Asked by the Globe what the “ballot question” should be for the upcoming election, Tasha Kheiriddin, Quebec Director of the Fraser Institute says: “It should be all about green – money, that is. With the price of oil dropping, inflation creeping up and the auto sector in tough times, which party can provide the steadiest invisible hand for our economy?” […]
Read moreIt was reported today that Stephen Harper will go to Michaelle Jean on Sunday to ask that Parliament be dissolved and an election be held. But what if Jean said no? First, take a step back. An editorial in the Toronto Star put it this way yesterday: Prime Minister Stephen Harper is about to pull the plug on the 39th […]
Read moreThe politics of the carbon tax, largely a BC phenomenon until now, have gone national in the face of a likely October federal election. Just last week in BC, a poll revealed the NDP ahead of the Liberals for the first time in several years — within the margin of error, mind you, but significant for a party that has […]
Read moreThis story in the weekend Globe says that Hollywood raked in about $4 billion in revenues over the summer. A good chunk of this was Batman, with about half a billion in ticket sales (personally, I thought the movie was awful, apart from the stunning performance of The Joker). So it is pretty safe to say that the main folks […]
Read moreSince Vancouver is the next Olympic city, I have a morbid fascination with the ongoing trials and tribulations that we call the Olympics. Suffice it to say that China definitely got a black eye from the extra publicity in the lead-up to the Games, on Tibet, crackdowns on protest, pollution and smog, and displaced workers (in order to reduce the […]
Read moreJames Galbraith bats this one out of the park: Years ago, I realized that the free-market, supply-side crowd, true conservatives who’d ridden high with Reagan, dislike Bush as much as I do. I speak of the hard money, low-tax, Wall Street Journal, deregulate-and-privatize team, the nemeses of my youth, people like Bruce Bartlett, Paul Craig Roberts, the late Jude Wanniski. […]
Read moreYesterday, the Premier’s hand-picked Climate Action Team released its final report to the government. As is often the case with government, the CAT consisted of a range of “stakeholders”, although with one glaring omission: no representation from labour. The CAT has been deliberating for several months on how to meet the 2020 target of a 33% reduction in greenhouse gas […]
Read moreA year ago, I was firmly on the fence with regard to carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade systems. My internal conversation was around abstract, theoretical versions of what might happen, and at that point it was premature to consider how the two might play together as part of a hybrid system. Since that time, we now have some real models to […]
Read moreThe CCPA’s Climate Justice Project released a new technical paper today on what BC’s targets should be in line with some notion of global equity. It is a nice collaboration between Colin Campbell of the Sierra Club of BC and Cliff Stainsby of the BC Government and Service Employees Union. The paper is, I have to admit, on the dense […]
Read moreAs reported by Julian Beltram of Canadian Press: The federal government has started the new fiscal year in a rare deficit position, announcing yesterday it was $517 million in the red after two months as tax cuts and a slowing economy sliced into revenues. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said revenues fell $1.6 billion combined in April and May, 4.1 per […]
Read moreRob Rainer of the National Anti-Poverty Organization has audited the federal Liberals’ Green Shift plan for anti-poverty measures and found it lacking a comprehensive approach. I’ve excerpted below the main points in his brief, which is not on the NAPO web site and should not be taken as the voice of NAPO on the matter (the brief also has footnotes […]
Read moreA well-intentioned article in the Vancouver Sun seeks to explain carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems. A worthy objective, but the article really aims to pigeonhole various alternatives in terms of political parties. It ends up taking a far-too-simplified view that goes something like this: The debate is being played out in British Columbia, where the Liberal government and New Democratic […]
Read moreWith this whole Internet thing, I have not cracked a copy of The Yellow Pages in years. Somehow I assumed that at some point they would just stop delivering them in favour of online distribution or give me the option for a CD-ROM. Alas, no. So after receiving the bulk that is the Yellow Pages on my doorstep this week, […]
Read moreAs a fan of satire, I love the medium of cartoons. Here are a few favourites who consistently produce good stuff, and a couple recent posts. Tom the Dancing Bug, explains the economics of gas prices and tells how America was destroyed. This Modern World says Farewell My Lovely Economy and soothes Republican angst. And for Canadian content, it is […]
Read moreBC’s public accounts for 2007/08 were released yesterday, closing the fiscal year with a surplus of $2.886 billion. This marks BC’s fourth truly massive surplus in a row, after surpluses of $2.575 billion in 2004/05, $3.060 billion in 2005/06, and $4.056 billion in 2006/07. Like all of those budgets, the 2007/08 budget as tabled in February 2007 vastly understated the […]
Read moreI’m recently back from a family vacation, which consisted in driving down to Northern California and back, camping along the way. Our 1992 Corolla keeps on rolling, and in my mind it is better to keep it humming and wait it out for something electric in a few years time, than to buy a new hybrid that emits a third […]
Read moreHere is the latest from the Conference Board: Its outlook projects Canada’s economy to grow 1.7 per cent this year – a far more bullish prediction than the Bank of Canada, which on Tuesday revised downward its growth forecast to one per cent this year. What is interesting is how the CP report calls them “bullish”. Back in February, I […]
Read moreYesterday, the BC government released its updated Climate Action Plan. A glossy affair, it nonetheless puts text to all of the myriad actions the BC government is taking on climate. Looking at it all, it is hard to say they are just “greenwashing”, though personally I would like to see even more aggressive action now. But as the government, they […]
Read moreThe front page banner headline from the Vancouver Sun: B.C. prefers NDP’s Carbon tax plan: Tax industrial polluters, not consumers, 82% tell pollster It is painful to keep reading because the poll in question is based on inaccurate information about how the carbon tax actually works. Industrial polluters are subject to the tax to the extent that they burn fossil […]
Read moreI wrote a paper for a volume on the OECD and competition policy last year, but the editors ultimately wanted less policy analysis and more on the inner workings of the OECD, so it got dropped. But a lot of the content is relevant to today’s release of the Competition Policy Panel report, so I’ve excerpted the relevant bits below. […]
Read moreThe BC NDP’s environment critic, Shane Simpson, wrote me to tell me why he disagrees with the BC carbon tax. With his permission, I quote: The more I learn the more clear it becomes what a regressive and inept tax it is and why it needs to be opposed as vigorously as possible. It hurts public services – burnaby schools […]
Read moreHaving already eaten the NDP’s lunch on the climate change file, the BC Liberals (the second-term, more moderate Liberals) threaten to do the same on early learning and child care. In the 2008 Throne Speech, the government said that it would study expansion of full-day kindergarten to five-year-olds, then to four- and three-year olds. But they are smart: having resisted […]
Read moreFurther to today’s release on ecological footprint by income decile for Canada, Stephen Pacala of Princeton has done some calculations on who is most to blame internationally for CO2 emissions (conference speech and presentation available here). An excerpt: All 3 billion of the lowest emitting people emit a total, all together, of a half a billion metric tons of CO2. […]
Read moreThe CCPA released today a really important contribution to our understanding of climate change and inequality. The study focuses on Bill Rees’ concept of the ecological footprint, which is not exactly the same as greenhouse gas emissions, but highly correlated. Some key findings: The richest 10% of Canadian households create an ecological footprint of 12.4 hectares per capita – nearly […]
Read moreYou wouldn’t know it from proponents of Canada’s proposed Bill C-61, but the music industry is thriving. The main reason is that musicians can control live performances, and make good money doing it. “Pirated†distribution can create an audience willing to play $40 (ranging up to $200) to see a live show. As Alan Kreuger points out in Rockonomics, most […]
Read moreI’m surprised that Jim Stanford has not made a plug for his new book on this site. A modest one, our Jimbo. So let me say a few words about Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism. Jim has outdone himself on this one. So many times I have had people ask me for a straightforward […]
Read moreAfter weeks of speculation, Stephane Dion has tabled the Liberals’ carbon tax plan, dubbed The Green Shift. The plan seems heavily influenced by both BC’s carbon tax and the Mintz/Olewiler plan released in April. Tax revenues, which reach $15 billion by year four, are fully recycled into PIT and CIT cuts plus some low income measures. The tax starts at […]
Read more… is people like me, who have made spectacular capital gains as home owners. Through the dumb luck of having bought real estate at the right time, before the current boom, my family has reaped a windfall profit that only an oil executive could sneer at. It is not particularly accessible. We need to live somewhere and could only really […]
Read moreWith the Conservatives’ “Born in the USA” Copyright Act now tabled, the fur is flying. A year after leaping to the defence of the oil and gas industry, Terrance Corcoran has got Big US Media’s back (does Terry ever stand up for anyone but the wealthy and powerful?). As always, Michael Giest, who knows way more about copyright than yours […]
Read moreIt is with considerable disgust that we watch the Conservatives introduce the US entertainment industry’s wet dream of legislation to amend copyright laws in its favour. Without any evidence that the super-profits being reaped by Big Media have been adversely affected by file sharing. Without any consultation with Canadians. Without any demonstrable benefit to Canadians as consumers, artists or content […]
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