bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
An Evaluation of Housing First Programs in Calgary
Authors: Kneebone Ronald , Jadidzadeh Ali
Published: August 2024

Calgary is one of many cities internationally that has implemented a Housing First (HF) model for reducing homelessness. The HF model is based on the philosophy that stable housing, provided without preconditions, is a necessary prerequisite for helping someone deal with the issues that have caused them to become homeless. The original HF model, New York City’s Pathways Housing First (PHF) model, has been closely studied with the use of controlled experiments involving clients whose personal characteristics match those
for whom the model is designed. Based on the favourable evidence drawn from these controlled experiments, many jurisdictions have implemented HF programs. These include many programs that have drifted a considerable distance from the design of the Pathways model. Despite this drift in program design, HF programs continue to find support from governments comforted by the favourable results of controlled experiments.
In this paper we evaluate HF programs implemented in a real world, non-experimental setting over many years. Evaluating HF programs as they are implemented in large scale non-experimental settings is important for determining their practical usefulness to system operators and policymakers. Using richly detailed administrative datasets, we evaluate
the success of HF programs as implemented in Calgary over the period 2012 to 2018.We identify the extent of the drift of these HF programs from the original Pathways model and show how the personal characteristics of people chosen for HF programs influence the rate of program success.
We find that HF programs in Calgary have proven very successful in graduating people to permanent housing and reducing the number of people returning to homelessness.
Fifty-five per cent of clients enrolled in HF programs, many of whom are dealing with the debilitating effects if mental health challenges, substance abuse, and prolonged periods of homelessness, remained housed in HF programs or graduate to permanent housing without case management support. We argue that this rate of success is comparable to that claimed for PHF programs evaluated under controlled conditions and for much shorter periods.
Although the devil is in his usual place when it comes to evaluating the success of any HF program, our results are suggestive that limited deviations from the Pathways model, such as those we observed in Calgary, do not significantly affect the rates of success reported from controlled experiments.
Tax Policy Issues Relevant to Captive Insurance Companies in Alberta
Authors: Dolson Mike
Published: August 2024

Alberta recently enacted legislation that will permit the creation of captive insurance companies. This legislation will not come into force until Proclamation, which is unlikely to occur before detailed regulations are promulgated to address capital requirements, financial reporting standards, the lines of insurance business that captives may undertake, or the persons who may be insured. These critical regulatory items are the subject of a separate research paper on the captive insurance market published by the School of Public Policy.
A Guaranteed Basic Income for Canadians: Off the Table or Within Reach?
Authors: Stevens Lee , Simpson Wayne , Stevens Harvey , Emery Herb
Published: August 2024

Pilot projects in the past that have experimented with a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) in Manitoba and Ontario, and a recent study of the feasibility of a GBI in British Columbia, indicate that provinces are not in an ideal position to successfully implement an affordable and effective GBI. However, a GBI implemented by the federal government, financed by eliminating the GST credit and lowering personal tax exemptions, could be both effective and affordable. It could also do so without requiring the elimination of those provincial social assistance programs that are more deeply targeted toward people’s needs. By using its revenue powers, the federal government could create more fiscal capacity for the provinces to provide other cash and in-kind social supports, allowing for greater provincial benefit targeting.
The federal government’s centrality in designing and implementing tax structures and collecting tax revenue make it singularly suitable for administering and delivering a GBI. Financing the GBI by eliminating the modest GST credit and lowering the current basic personal income tax exemption could provide a significant reduction in the rate, depth and intensity of poverty in Canada, without imposing an excessive tax burden on Canadians. If provinces use the GBI as a replacement for certain less-targeted provincial social assistance income transfers, the freed-up payments and reduced caseloads could also allow provinces to target more effectively those needs not addressed by the GBI.

The recent COVID-19 pandemic exposed longstanding gaps in Canada’s income- support frameworks, with lower-income workers facing exceptional economic vulnerability. At the same time, the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit proved edifying in terms of how to best design a basic-income program. In addition, the federal government’s experiences with the poverty-reducing impacts of the Canada Child Benefit, the Old Age Supplement and the Guaranteed Income Supplement have moved Canada closer than ever to a workable GBI. While it comes with additional costs, those costs will be less burdensome than many GBI skeptics might believe. They must also be put into perspective, by comparing them against the costs of current and, in many cases ineffective income transfers and, just as importantly, against the human cost of leaving more Canadians living in poverty.
Species and Areas Under Protection: Challenges and Opportunities for the Canadian Northern Corridor
Authors: Vamosi Steven
Published: August 2024

The Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) is a proposed multimodal transportation right-of- way, with accompanying infrastructure, that would run largely through northern Canada, with the goal of connecting all three coasts. Given the magnitude of the project, there are many implications for the lands and waterways, as well as for humans and other species in those areas, that the CNC will either intersect directly or affect indirectly through cascading effects.
This study used literature searches focused on the intersection of biodiversity, conservation research, government policies and engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems.Given the diversity of topics and the amount of research available in some areas (e.g., entire reviews have been written solely focused on the ecological effects of roads), this study highlights, rather than comprehensively treats, potential biodiversity challenges associated with the CNC. Biodiversity is a term that refers to the diversity (variability or complexity)
of life, typically at one or more of the following levels: genes, species and ecosystem. Major development projects may: 1) reduce genetic diversity within species, 2) increase odds of species loss in the region, and 3) degrade the quality and extent of a variety of ecosystems.
A Review of Funding and Financing Models for Infrastructure Corridor Megaprojects, and Implications for the Canadian Northern Corridor
Authors: Large David , Teymouri Ahmad
Published: August 2024

The University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy (SPP) is co-ordinating a national research program examining the feasibility of a proposed nation-building multi-use infrastructure corridor megaproject called the Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC).The objectives of this research paper are to contribute to the SPP’s research program by conducting an examination of the financing and funding models employed in similar megaprojects elsewhere in the world, and to extract knowledge that would be useful to help complete the feasibility analysis.
Canadian Competitiveness in the Health Life Sciences
Authors: Forest Pierre-Gerlier , Wittevrongel Krystle
Published: August 2024

The Canadian federal government’s recently launched Biomanufacturing and Life Sciences Strategy (BLSS) arrives on the scene after several peer countries have been moving quickly, and seriously, with their own health life sciences strategies. While Canada’s plan has much in common with the main themes of these other plans, it is questionable whether the proper policy infrastructure exists here for Canada to keep up in the highly competitive global health life sciences sector. It is within this context that the present report aims to present a high-level overview of Canadian competitiveness in the health life sciences sector.
The Australian Experience With Resources, Infrastructure Corridors and Supply Chains
Authors: Satchwell Ian
Published: August 2024

The North of Canada and the North of Australia are both resource-rich, but have underdeveloped infrastructure, small, scattered populations and high proportions of inhabitants who are Indigenous. The experiences of developing Australia’s North hold lessons for Canada. Experience from development of iron ore mining and gas production in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and with coal and gas development in the Central Queensland coalfields region, can be applied usefully to development of resources and infrastructure in Canada’s North, as well as in other resource-rich regions of the world.
Supply chains that provide efficient transport, handling and processing of mineral and energy products in the two Australian regions, and goods and services inputs to production, have been critical to their success in becoming world-leading resources exporters. Governments and industries in the Pilbara and Central Queensland have followed contrasting pathways to developing infrastructure and supply chains. Each initial pathway had advantages and disadvantages. Approaches by governments and project operators have changed over the 60 years of resources development, in light of experience, in response to big increases in scale of production, to the need to increase efficiency, experience of existing approaches and to accommodate new industries and entrants.
Governments have key roles to play in resources regions through their control of land allocation for development, and environmental and social protection. Governments also have responsibilities and unique abilities for co-ordination of development.
While discussion in this paper focuses primarily on supply chains for transport of outputs and inputs, another important consideration is infrastructure for people, without which resources projects cannot be developed and operated.
Poultry focus group: Challenges facing the sector
Authors: Wiskar Shawn , Lhermie Guillaume
Published: August 2024

The Simpson Centre initiated a focus group for agricultural industry stakeholders in the Canadian poultry 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 . Most concerns and frustrations voiced by participants involved the restrictions of the supply management system; however, the focus group felt the system provided protections that made poultry farming economically feasible . Participants felt there was a lack of meaningful consultation between different levels of government and the poultry sector, resulting in rigid regulatory requirements, and furthermore that the tension between consumers’ demands for low-cost food and producers’ challenges supplying the industry at a low cost has resulted in the need for investment and prioritizations of innovative practices .
Canada’s New Indo-Pacific Strategy: A Critical Assessment
Authors: Stephens Hugh
Published: August 2024

Canada’s Indo Pacific Strategy (IPS), built around five program objectives and funded at CAD$2.3 billion over the initial five year period, has been finally unveiled although details of implementation are generally lacking at present. The strategy lays out an ambitious plan for Canada’s re-engagement with parts of the Indo Pacific region that it has neglected, in relative terms, for a number of years while simultaneously trying to address the challenge of China. The Strategy is a welcome blueprint for diversification of Canadian engagement across various sectors, with ASEAN centrality a key component and closer engagement with North Pacific partners such as Japan and Korea and South Asia, in particular India, constituting core elements, yet the IPS does not close the door on relations with China or propose a decoupling strategy. China is both at the heart of the IPS, and yet not a focus of most of the initiatives. The trade-off for including China in the Strategy seems to have been to vocally demonstrate Canada’s anti-China credentials (to the US and the Canadian public) by talking tough in order to set the stage for more limited forms of ongoing cooperation. This includes calling out Beijing’s activities in a number of areas, including domestic interference in Canadian affairs. There is also a strong infusion of “Canadian values” throughout the document. A risk for Canada is that the Manichean view of China is not shared by many of the countries in the Indo Pacific region that are the targets of the Strategy, and Canada will need to be careful to ensure that strengthening relations with other countries that are targets of the Strategy is based on its own merits and regional priorities and is not portrayed simply as an antidote to expanding Chinese influence. Furthermore, given Canada’s past sporadic engagement with the region it is important that a detailed action plan be put in place quickly. The Trudeau government should be aiming for an “early harvest” for some of the initiatives to avoid the impression of a quick announcement followed by a distinct lag in implementation.
Energy Transition Under the New NAFTA: Challenges in the Critical Minerals Supply Chain
Authors: Hayes John , Cherinet Alem
Published: August 2024

Demand for critical minerals, battery metals, and the nearshoring of electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing have implications for all trading partners of the updated North American Free Trade Agreement, now called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). North American EV manufacturing is driven by initiatives such as the battery belt in the US and Canada’s commitment to clean technology. Mexico, as a major auto-component manufacturer and producer of critical minerals, holds a significant role in supporting the regional supply chain. However, recent developments in Mexican natural resource policy, including the nationalization of lithium deposits and exploration moratoriums, present challenges for foreign miners operating in Mexico, including the risk of future limited participation in the mining sector.
Canadian miners hold a dominant role in Mexican mineral exploration, and Mexico is Canada’s third-largest trading partner. The political landscape in Mexico, with the ruling Morena party controlling both the national government and majority of state governments, further complicates the situation. Policy changes in 2023 to the mining sector’s regulatory requirements are the most significant reforms to the sector since the early 1990s. The reforms are in response to prominent, long-standing grievances from various non-industry stakeholders and seek to mitigate against future negative social and environmental impacts of mining. The reforms include shorter mining concession permits, stricter environmental impact assessments, and new permitting procedures on water use.
Comment on ‘Reducing Canada’s landfill methane emissions: Proposed regulatory framework’
Authors: Winter Jennifer
Published: August 2024

Regulating methane emissions is an important policy tool for Canada because it offers a way to effectively limit near-term global warming. Environment and Climate Change Canada published a document in April 2023, proposing a regulatory framework for reducing landfill methane emissions. New regulations will set a much-needed standard for policy consistency across the provinces and territories, and this paper provides feedback on the framework.
In 2021, Canada’s waste sector methane emissions were 14 per cent of total emissions, representing an 11 per cent increase since 1990. Waste sector emissions include municipal solid waste landfills, industrial wood waste landfills, solid waste biological treatment and incineration, and wastewater treatment and discharge, among others. Extending regulations to landfill methane will fill an important gap in Canadian emissions policy. With a federal framework in place, up to 90 per cent of municipal solid waste landfills and 19 per cent of all methane emissions would be regulated, compared to the current scenario in which 58 per cent of landfill methane is directly vented to the air. Currently, most provinces require only capture for use over flaring, or flaring over venting and these emissions are only indirectly regulated via offset markets.
Potential improvements include:

Expanding the regulation’s applicability to all landfills;

Building benefit-cost analysis relying on social damages from emissions into threshold determination;

Providing guidance on best-in-class options for compliance and increasing the stringency of the performance standard;

Prioritizing capture for use over capture and destruction, and creating incentives for the same;

Allowing for offset credit generation where facilities exceed the performance requirement;

Ensuring provincial or territorial equivalency is granted only in the case of more stringent regulation; and

Addressing the current inconsistency in regulation of industrial landfills.
Environment and Climate Change Canada’s proposed framework is a crucial first step in eliminating a nationwide gap in emissions policy, but there is still much work to do to fine-tune the regulatory design.
PIIGS “R” US? The Coming U.S. Debt Crisis and What Can Be Done About It
Authors: Richardson Stephen R.
Published: August 2024

The U.S. is beset by weak economic growth, ballooning debt and stubbornly high unemployment but the collapse of the housing bubble that spurred the 2008-2009 global financial crisis was more a consequence than a cause of what is wrong. The real culprit was and remains poor policymaking in the areas of taxation, finance and economics, which helped bring on the crisis by encouraging Americans to engage in counterproductive behaviour. This paper warns that without meaningful fiscal reform, the U.S. risks joining the PIIGS — Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain — on the road to ruin through unsustainable debt, high spending and chronically low growth. The author acknowledges the heated partisan debate over whether the answer is higher taxes or lower spending and explains that neither course alone offers a practical way out. A balanced approach incorporating aspects of both, combined with detailed policy reform as set forth in this paper, is the best solution. U.S. politicians must put aside their differences and replace bad policies with sound ones or the American economy will face disaster.
Departures From Neutrality in Canada’s Goods and Services Tax
Authors: Smart Michael
Published: August 2024

With recent accessions to the federal-provincial Harmonized Sales Tax, provinces with valueadded taxes (VATs)  now comprise over two-thirds of the national economy. While Canadian VATs are economically superior to the taxes they replaced, they are not as well designed as in other countries.  An efficient VAT is a uniform tax on all consumer (but not business) purchases.  Although the OECD has reported that Canada’s VAT is one of the most efficient in the world, that assessment was based on data shown here to be misleading. In reality, Canada’s VATs have large exemptions, rebates and rate preferences that reduce revenues and hamper productivity. If all these tax preferences were eliminated, government VAT revenues would increase by as much as $39 billion, or more than 50 percent.  Moreover, taxing consumer commodities at a single rate reduces opportunities for tax evasion, simplifies tax compliance, and in most cases increases economic productivity. Given the fiscal and productivity challenges currently facing Canadian governments, a new look at VAT design is clearly warranted.  This paper offers a detailed assessment of the effects of the tax on the economy, and it proposes a number of specific, feasible reforms to the GST-HST system.
The GST/HST: Creating an Integrated Sales Tax in a Federal Country
Authors: Bird Richard M.
Published: August 2024

Canada is not a country with a reputation for bold experimentation. However, decades of federal-provincial compromises have successfully disproved the belief that an invoice-credit, destination-based value-added tax (VAT) is unworkable at the subnational level. Canada’s experiences with the GST, as well as with subordinate VATs like the HST and independent vats like the QST, have three important and interlinked consequences for future tax reform in Canada. First, the exact shape of provincial-level taxes is largely irrelevant to the smooth functioning of a federal VAT — although lack of provincial-federal coordination inevitably raises administrative costs. Second, the nature of a subordinate sales tax is extremely important at the provincial level. As the furor over British Columbia’s HST demonstrates, governments can’t ignore voters’ views and must retain the freedom to tailor provincial-level taxes to meet them, even when public opinion leads to suboptimal outcomes. And third, the best way Ottawa can avoid such outcomes is to provide the provinces with critical support and encouragement in the form of administrative and economic assistance. Since the federal government controls Canada’s borders, over which imports and exports flow, and administers its own sales tax, there is plenty of scope for cooperation. This paper traces the history of federal sales taxation, from the first turnover tax in 1920 right up the present-day GST, along with comprehensive examinations of regional sales tax issues in every corner of Canada, making it one of the best available summary treatments of the GST.
A White Paper on Reforming Canada’s Transportation Policies for the 21st Century
Authors: Flemming Brian
Published: August 2024

While much of the developed world struggles with debt and chronically low growth, Canada, one of the best-performing members of the G-7, remains on firmer footing. However, this country still has to cope with slower growth, cutbacks and aging infrastructure. As this paper argues, reconciling these facts will take creative, non-partisan problem solving, and it is time governments got to work. Particularly brave politicians might consider charging the public the full costs of infrastructure use in the form of a tax. For the less daring, advances in robotics and data management offer substantial efficiency gains. Whichever path Canadian governments choose, they will not travel it alone. The burgeoning power of social media will amplify citizens’ voices and involvement. However, private sector expertise and capital could be just what is needed to ease Canada’s looming infrastructure woes, notably in the form of infrastructure banks (iBanks); cost-effective, streamlined replacements for the tangled mass of programs and departments that currently build, manage and maintain public infrastructure. Such an institution could allow private investment vehicles like bonds, preference shares and mortgage-backed securities to be issued to create capital and to pay back investors as the objects of its investments repaid the capital borrowed. iBanks could raise tricky problems about overlapping jurisdictions and would, in some parts of the country, be a tough sell, but Canada has been lagging badly in transportation innovation and must consider unorthodox solutions.
Size, Role and Performance in the Oil and Gas Sector
Authors: Mansell Robert L. , Winter Jennifer , Krzepkowski Matt , Moore Michal C.
Published: August 2024

The oil and gas sector is a key driver of the Canadian and Albertan economies. Directly and indirectly it typically accounts for roughly half of Alberta’s GDP, as well as one-third of the country’s business investment and a quarter of business profits — and rising global demand will only add to these figures. However, that energy sector is also a changeable place populated by companies of all shapes and sizes, from small Emerging Juniors to wellestablished Majors whose daily production capacities are hundreds or thousands of times greater. The sector’s assorted firms have different structures and ambitions, respond in distinct ways to market forces and have unique impacts on the economy. These differences in size, role and performance must be reflected in energy and related economic policies if they are to be effective in achieving policy goals. For example, they must recognize that the smallest firms are not always the fastest growers or the most innovative; that Intermediates are the most highly leveraged, with the highest debt-to-equity ratios; and that while Majors tend to have the lowest average cost per well drilled, they also (along with Emerging Juniors) have the highest operating costs. Despite the industry’s critical importance, relatively little hard data has been made available concerning companies’ structure, behaviour and performance, based on size. This paper goes a considerable way toward filling that gap, bringing together comprehensive datasets on 340 public oil and gas firms to chart essential patterns and trends, so policymakers and industry watchers can better understand the complexity and functioning of this important sector.
The Syrian Crisis: What It Means for the World; Is There a Role for Canada?
Authors: Kerckhove Ferry de
Published: August 2024

The Harper government has shown itself to be fully engaged and willing to take a public leadership position when it comes to the world’s response to the Syrian crisis, but Canada has yet to commit to a military intervention. That may well be the most sensible approach.There are many reasons that western countries have resisted a Libyan-style intervention in Syria, though there are compelling arguments on both sides. But with al-Qaida operatives involved in the uprising, uncertainty over how favourable a new regime would be towards the West, and the potential dangers posed by the conflict to Israel, one of Canada’s staunchest allies, the Harper government’s primary objective must be to ensure that the outcome of the Syrian civil war is compatible with western values.One of Canada’s top priorities must be helping to ensure that Syria, after the likely defeat of dictator Bashar Assad, rapidly returns to as much stability as possible, and avoids breaking down further into competing divisions and conflicts. The Harper government must be prepared to lend legitimacy to a new government in Syria, work more systematically with the Arab League to foster security in the region, prepare to be of assistance in a post-Assad reconstruction, and engage with other countries considering imposing a no-fly zone over Syria that might help impede Assad’s brutality. There are no simple pathways to securing a peaceful, pro-Western Syria after Assad. But there are things Canada can do, besides military intervention, that can increase the likelihood of it.
Smart Environmental Policy with Full-Cost Pricing
Authors: Olewiler Nancy
Published: August 2024

Canada’s natural capital — its resources, ecosystems and wildlife — are indispensable to the productivity of industry. Despite this, both the public and private sectors have failed to adequately factor in the consequences of production and consumption on the natural environment. There is a growing need for full-cost pricing, a system that adjusts market prices to reflect not only the direct costs of good and services, but also their impact on this country’s natural capital. As this paper argues, the onus is on the federal government to create the conditions for full-cost pricing to succeed. Ottawa needs to eliminate energy subsidies (to producers and consumers), implement full-cost pricing on air contaminants  and greenhouse gases and encourage projects at the provincial and municipal levels that adopt that methodology. The benefits include productivity gains; potentially billions in savings for consumers, businesses and governments; a strong environment supporting sustainable industries; and simplified tax systems. In surveying past and existing federal initiatives and missed opportunities in previous budgets, this paper assesses costs and consequences, arguing that a healthy environment is synonymous with a healthy economy, and providing hard data to back up that conviction. With Budget 2012 just around the corner, the time is ripe for the Harper government to introduce full-cost pricing, and guarantee Canada a brighter future.
Pacific Basin Heavy Oil Refining Capacity
Authors: Hackett David , Noda Leigh , Grissom Susan W. , Moore Michal C. , Winter Jennifer
Published: August 2024

The United States today is Canada’s largest customer for oil and refined oil products. However, this relationship may be strained due to physical, economic and political influences. Pipeline capacity is approaching its limits; Canadian oil is selling at substantive discounts to world market prices; and U.S. demand for crude oil and finished products (such as gasoline), has begun to flatten significantly relative to historical rates. Lower demand, combined with increased shale oil production, means U.S. demand for Canadian oil is expected to continue to decline. Under these circumstances, gaining access to new markets such as those in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming more and more important for the Canadian economy. However, expanding pipeline capacity to the Pacific via the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the planned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is only feasible when there is sufficient demand and processing capacity to support Canadian crude blends. Canadian heavy oil requires more refining and produces less valuable end products than other lighter and sweeter blends. Canadian producers must compete with lighter, sweeter oils from the Middle East, and elsewhere, for a place in the Pacific Basin refineries built to handle heavy crude blends. Canadian oil sands producers are currently expanding production capacity. Once complete, the Northern Gateway pipeline and the Trans Mountain expansion are expected to deliver an additional 500,000 to 1.1 million barrels a day to tankers on the Pacific coast. Through this survey of the capacity of Pacific Basin refineries, including existing and proposed facilities, we have concluded that there is sufficient technical capacity in the Pacific Basin to refine the additional Canadian volume; however, there may be some modifications required to certain refineries to allow them to process Western Canadian crude. Any additional capacity for Canadian oil would require refinery modifications or additional refineries, both of which are not expected, given the volume of lighter and more valuable crude from the Middle East finding its way to Pacific Basin markets. Consequently, any new refinery capacity is not likely to be dedicated to Canadian crude shipments. This places increasing importance on the need to enter into long-term contracts to supply Pacific Basin refineries, backed up by evidence of adequate transportation capacity. Canadians will have to show first, and quickly, that we are committed to building pipelines that will bring sufficient volumes of oil to the Pacific coast necessary to give the refiners the certainty they need to invest in infrastructure for refining Canadian oil. Access to this crucial market will depend critically on the outcome of the pipeline approval process, and also the cost to ship from Canada. If Canada does not approve of the Pacific coast pipeline expansions, or takes too long in doing so, it could find its crude unable to effectively penetrate the world’s most promising oil export market.
A Recovery Program for Alberta: A 10-Year Plan to End the Addiction to Resource Revenues
Authors: Kneebone Ronald D. , Gres Margarita
Published: August 2024

Alberta has a substance-abuse problem. The substance is fossil fuels, and the province has become hooked on the revenues from oil and gas sales to fund its spending on health, education and social services. As we are so often told, the first step in beating an addiction is admitting that a compulsion has gotten out of control. Recent announcements suggest that Alberta’s leaders appear to have finally taken that first crucial step. We applaud them for doing so. But if they plan to get this addiction under control and so ward off the sort of financial turmoil that has tormented Alberta in the past, they will have to do more. In this note we provide a menu of policy choices all of which take the government to a sustainable budget by 2023. They all involve reductions in what we identify as the government’s Budget Gap — that is, the difference between its spending and all its revenue besides the revenue it earns from nonrenewable resources. The size of that gap summarizes just how much provincial government spending on health care, education and social services is at the mercy of commodity-market swings. If current trajectories of government spending continue, then in another 10 years the gap will be nearly 4 times what it was in 1999. Reducing the size of the Budget Gap is necessary to protect Albertans from repeatedly suffering wide swings in levels of public service, shifting tax rates and plunges into deficit and debt. We identify a variety of ways to achieve fiscal sustainability over 10 years. Our investigation highlights two key results. First, provincial spending on health care currently comprises 40 per cent of provincial expenditures and is growing at a rate that causes it to double every 20 years. Exempting health care spending from cuts comes at the price of draconian cuts to education and social services of over 30% even after adjusting for inflation and population growth. It is therefore hard to fathom that constraints on health spending can be avoided altogether. Second, to reduce the size of the cuts to spending required to achieve fiscal sustainability, the government can raise rates on existing taxes or introduce a new source of revenue like a sales tax. It is important to note, however, that new revenue without spending restraint cannot solve the problem. Additional revenue can only help achieve fiscal sustainability if it is accompanied by a program of spending restraint along with a sales tax of 3, 6 and 9 per cent and an increase in the personal tax rate to between 12 and 17 per cent from its current 10 per cent. None of these are easy options. But weaning itself off of its addiction to resource revenue means Alberta’s days of taking the easy way are over. Spending cuts alone or spending cuts in conjunction with increases in taxes are necessary steps to recovery. The government of Alberta has finally admitted it has a problem. In this note we identify the ways it can fix it.
Canadian Manufacturing Malaise: Three Hypotheses
Authors: Krzepkowski Matt , Mintz Jack M.
Published: August 2024

The danger in politicians promoting the idea that “Dutch Disease” is responsible for the decline of the Ontario manufacturing sector is that the suggestion implies that Canada’s manufacturing sector will bounce back if only we could slow down oil sands development, or if the Canadian dollar were to devalue. In reality, evidence suggests that the decline in Ontario manufacturing is the result of long-term structural changes in the economy, independent of the rise of the country’s natural-resource sector and the rising dollar. And the sooner policymakers realize that, and stop blaming the decline in manufacturing on Dutch Disease (which holds that a booming natural-resource sector that drives up our dollar makes our manufacturing exports less competitive) the sooner they can get to work on helping manufacturing-dependent regions transition to the evolving economy. A closer analysis of Canada’s manufacturing sector shows that jobs in that sector have been disappearing across the country since the end of the Second World War, with the sector’s share of employment falling dramatically well before rapid development began to take hold in the oil sands, and back when Canada’s dollar was still worth far less than the American dollar. It is a trend that has been occurring among most of our OECD peers, including the United States, which may be due to the widespread reallocation of production to lower cost countries. But it is also true that Canada’s manufacturing productivity performance in particular has been declining for a generation, with especially poor performance in the last decade, when labour productivity in Canada grew at just a quarter of the U.S. rate. Meanwhile, capital investment that may have improved the competitiveness of Canadian manufacturing has been anemic.  Yet there is no particular reason to lament the scaling-down of manufacturing jobs in Ontario. The province remains just as economically important, as a share of national GDP, as it was 30 years ago, and its unemployment rate has remained roughly in line with the Canadian average. Often the manufacturing jobs that disappear soonest are low-skill, low-paying jobs. Indeed, those workers that have remained in the sector have done very well, with the growth in weekly earnings in the Ontario manufacturing sector outpacing the national average. It would be a grave mistake for Ontario’s policy-makers to argue in favour of hampering Canada’s oil sands development in hopes that it might devalue the dollar and revive their province’s shrinking manufacturing base. It would harm the national economy and yet, judging by the evidence, may do nothing to add jobs at Ontario’s factories. Instead, Ontario’s policymakers should accept that those jobs might never return, and instead, focus their energies on finding ways to encourage growth in high-skill, high-paying jobs in other sectors that offer more promise.
All the Workers We Need: Debunking Canada’s Labour-Shortage Fallacy
Authors: McQuillan Kevin
Published: August 2024

When the Royal Bank of Canada was recently caught up in a maelstrom of bad publicity over its use of temporary foreign workers, it led politicians and pundits to scrutinize and question the growing use by Canadian firms of imported, short-term labour. The Royal Bank was accused of misusing a system designed to help employers who could not find Canadian workers by using it, instead, to find cheaper foreign labourers to replace higher-cost Canadians. But the incident raises a bigger question than simply how one bank makes use of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP): Whether the program is, in fact, interfering with the natural supply and demand responses of the labour market. And if we want to make better use of available Canadian labour, the time has come for the federal government to start cutting back on the use of TFWP. The number of admissions under the TFWP has nearly tripled in 25 years, from 65,000 to 182,000 in 2010. The primary justification for the expansion of the program has been the widespread assumption that Canada is suffering from a growing shortage of labour. Yet, it is hard to find any evidence to support this belief. What Canada is arguably facing is a widening imbalance between the skills that the labour market demands and the skills that workers are equipped with, as well as between where the jobs are and where available workers live. There are looming worker shortages in certain sectors while other sectors have an overabundance of available workers. Improving the balance in the labour marketplace does not require an increase in the labour supply. Indeed, the TFWP is sometimes being used to fill jobs with foreign workers in regions that already suffer from relatively high unemployment rates. Temporary Foreign Workers could be distorting the labour-market forces that would bring together more Canadian workers and jobs. A strategy is needed to better equip Canadian workers with the education, training and skills that employers are looking for, and to find ways to better mobilize unemployed workers from regions with lower demand for workers, to provinces with a greater need for workers. With no evidence that any increase in immigration is necessary, Ottawa should consider holding the current immigration rate steady, and re-evaluate only when the business cycle warrants — possibly returning to the disused policy of increasing immigration rates in boom times, but lowering them during slower economic periods. Admissions under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program should be reduced, and provinces should bring some influence to bear on universities and colleges to align their programming, and the incentives to draw students into certain programs, more directly with labour-market needs. Finally, the government must find ways of inducing Canadian workers — through tax holidays or other measures — to move from high-unemployment regions to the provinces where the jobs are.
Unhealthy Pressure: How Physician Pay Demands Put the Squeeze on Provincial Health-Care Budgets
Authors: Grant Hugh M. , Hurley Jeremiah
Published: August 2024

In the 11 years since the Romanow Commission warned that the income of physicians was threatening to become a significant driver of Canadian health-care costs, doctors in this country proceeded to chalk up some of their most rapid gains in earnings since the implementation of medicare. Since 2000, the gap between what the average physician makes, and what the average fully employed Canadian worker earns, has diverged like never before. In the last decade, the average doctor went from earning three-and-a-half times the average Canadian worker’s salary, to earning nearly four-and-a-half times as much, a more than 25 per cent relative increase. In constant dollars, today’s average Canadian physician is earning about 30 per cent more than he or she was just a decade ago. All of this has occurred while physicians have actually provided slightly fewer services to patients. Since the implementation of medicare, the payment of doctors has been rather a matter of politics, as provinces became the ultimate paymasters for health-care personnel. The natural result was an ongoing competition between provinces and physicians for public support, each with its own claim to being the guardian of public health care. In the last two decades, however, doctors have succeeded in outmaneuvering governments, marshaling greater public support for higher pay for their work, even as provinces have been more often viewed as underfunding basic health care needs. There are signs that this may have finally gone too far: Ontario was recently able to freeze remuneration for doctors in a negotiated contract deal and Alberta shortly after imposed a unilateral settlement on its doctors after breaking off negotiations. Stories about “millionaire doctors” are now proliferating in the mainstream media and, as provinces across the countries struggle with deficits, the public’s sympathy appears to be shifting. There were periods, during the ’70s and ’90s, when governments were successful in holding back the growth in doctors’ fees, to the point where physicians saw their purchasing power shrink. If Canadians are now questioning where the priorities of doctors truly lie — whether its preserving health care or enriching themselves — the provinces can only gain more leverage in future negotiations with doctors. Physicians in the Canadian health-care system are entrusted with a special and protected role, and it behooves medical associations to bear in mind their additional responsibility to promote public health-care objectives. The current collective bargaining model has resulted in provinces pressured into buying healthcare peace by agreeing to continually ratchet up doctors’ pay. It is difficult to see how that can continue. It is time that doctors began working with policy-makers on a new model, one that puts less emphasis on profiting doctors, and more emphasis on promoting a sustainable health-care system for everyone.
Income Inequality, Redistribution and Economic Growth
Authors: Dahlby Bev , Ferede Ergete
Published: August 2024

Inequality is on the rise in Canada and this state of affairs has provoked outrage and demands for redistribution at a time when governments at every level are searching for reliable long-term growth. This paper examines the links between income inequality and economic growth and whether there is a trade-off between redistributive policies, and economic growth, or whether income redistribution can enable faster growth. The authors survey the existing literature on the impact of inequality on economic growth, and then conduct an econometric analysis of the association between provincial economic growth in Canada and three different measures of income inequality, finding no statistically significant relationships. One measure of income redistribution, the difference between the market income Gini coefficient and the disposable (after-tax, after-transfer) income Gini is positively associated with provincial growth rates — but since the largest transfer programs in Canada are federal programs financed out of nation-wide taxes, it is unlikely that this association carries over to the national level. Much of the growth in income disparity has been driven by innovation that places a premium on highly trained workers. With that in mind, the Goldin-Katz model, used to explain the rising earnings differentials of highly skilled workers in the US, can be combined with the Aghion-Bolton model of capital market imperfections to develop a framework for examining the impact of education spending, and the taxes that finance it, on earnings inequality and economic growth. The authors then review evidence that raising marginal tax rates on high-income individuals would not raise additional tax revenues, but impose substantial costs on the economy, as would higher corporate income taxes. Punishing high earners is a self-defeating choice, although improvements to the social safety net would give more Canadians the chance to join their ranks.
Grasping at Straws: Comments on the Alberta Pipeline Safety Review
Authors: Winter Jennifer
Published: August 2024

The release last month of the Alberta Pipeline Safety Review was meant to be a symbol of the province’s renewed commitment to environmental responsibility as it aims for new export markets. The report’s authors, Group 10 Engineering, submitted 17 recommendations covering public safety and pipeline incidents, pipeline integrity management and pipeline safety near bodies of water — and many of them run the gamut from the obvious to the unhelpful to the contradictory. That the energy regulator ought to be staffed to do its job should go without saying; in fact, staffing levels were never identified as an issue. The recommendation that record retention and transfer requirements be defined for mergers and acquisitions, sales and takeovers is moot. There is no reason a purchasing party would not want all relevant documents, and no real way to enforce transparency if the seller opts to withhold information. Harmonizing regulations between provinces could reduce companies’ cost of doing business, but could also prove challenging if different jurisdictions use performance-based regulations — which is what the Review recommended Alberta consider. This very brief paper pries apart the Review’s flaws and recommends that the province go back to the drawing board. Safety is a serious issue; a genuine statistical review linking pipeline characteristics to failures and risk-mitigation activities would be a better alternative by far.