expansion for both the percentage of insurable earnings and the insurable earnings ceiling; mandatory versus voluntary coverage and options; the allocation of investment return risk; and the phasing-in of higher premiums and benefits. The study then assesses the implications of CPP expansion for other components of the retirement income system: Old Age Security and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, workplace pensions, tax provisions for savings, and individual savings. A Big CPP fits well within the overall retirement income system, with other components adapting to the increased CPP benefits over a long phase-in period. Alternative reform proposals relating to the regulation of workplace pensions and new voluntary supplemental or multi-employer pension schemes are potentially useful but no substitute for the expansion of CPP benefits. Mandating employers to offer adequate pensions could be an alternative to a Big CPP but without all the same advantages. In summary, diverse empirical and analytical considerations support the expansion of CPP retirement benefits as the centrepiece of pension reform to achieve benefit adequacy for all retirees.
Differentiating Canada: The Future of the Canada-US Relationship
Authors: Dobson Wendy , Kuzmanovic Diana
Published: August 2024

Turbulence will mark the world economy in the coming decade as Canada’s traditional trading partners in North America and Europe struggle with slow growth and rising structural unemployment and move, as they must, to restore the health of their public finances. Settling for the status quo is not a compelling option as the US border thickens and Canada stays on the sidelines in two areas vital to its long-term interest: climate change policy and trade liberalization. In this context, the Policy Brief evaluates the strategic options for Canada’s long-standing economic relationship with the United States. The authors propose a two-part proactive strategy. The first part is for Canada to differentiate its economy by building on its macroeconomic, financial and energy strengths relative to the United States and by shaping a best-practice North American climate change policy. The second part of the strategy is to deepen NAFTA by participating in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a comprehensive, highquality FTA that has strategic attention of the US administration. Any country can join by accepting the agreement’s provisions. The TPP offers at least two strategic opportunities: a comprehensive negotiation in which Canada, the United States and Mexico could upgrade NAFTA and a way to diversify and deepen trade and investment liberalization with major economies in the Asia-Pacific region.
Tax Impact of BC’s HST Debate on Investment and Competitiveness
Authors: Mintz Jack M.
Published: August 2024

If voters kill British Columbia’s Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) in a June referendum, the province’s economy will suffer in the long run. A rejection will spur the rebirth of the provincial retail sales tax, leading to steep increases in the marginal effective tax rates on capital and costs and a corresponding dip in investment and job creation. Should voters decide to keep the HST, BC will reduce the tax by two points over the next three years and raise the corporate income tax rate to bridge the revenue gap. This will also negatively impact corporate competitiveness, but since the government has indicated that the hike will be temporary, retaining the HST is the best option for BC’s economy.
The New Security Perimeter with the United States
Authors: Flemming Brian
Published: August 2024

After 9/11, several decades of success in building a more open US-Canadian border came to an end due to rising security concerns. To ameliorate this trend, both countries are now attempting to make their border more permeable. This paper attempts to predict how a new security perimeter agreement will be negotiated and what subjects will be covered by any new agreement or series of agreements. Sensitive issues such as privacy, civil rights and harmonization of national regulations, trade and security practices are examined. The paper also deals with the twin problems of the current lack of trust in politicians and governments and the difficulty of getting an agreement before the American presidential and Congressional elections get under way in earnest. The paper concludes with an examination of what the consequences will be if no agreement is reached between Canada and the US on a new security and trade perimeter.
Homelessness in Alberta: The Demand for Spaces in Alberta’s Homeless Shelters
Authors: Kneebone Ronald D. , Emery J.C. Herbert , Grynishak Oksana
Published: August 2024

Homelessness in Alberta is overwhelmingly concentrated in Calgary and Edmonton, with almost two-thirds of total provincial shelter usage in the former. Calgary also experiences much greater fluctuations in shelter use. Three interconnected economic factors — the supply of rental accommodations, the state of the labour market and the inward flow of jobseekers — go a long way toward explaining both Calgary’s unusually large share of Alberta’s homeless as well as the swings in shelter use. Calgary has proportionately less than half as many rental units as Edmonton and this gap is widening. Simultaneously, Calgary, more than any other Canadian city, attracts a significant share of migrants during times of economic growth increasing demand for affordable housing and then shelter space when the availability of housing approaches zero. The recent fall in shelter use in Calgary (and so Alberta) may therefore prove temporary should a recovering economy attract more arrivals and so drive up shelter use again. The provincial government’s recent efforts to increase the stock of affordable housing are appropriate but greater progress could be made if it devised ways to enlist the energy and efficiency of the private sector to expand Calgary’s rental market.
Implications of the Recommendations of the Expert Panel on Federal Support to Research and Development
Authors: Manning Preston , Mintz Jack M.
Published: August 2024

Canada lags behind many of its First World counterparts when it comes to business innovation, and urgently needs to improve its performance if it is to remain competitive and attractive to investment. The Expert Panel Report on Federal Support to Research and Development has recommended several policy initiatives that governments need to enact to close the gap. This paper reviews all six major recommendations made by the Expert Panel and provides thorough assessments of each, with ample consideration given to their implications for the private sector. The two most promising are: (1) the consolidation of research and development spending programs at the federal level and (2) the adoption of smart procurement as a means of spurring innovation in the non-government sector. While some of the other recommendations need refinement and raise concerns about their impact on the economy, the message for government and business is clear: the former can and should facilitate Canadian business innovation by removing tax and regulatory burdens and facilitating better public-private cooperation, while the latter must make innovation a major part of corporate culture. This paper explains the consequences of the Panel’s recommendations for both sectors, identifies the deficiencies, and offers clear-eyed guidance for ameliorating them.
Reforming the Tax Mix in Canada
Authors: Dahlby Bev
Published: August 2024

Periodically, tax systems need major reforms to remove the “barnacles” that accumulate under the short-term pressures of political expediency and to adapt to the long-term forces of technological and economic change.  The current fiscal and economic problems that confront the provinces require an assessment of much-needed reforms. Raising tax revenue imposes large costs on our society, not only because of the administration and compliance costs of collecting taxes, but because taxes distort economic decisions in the private sector. This is especially true of provincial corporate income taxes. Taxing highly mobile corporate capital and corporate profits encourages firms to shift their investments and profits across provincial and international boundaries. The provinces would enjoy significant boosts to economic growth and efficiency gains by enacting a revenue-neutral switch from corporate to sales or personal income taxes. For Alberta, such a shift would yield up to $40 per dollar of tax revenue shifted from corporate to personal income taxes; for fiscal year 2011-12, this would amount to a percapita welfare gain of roughly $19,000. Other options for tax reform are also discussed in this paper, including the adoption of a penny tax to the GST to fund infrastructure spending by municipalities. However, we think this would saddle the private sector with significant compliance costs and create major economic distortions between neighbouring municipalities by creating an incentive to shop where the penny tax proposal was not adopted. In surveying the most pressing tax reform issues facing Canada, we offer policymakers a firm basis for coming to grips with them, so they can treat tax dollars with the care and foresight Canadians expect.
Some Observations on the Concept and Measurement of Income Inequality
Authors: Richardson Stephen R.
Published: August 2024

Income inequality and redistribution have become popular subjects in both public and policy circles in the wake of concerns over apparent concentration of wealth. However, a reasonable discussion of this subject is often hampered by a lack of a clear conceptual framework and relevant facts.! First, income inequality is a relative concept that can only be measured relatively by statistical tools like the Gini coefficient; used alone, these do not provide context for the results. Second, there is no single agreed-upon goal for income redistribution; different approaches invariably involve value judgments based on ethical or political theories that can differ widely on the crucial questions of why and how much redistribution should be sought. Third, the importance of this issue requires that measurements of the scale and absolute amount of existing income redistribution be utilized to inform the discussion. This communiqué takes a sober look at facts relating to income inequality and redistribution in Canada and applies methodology to reveal that, while the scale of income redistribution has declined since 1994, growth in real income since then has done much to compensate in maintaining! levels of absolute income redistribution that are high by historical standards.
Changing Landscapes for Charities in Canada: Where Should We Go?
Authors: Payne A. Abigail
Published: August 2024

Charitable giving in Canada has never been higher. Between 1992 and 2008, contributions to charitable organizations more than doubled, from $4 billion to more than $9 billion. Donations to charitable foundations grew at an even more remarkable rate: more than 250 per cent, over the same period. But those striking numbers mask more puzzling, some might say more worrying, trends. While donations overall have grown, not all charity types have shared equally in the gains. Religious charities and health-related charities have seen the lowest amount of growth. Meanwhile, the country’s larger charities and foundations have seen substantial increases in donations, but donation rates to smaller charities have been relatively flat. As for the donors, it’s almost entirely high-income Canadians who seem to be giving significantly more, while the rate of giving among middle-income and lower income Canadians has hardly grown at all. In fact, the share of people claiming tax credits for donations in each income group is actually in decline, meaning fewer of us seem to be giving to registered charities, while the richest Canadians are primarily responsible for the rise in donations. The reasons for these unusual trends are unclear — though there is some evidence that the more ethnically diverse our country has become, the less inclined we are to donate. And whether we should even be concerned about these uneven patterns — the wealthiest Canadians giving bigger cheques to the country’s biggest charities and foundations — is also an open question. But the uncertainty about what these trends mean, why they’re happening, and whether they’re even a problem, is not something we should take lightly. Changes may be coming soon to Canadian charity policy: Last year, a House of Commons committee began a sweeping study of charitable giving in Canada, and it is already evaluating dozens of suggestions for policy adjustments. But, while we can discern some patterns and trends in giving, the reality is that we actually still know very little about why Canadians give, and how we, as a society, want to change the way we give, if at all. And until we make the effort to learn considerably more, any policy changes aimed at altering the landscape for Canadian charities are at risk of being politically driven, rather than evidence-based, and they could very well end up creating more problems than they solve.
Managing Tax Expenditures and Government Program Spending: Proposals for Reform
Authors: Lester John
Published: August 2024

The federal government implemented a new expenditure management system in 2007. Under the new system, departments are required to review programs on a four-year cycle to determine if they are aligned with federal responsibilities and priorities, if they are efficiently delivered and if they are providing value for money, or effective. Based on the results from these strategic reviews, which are expected to be supported by formal evaluations that provide the evidence base for decisions, departments are expected to identify five per cent of their direct program spending that could be reallocated to other priorities, including deficit reduction. This system has much to recommend it, but to realize the full potential of the new system two fundamental changes should be made. First, spending programs delivered through the tax system should be integrated into the expenditure management system. Integration implies that departments would be given responsibility for both tax and spending initiatives that are relevant to their mandates, and that tax-based expenditures would be subject to the government’s evaluation policy and be included in strategic reviews. Second, while departments should continue to have responsibility for evaluating program efficiency, evaluations of both tax- and spending-program effectiveness should be undertaken by an independent entity such as the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Effectiveness evaluations should be carried out using a variant of the benefit-cost framework that is now applied to government regulatory initiatives. In order for the reformed system to work, more resources will need to be allocated to developing the performance data needed to undertake effectiveness evaluations and to perform the evaluations. These changes go well beyond a recent recommendation by a House of Commons committee to include tax expenditures in departmental reports to Parliament, along with planned program spending. The government rejected the recommendation, arguing that the change would undermine the finance minister’s authority over the tax system. Reform cannot proceed unless the finance minister relinquishes his power, exercised jointly with the prime minister, to introduce, modify, or eliminate tax measures related to the mandate of a program minister without the consent of the minister.
Energy and Energy Literacy in Canada: A Survey of Business and Policy Leadership
Authors: Moore Michal C. , Turcotte André , Winter Jennifer , Walp P. Bernard
Published: August 2024

Lots of people have opinions about Canadian energy, how we use and export it, its costs and its impacts on the environment. In the end, however, it is leaders in business and policy circles whose opinions can have a greater impact on influencing how the rest of us think about energy, and ultimately, how our national energy picture eventually unfolds. Remarkably, however, a survey of leaders in business and policy-making across the country finds that their knowledge about Canadian energy systems is not that much deeper or different than the Canadian public at large. Their opinions about how we should use, conserve and export energy are also strikingly similar. Anyone presuming that leaders in business and policy have a firm understanding of how Canadians get their energy might be startled to discover that, in Ontario, Alberta, the Atlantic region and Saskatchewan, a substantial fraction of these “elite” survey respondents incorrectly identify the primary resource used for energy in their province. Nor are business and policy leaders the ardent free traders some of us might expect when it comes to energy exports and imports. While an overwhelming majority (89 per cent) of survey respondents considered it important or at least somewhat important to decrease Canada’s reliance on the U.S. market for our exports, 56 per cent of those surveyed also advocated for more Canadian energy independence, even if it meant reduced revenue for the Canadian economy. Not only that, but they largely believed that eliminating energy imports and relying exclusively on Canadian sources would somehow result in an overall drop in energy costs. Furthermore, a strong majority of policy-makers and business leaders had a general agreement that it was worth bearing higher energy costs in the future if it resulted in better environmental quality. Additionally, when it came to evaluating who they could trust for reliable information about energy, business and policy-making elites proved just about as skeptical as the general public when it came to companies, industry groups and government officials, ranking all three fairly weakly on trustworthiness. They saw academics and economic experts as slightly more trustable sources for information, though even those sources had limits. And while environmental and community groups and activists were given generally middling scores for trustworthiness, business leaders, interestingly enough, actually ranked these activist groups as just a bit more reliable than did policy-makers. Finally, a clear preference in both groups was revealed for more planning and systematically adapting to changing energy markets and environmental conditions through the development of some form of public policy energy strategies.
Appreciate the Appreciation: Imported Inputs and Concern Over Dutch Disease
Authors: Naim Wardah , Tombe Trevor
Published: August 2024

If anything is to blame for a higher dollar having negative effects on the Central Canadian manufacturing sector, you are not likely to find it in any “Dutch Disease” supposedly caused by Alberta’s oil sands. Contrary to popular belief, the higher value of the Canadian dollar may even help Central Canadian manufacturers grow stronger, cut costs, and create jobs. The idea that a booming, commodity-driven dollar is hurting Canadian goods exports, afflicting the country with so-called Dutch Disease, may be popular among certain politicians, including federal Opposition leader Thomas Mulcair and former Premier of Ontario Dalton McGuinty, but is not supported by the facts. It turns out that the simple economic theory these politicians have in mind is incomplete. A more thorough, data-driven look at the nation’s manufacturing sector reveals that Canadian businesses rely very heavily on imported materials and equipment as inputs in the manufacturing process. Canadian industry overall has one of the highest import ratios for such intermediate goods in the OECD, roughly twice as high as that of the U.S., the European Union and Japan. Compared to all other sectors, manufacturers are the heaviest users of imported materials and equipment, with more than 40 per cent of their inputs coming from other countries. A higher dollar may make it more expensive for foreign buyers to purchase Canadian manufactured goods, but that effect appears to be more than offset by the savings that Canadian producers enjoy with a higher dollar that makes possible cheaper imported-inputs and lower cost of production, which have a lowering effect on prices. The net result is that Canadian manufacturers actually get more benefit from a higher dollar, and the regions that get the biggest boost from it are the Central Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Policy-makers looking to aid the Canadian economy as a whole, and the manufacturing sector in particular, should stop worrying about Dutch Disease and, rather, welcome a higher Canadian dollar. But more than that, they should design policies that are better tailored for an economy that relies so heavily on imported intermediate inputs. Policy efforts would be far better put to eliminating tariffs and other trade barriers that make imported inputs more expensive, and thus hamper Canadian competitiveness. Policies should also focus on improving productivity, by inviting foreign investment, rather than subtly discouraging it through vehicles such as the Investment Canada Act. And certainly, anything that forces businesses to “buy local,” as Ontario’s Green Energy Act requires, will only stand in the way of Canadian businesses taking advantage of our higher dollar by importing lower-cost inputs from abroad. If policy-makers want to help Canadian factories, they shouldn’t complain about Alberta but instead focus on improving their domestic economic policies instead.
No More Second-Class Taxpayers: How Income Splitting Can Bring Fairness to Canada’s Single Income Families
Authors: Krzepkowski Matt , Mintz Jack M.
Published: August 2024

The Canadian personal income tax system does not pay much attention to whether the amount of money an individual brings home is supplemented by the income of a spouse or not. That means that families where one spouse earns more than the other get taxed at a higher rate than families where two working partners earn the same total income split evenly between two paycheques. In fact, a family with just a single earner making $70,000 a year pays 30 per cent more in taxes every year than a family with two partners making $35,000 a year. A single-earner family taking in $120,000 a year pays the same income tax as a dualearning couple making $141,000 between them. The federal Conservative government has at least suggested it wants to finally level that playing field — nearly six decades after a royal commission recommended that the income tax system be changed to recognize total family household income, rather than focusing on each individual’s income. Given that Canada’s income tax system aims to treat people in similar circumstances as equally as possible, it is certainly time to let couples split their income so they do not face a penalty in higher tax rates than those faced by couples bringing home the same amount of total pay. While couples with just a single earner enjoy some advantages, a dual-earning couple does not — namely the extra time the stay-at-home spouse is able to use to raise children and produce other unpaid, home-based benefits — that can be accounted for using other means. Specifically, cutting out the transferability of the unused portion of the basic personal tax exemption for couples splitting income — requiring couples splitting their income to each earn money in order to use this credit — is one way to account for the difference in unpaid benefits that single-income families do typically enjoy more than dual-income couples. That is one mechanism; there may still be others the government might consider. But the bottom line is that there are ways to account for certain non-labour-market-related differences between single-earner families and dual-earner families. No doubt many of these proposals would be an improvement over the current, where two different families subsisting on the same pay are taxed very differently, with one type of family penalized simply because of how their income is earned.
China’s State-Owned Enterprises: How Much Do We Know? From CNOOC to Its Siblings
Authors: Chen Duanjie
Published: August 2024

China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are sometimes compared to Canadian Crown corporations, such as VIA Rail or the CBC. But that comparison is not only profoundly inaccurate, it can also be a dangerous assumption to make when crafting Canadian economic policy. China’s SOEs have been actively buying up interests in major Canadian resource firms. But that phenomenon has much more serious implications for Canada than if these were, say, state-owned European firms, such as Norway’s Statoil. China’s SOEs do not operate by the normal rules of commerce. They are, in fact, a very powerful tool of the Chinese government’s industrial policy, which is aimed at a ruthless expansion of its global economic empire. The spectacular growth of China’s SOEs over the last two decades, at a rate unrivalled by virtually any other sector on earth, has been driven by the will of the Chinese government, which provides cheap or free inputs — such as access to capital and real estate — in order to create globally dominant corporate powers. There is also the Chinese competitive advantage that comes with not just lower wages for workers but also behaviour that would be considered irresponsible in a Western context. Placing a lower priority on human rights, the environment, social justice and corporate rectitude give China and its SOEs an edge that have helped them in their goal of leapfrogging competing world economic powers, including Canada. Without these explicit and implicit subsidies, China’s SOEs have actually proven to be far less economically competitive than their private-sector rivals. Chinese SOEs are not publicly accountable the way that Crown corporations in Canada are. Chinese SOEs are run by appointees of the Communist party, whose first duty is to the state, the majority or even sole shareholder of SOEs. Unlike Canada’s Crown corporations, which are designed to fill in market-failure gaps or provide public service, China’s SOEs are permitted to chase profits in sectors that do not even fall within their primary mandate. And unlike Canada, China jealously guards the sectors in which its SOEs exert absolute or strong control, disallowing any private-sector competitors — domestic or foreign — free entry. When Canada’s federal government last December granted approval to the takeover of Nexen Inc. it made it clear that this would be the “end of a trend” of foreign SOEs controlling acquisition of major Canadian energy firms. Such takeovers would be allowed only in exceptional circumstances from now on. That is how it should be. However, that does not mean shutting our door for capital investment from foreign SOEs in general. What we need is adequate government regulation to guard our national interest, including the integrity of our free-market system.
Income Inequality and Income Taxation in Canada: Trends in the Census 1980-2005
Authors: Milligan Kevin
Published: August 2024

Faced with rising fiscal pressures and discontent over income inequality, many countries, Canada among them, are searching for remedies. Income tax systems offer an effective way of changing economic destinies, so it’s only natural for governments to regard tax policy as a panacea. The first step to a solution is to understand how income tax influences existing inequality. This paper provides an overview of trends in pre- and post-tax income distribution in Canada from 1980-2005, by drawing on a more comprehensive data source than those found in many existing studies — Canadian census data. The results are in broad agreement: money has been steadily accumulating in the top half of the income distribution since 1980, with the trend quickening after 1995. This is just as true for family after-tax incomes as it is for individual market incomes even after the impact of the income tax system is taken into account. Over the 25-year period studied, the Gini coefficient rose from 0.352 to 0.404 for pre-tax income, and from 0.312 to 0.349 for after-tax income, while the proportion of the increase undone by taxation fell to a low of 2 per cent after 1995, as the Canadian tax system became less redistributive. However, some progressive aspects remain. Improvements to refundable tax credits in the late 1990s led to a 20 per cent decline in the number of families falling under the Low-Income Cut-Off. Canada’s income tax system hasn’t kept pace with climbing pre-tax inequality, but it continues to be a useful aftertax equalizer for low-income families.
The Canadian Manufacturing Sector, 2002-2008: Why Is It Called Dutch Disease?
Authors: Gordon Stephen
Published: August 2024

High-profile complaints about so-called Dutch disease have led many to question if industry in some parts of the country is suffering due to the success of the natural resources sector in others. This paper considers changes in manufacturing employment from 2002- 2008, a time of increased commodity prices. At first glance, the figures appear alarming — Canada shed 328,000 manufacturing jobs during that period — but the decline wasn’t entirely commodity-driven. Canada is the sole G-7 country in which manufacturing is on par with what it was 40 years ago; manufacturing employment rose in the decade prior to the decline thanks to government austerity, which spurred monetary easing, making industry more export-competitive. Much of the contraction from 2002-2008 was a natural reaction to this unsustainable situation. Higher commodity prices in the same period actually had a benign — if not positive — effect on Canada’s manufacturing industry, notwithstanding the fall in employment. The manufacturing jobs that were lost were typically low paying, and were offset by the creation of betterpaying employment in other sectors. The available data on gross employment flows suggest that the disruptions associated with the shift of employment out of manufacturing were surprisingly small. The reduction in employment was largely achieved through attrition; layoff rates held steady while hiring rates fell. Moreover, the data are not consistent with fears that the manufacturing sector was hollowed out. Research and development activities held steady and investment in new technology continued to grow, leaving the manufacturing sector healthier in 2008 than it was in 2002.
Accountability by Design: Moving Primary Care Reform Ahead in Alberta
Authors: Spenceley Shannon M. , Andres Cheryl , Lapins Janet , Wedel Robert , Gelber Tobias , Halma Lisa
Published: August 2024

Health-care reform is perennially popular in Alberta, but reality doesn’t match the rhetoric. Government has invested more than $700 million in Primary Care Networks — with little beyond anecdotal evidence of the value achieved with this investment. As the province redirects primary care to Family Care Clinics, the authors assert that simply tinkering with one part of the system is not the answer: health care must change on a system-wide basis. Drawing on the experiences of frontline staff and a rich body of literature, the authors present their vision for integrated team-based primary care, designed to be accountable to meet the needs of populations. This will require governance that makes primary care the hub of the system, and brings together government and health-services leadership to support the integration of primary and specialty care. There are shared accountabilities for achieving primary care that exhibits the attributes of high performing primary care systems, and these exist at multiple levels, from individuals seeking primary care, up to and including government. The authors make these accountabilities explicit, and outline strategies to secure their achievement that include system redesign, service delivery redesign and payment reform. All of this demands whole-system reform focused on primary care, and it won’t be easy. There are plenty of vested interests at stake, and a truly transformative vision requires buy-in at every level. However, Alberta’s rapidly growing and aging population makes it more urgent than ever to realize such a vision. This paper offers guidelines to spark the fresh thinking required.
Provincial Tax Rate Adjustments in Canada
Authors: Ferede Ergete , Dahlby Bev , Adjeic Ebenezer
Published: August 2024

Changes to tax rates are important fiscal events in Canada. They affect the amount of taxes that Canadian households and businesses pay to governments, and the level of economic activity by affecting incentives to work, save, and invest. Thus it is important to understand what factors cause governments to increase or reduce their tax rates.
Aboriginal-Canadians and Energy Literacy: A Survey of Opinions and Thoughts on Energy
Authors: Moore Michal C. , Turcotte André , Winter Jennifer
Published: August 2024

In Canada, the energy and resource industry, its investments, employment and products have an effect on every citizen and every cultural group. And yet, the public debate over energy projects in Canada is increasingly divisive. Aboriginal-Canadians are an important part of the debate over land use and energy development, and it is essential to understand the attitudes towards and knowledge of energy in this unique group. This survey of Aboriginal-Canadians from across the country reveals that their knowledge and opinions about Canada’s energy system are similar to that of Canadians polled in previous surveys of the general population and of business and policy leaders. However, in a few key areas, the opinions of AboriginalCanadians diverge from those of other poll respondents. Aboriginal-Canadians place less trust in business, industry groups and the government as reliable sources of information about energy issues. Thirty-four per cent of Aboriginal-Canadians put absolutely no trust in information from oil and gas companies, compared to 26 per cent of the general public, and 24 per cent of Aboriginal-Canadians put no trust in information from the federal government, compared to only 15 per cent of the general public. Additionally, Aboriginal-Canadians tend to place a much higher emphasis on environmental preservation over economic concerns: they say they are “very concerned” about the environmental impacts of energy production at a rate that is 14 percentage points higher than the general public. Land and land access are important issues for the Aboriginal-Canadians surveyed. They reluctantly support oil and gas pipelines near their communities, with only 38 per cent in favour. When project development delivers additional funding for educational and social programs in their community, support shifts to a slight majority (51 per cent). This survey highlights the need for simultaneously extending efforts to improve the energy literacy of this important demographic and cultural group, while incorporating their opinions, beliefs and land ethics into long-term energy development strategies. Overall, this group understands many of the overarching issues facing energy development that impacts them, yet reinforces the gap in public knowledge revealed in the previous surveys. Developing Canadian energy will require addressing Aboriginal-Canadian concerns, including lack of trust and the environmental impacts of energy projects.
The Impact of Foreign Investment Restrictions on the Stock Returns of Oil Sands Companies
Authors: Beaulieu Eugene , Saunders Matthew M.
Published: August 2024

In December 2012, prompted by the proposed purchase of Nexen by the Chinese SOE CNOOC, the federal government announced revised guidelines for investments by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the oil sands. Declaring the sale marked “the end of a trend and not the beginning of a trend,” Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained how the government would approach such decisions in the future, including placing the onus on foreign investors to demonstrate how deals would be of net benefit to Canada, as well as granting the industry minister the discretion to accept or deny proposed deals. Accounting for five per cent of Canadian GDP, $28 billion in government revenue and three per cent of all jobs nationwide, the oil sands are an integral component of Canada’s economy. The sector has long relied on foreign capital to finance projects, meaning that any move to deter outside investment could have profound consequences for the development of this critical economic asset. In this paper, the authors examine the impact of this policy change by measuring the stock returns of firms operating in the oil sands. Employing an event study analysis, they find empirical evidence that the government’s policy change has resulted in the material destruction of shareholder wealth, particularly in the case of the smaller oil companies. What is more, given the composition of the global oil industry has changed to one where SOEs dominate both reserves and production, is this a policy Canada can afford in the long term?“When we say that Canada is open for business, we do not mean that Canada is for sale to foreign governments.” - Prime Minister Stephen Harper, December 7, 2012“…going forward, the [industry] minister will find the acquisition of control of a Canadian oil-sands business by a state-owned enterprise to be of net benefit, only in an exceptional circumstance.” - Prime Minister Stephen Harper, December 7, 2012“A year after the new Investment Canada Act rules were announced in December 2012, investment dollars from state-owned enterprises have essentially stopped flowing into the bitumen extraction business. Energy-directed foreign direct investment – of which SOEs play an important role – fell off a cliff in 2013, declining 92 per cent year-to-year from $27 billion to $2 billion. These are very worrisome statistics for a nation highly dependent on foreign investment to fund its capital-intensive resource industries.” - Sebation Gault, December 2, 2013 Published in Alberta Oil Magazine
Who, or What, Is to Blame for the Accumulation of Debt in Ontario and Quebec (and What Will It Take to Stop the Bleeding?)
Authors: Kneebone Ronald D. , Gres Margarita
Published: August 2024

What is the main reason for government debt accumulation in Canada? Is the main driver of debt the public policy choices made by governments, or are non-policy factors, like interest rates and the economic environment to blame? Answering this question is the first step for governments burdened by high levels of government debt to introduce policies aimed at getting that debt under control. The effort to curtail debts in the mid-1990s prompted research into the sources of debt accumulation. The goal of this research was to determine whether the cause of debt was a set of poor fiscal policy choices in the form of overly generous social programs and/or insufficient taxation, an overly tight monetary policy driving up interest costs on existing debt and slowing growth, or simply bad luck in the form of unavoidable world events. That research aspired to identify the sources of debt accumulation so those mistakes, once identified, might be avoided in the future. This paper looks at Ontario and Quebec; two provinces with high and growing debt to GDP ratios and representing the two largest provincial economies in Canada. Introducing an original data set describing the finances of these governments over the period 1980-81 to 2011-12 and a new approach for identifying the causes of debt accumulation, this paper finds that the causes are disproportionate policy based. Finally, this paper offers a way out of debt for these governments. The solutions demand difficult policy choices; choices that will require a significantly heavier burden be borne by the citizens and taxpayers of Ontario than those in Quebec.
The Future of Energy Regulation and Policy Development: A Summary Paper
Authors: Beach Shantel , Wilkins Andrew , Winter Jennifer
Published: August 2024

In September 2013, The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary hosted 19 speakers and 55 delegates in Calgary for a full-day symposium entitled “The Future of Energy Regulation and Policy Development: Conflict, Compromise or Cooperation?” Participants included current and past regulatory officials at the federal and provincial or state levels in both Canada and the United States, academics, lawyers active in regulatory matters, and representatives from industry and non-governmental organizations. Symposium chair Michal Moore (Area Director, Energy and Environmental Policy at The School of Public Policy) challenged participants to imagine what the “next regulatory world” would look like and what we want the regulator of the future to look like, and to consider the future success of energy regulation. The discussion on the role and the future of the energy regulator was wide-ranging and thought-provoking. This paper summarizes the discussion and main themes; policy-related implications and observations arising from the symposium are presented in the conclusion.