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In the United States and around the world, millions of people are now asking “how could this happen?” How can we make sense of an America in which Donald Trump becomes the next president? Discovering the real answer to this question will be good for America—and for Canada, too. Many people who are now angry and perplexed focus on Donald Trump, the man. They argue that he is the real problem…

From: Zachary Spicer To: City Councils Across Canada Date: November 30, 2016 Re: The Dreadful Conditions of Municipal Budgets In their recent report, Two Sets of Books at City Hall? Grading the Finance Reports of Canada’s Cities, Benjamin Dachis, William B.P. Robson and Jennifer Y. Tsao argue that many of the annual budgets in Canada’s cities are in dreadful condition – key activities are…

From: Trevor Tombe To: Hon. Deron Bilous, Alberta Minister of Economic Development and Trade Date: October 25, 2016 Re: Five Ways to a Better Diversification Debate in Alberta Alberta’s economy has seen better days. To many, the cause is clear: we’re over-reliant on oil and gas. Faced with this broad sentiment, the government is exploring various policies aimed at “economic diversification”. As…

From: Benjamin Dachis To: The Hon. Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada Date: October 20, 2016 Re: Home energy tax credits are not the right way to reduce emissions Your government has plans to re-introduce incentives for home-energy retrofits. If so, this will follow a long line of policies that have provided hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize people and…

Today, provincial and federal health ministers are meeting in Vancouver to negotiate a new health accord. Given the underwhelming results of the previous accord, and the mounting challenges facing today’s provincial health systems, they have their work cut out for them. Canada’s health-care system ranks in the median on a number of OECD performance measures, but is one of the highest spenders on…