Op-Eds
Surging immigration numbers are top-of-mind for Canadians. But as we reconsider targets for newcomers and address pain points such as housing, we also need to pay attention to talent retention.
Tens of thousands of people leave Canada every year, many of them talented and entrepreneurial people we will miss. Importantly, a significant fraction are themselves immigrants, which may mean we are missing an opportunity to boost Canada’s long-term growth and prosperity.
A recent study by Statistics Canada, using a data set that combines detailed immigration department data with a Canada Revenue Agency database, highlights the significant phenomenon of emigration among immigrants in Canada. The overall…
It’s easy to see what Volkswagen VWAGY and Stellantis STLA-N get out of the billions in subsidies that Canada is dangling in front of them for domestic battery plants. Such subsidies clearly improve the companies’ returns on investments enough to attract these electric-vehicle battery plants away from other jurisdictions such as the United States or Europe. It’s harder to see what the Canadian and Ontario governments get in return.
They won’t get a stake in the firms’ profits. These are subsidies, not investments. Federal and provincial governments won’t own a portion of the plants and they will not share in the financial returns. Governments may capture some corporate income tax revenues, but…
On November 22, 2022, as part of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s Ontario Economic Summit, The Hub’s executive director Rudyard Griffiths moderated a “Munk-style” debate involving Globe and Mail columnist Andrew Coyne, C.D. Howe Institute CEO Bill Robson, former Ontario Cabinet minister Sandra Pupatello, and The Hub’s own editor-at-large Sean Speer. The debate’s resolution read: Be It Resolved: Ontario Needs Reshoring as Part of Its Growth Agenda. Pupatello and Speer argued in favour of the motion. Coyne and Robson against it.
Thanks to the organizers for inviting us here to debate this very important question. Our worthy opponents, Sandra and Sean, make a very valiant case in favour of reshoring as part of Ontario’s growth…
Canada is not keeping up in the global competition for innovation-led growth and prosperity.
Our research and development intensity is low relative to other countries and not enough of our inventions are commercialized at home. Can Ottawa’s current review of the Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit announced in its last budget make a difference?
In principle, yes, but early indications are that the review will focus on issues of dubious merit or those that would best be handled with new measures rather than by modifying SR&ED.
The federal review has two objectives. The first is to assess whether the SR&ED program is effective in encouraging R&D that benefits Canada. The…
Yet another alarming inflation number from Statistics Canada — 7.7 per cent from May to May — has underlined that something is seriously wrong with Canada’s economy. Prices are rising fast because spending is rising fast while production is not. The capacity of our economy to produce is flatlining because business investment has been so weak that the stock of productive capital per worker is falling. If we do not turn that around, the outlook for real growth in living standards in the coming months, years and decades is bleak.
The basic problem is chronically low business investment, which has been the highlight — or lowlight — of Statistics Canada’s quarterly GDP reports for several years now. The cumulative effect of low rates…
