In a Vancouver Sun article, Miro Cernetig wonders whether the BC government is slowing down climate change actions because of business push-back. There is no doubt some truth to this, but reading the full article reveals something different entirely. The real issue is the state of the Western Climate Initiative, a cap-and-trade system that focused on the western part of […]
Read moreIn a commentary last fall in the NY Times, Robert Frank makes the case for consumption taxes to replace the income tax in the US. Yet, while this sounds revolutionary on first reading, what Frank is describing is essentially the Canadian tax system: Under such a tax, people would report not only their income but also their annual savings, as […]
Read moreIn a new report released today for Sustainable Prosperity (a new research institute), Jack Mintz and Nancy Olewiler pitch a federal carbon tax constructed by broadening the base of the federal excise tax (which currently raises over $5 billion per year based on a tax of 10 cents per litre of gas and 4 cents per liter of diesel) to […]
Read moreI’m deep into figuring out what the new BC carbon tax means for different income groups. But stumped by some anomalous results from the modeling, I took a detour and ended looking at my own output of GHGs. Living in hydro-power-rich BC, our electricity is almost entirely GHG-free, and in the rest of the home it is a natural gas […]
Read moreOne of my weekend projects was doing the family taxes. The good news: my effective income tax rate was 16.1%, which seems pretty reasonable to me. My boss, who makes more money, maxed out his RRSP contibutions and got his effective rate down to 14%. These numbers would creep up if we add in CPP and EI (although with CPP […]
Read moreMost environmentalists would probably say no. But I’m going to make the opposite case here. The thing we need to remember about economic growth is that over long periods of time the products we consume and the processes by which we produce them change dramatically. As my old prof Dick Lipsey pointed out repeatedly, we have a higher standard of […]
Read moreIt is my great pleasure to announce the winners of the first John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics: Mel Watkins and Kari Polanyi Levitt will share the Prize. The award was largely on the basis of their pioneering work around foreign (US) investment and ownership and multinational corporations back in the 1960s and 1970s. Both Kari and Mel will be […]
Read moreMost of the focus in terms of policy responses to climate change has been on mitigation, or ways in which we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, with targets and timelines to that end being developed (or at least contemplated). But even if we were to slash those emissions to zero tomorrow, there will still be an increase in global […]
Read moreSpurred by his success in using facebook to derail the government’s new draconian copyright proposals, Michael Geist has set up a service to complement (perhaps, do the work for) the Canadian do-not-call registry. I signed up for that months ago and still get phone spam. I find this deeply annoying, especially when I have settled into the beanbag and the […]
Read moreFor as long as I can remember (i.e. when I was a kid) Ontario has had junior kindergarten for four-year-olds. It is mostly half-day, I think, as is senior kindergarten for five-year olds. Here in BC they just have one kindergarten for five-year-olds, and is generally two-and-a-half to three hours per day. In the recent BC Throne Speech, the government […]
Read moreFor the first time in years, I forked out a toonie to buy the Vancouver Sun this past Saturday. It must have been a guest editor for Easter or something because the banner headline screamed: The Cost of Homelessness: BC spends $644 million a year on services for those on the street. A study says the same amount would buy […]
Read more A good one from Eric Beauchesne on the Canwest wire. Some highlights: Canada’s wealthy benefit most from tax cuts, OECD finds The tax burden on wages has eased in most of the world’s industrial countries this decade, including here, but Canada is among a minority where most of the relief has gone to high-income earners and the least to lower-income […]
Read moreAndrew Jackson closes his lengthy and excellent post on the fallout of the US financial crisis with this paragraph (which I repeat here only because Andrew’s post was so comprehensive): We are at a moment when progressives will have to move from critique to prescription. As Naomi Klein argued in the Shock Doctrine, neo liberalism took advantage of past crises […]
Read moreI was on CBC’s The House this weekend on the US economy and its implication for Canada and the federal budget. My co-commentator was Chris Ragan, of McGill and CD Howe. We are in general agreement as far as diagnosis goes, though he seems more optimistic than I about Canada’s ability to stay clear of the Tasmanian devil that is […]
Read moreGwyn Morgan, retired founding CEO of EnCana Corp., makes some interesting points about the BC carbon tax in this Globe article. But he also misses the point by focusing his analogy on transportation, as many of us do because it is most what we relate to. While transportation is characterized by highly inelastic responses, the economic equation changes at much […]
Read moreIt is a grim story for household finances according to a recent report by Roger Sauve for the Vanier Institute for the Family. Savings have all but vanished for most families, with debt rising to record highs relative to income. Interest payments have jumped up relative to income, suggesting more households are mortgage and credit card poor, with debt service […]
Read moreLast week, Industry Minister Jim Prentice appeared before the Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce Committee to make the case for TILMA as a means of overcoming those dreaded interprovincial trade barriers, examples of which, according to the Minister “are legion”. What examples does the Minister cite? Here is what I can find: For example, some Canadians, such as teachers and […]
Read moreIn Vancouver, June 6-8, the Progressive Economics Forum will be holding five panels at the annual meetings of the Canadian Economics Association. In addition we will be awarding the new John Kenneth Galbraith Prize in Economics for the first time (more to come on this). We would like to thank the CEA, who last year provided us a grant to […]
Read moreA new release from Statistics Canada on infrastructure finds that: In the public sector, infrastructure is primarily concentrated in schools, hospitals, roads and water mains. In 2002, about one-third (34%) of assets were devoted to transportation in the public sector, unchanged from 1970. About 26% were devoted to recreation, culture and education, 13% to health and social protection and 11% […]
Read moreNational Post Dinosaur-in-Chief Terence Corcoran has nothing but bile to spew at the David Suzuki Foundation and its recent report on carbon pricing. With characteristic bombast, he still seems to think that global warming is a vast left-wing conspiracy to overthrow capitalism. But Terry is right about one thing. All of the modeling for greenhouse gas reduction scenarios comes from […]
Read moreUsually when expectations are lowered it is so that they can subsequently be exceeded. So budget watchers were all wondering in the past few days what the surprise in this budget would be. Alas, the surprise is that there is no surprise. As expected we got a do-nothing budget, albeit one with a glossy cover of a child waving a […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson really loves Gordon Campbell. Having done a series of columns on BC’s carbon tax, its clever political packaging and the leader behind it – all in all, not a bad set of columns – Simpson completely loses touch on the health care side of the provincial budget. He buys hook, line and sinker the arguments about the lack […]
Read morePatrick Brethour in the Globe and Mail writes: Consumers will pay about one-third of the new carbon tax, but will receive close to two-thirds of tax rebates, totalling $338-million in the 2008-09 budget year. B.C. businesses, which will pay two-thirds of the new tax, will receive only about half of that money back from reduced corporate and small-business income taxes. […]
Read moreSince the provincial Liberals came to power in 2001 I have seen a lot of BC Budgets and not been too happy with any of them. Until now. Today’s 2008 model is a very interesting budget, and while I have a number of quibbles, I support the overall direction. And as in the recent past on climate change I find […]
Read moreWith recession on everyone’s lips south of the border, how much longer can Canada hold out before we begin to feel the nasty effects in the Great White North? I am guessing that the Tories want to go to the polls now because they know the economy is slipping and they do not want to have to wear the downturn […]
Read moreThe latest from the Fraser Institute concludes that BC’s 2001 tax cuts spurred economic growth, investment and all other good things. To their credit, this is a far more sophisticated analysis than one usually sees from the Fraser. Rather than relying on the in-house talent, they farmed the work out to University of Alberta economist Bev Dahlby, known for advocating […]
Read moreThe Tyee ran a piece by yours truly that is an edited-down version of my UCC Blues blog posts from last fall. David Beers did an amazing editing job on my reworked article: My Rich Kids Reunion UCC circa 1915. A tax-the-rich economist goes home to Upper Canada College. By Marc Lee Published: February 13, 2008 I don’t talk it […]
Read moreJeffrey Simpson makes a remark in today’s column that you heard here first: Mr. Flaherty has been bragging that the second GST cut was clairvoyant, because it added stimulus for an economy now slowing. This observation is laughably bogus. The government did not see the slowdown coming. The second one-point cut was entirely political. To link it to today’s slowdown […]
Read moreIn BC, with a Thone Speech next week and the provincial budget the week after, the speculation has been around what additional measures might be announced in relation to BC’s commitment to a one-third reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 (relative to 2007 levels) and 80% by 2050. A carbon tax figures among that speculation. Today, just in time […]
Read moreYesterday, I attended the Poverty Olympics, held in the heart of the Downtown Eastside, aka Canada’s poorest neighbourhood. It was a wonderful few hours of well-orchestrated political satire. There were opening and closing ceremonies, a torch ceremony, a new mascot (Itchy the bedbug), and of course, events (the poverty line high jump, the welfare hurdles, the broad jump over bedbug-infested […]
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