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From: Kevin Milligan To: Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Date: July 4, 2016 Re: Dare to dream, but do the math Minister, in your former academic life you wrote many papers exploring the benefits of placing Canada’s income transfers into one package—sometimes called a ‘Basic Income’ or a ‘Guaranteed Minimum Income’. You are aware of the possible advantages…

Ontario Education Minister Liz Sandals has announced a $60-million plan to improve math training in elementary schools. The move comes in response to declining scores in standardized math tests, which showed that the portion of Grade 6 students meeting provincial standards fell to 54 per cent from 61 per cent over a five-year period. In that same period, scores in reading and writing…

A decade of failure has propelled the Edmonton Oilers to win four of the last six NHL draft lotteries. The most recent lottery win landed Edmonton the hockey phenom, Connor McDavid, giving down-trodden Oilers fans a glimmer of hope. However, when it comes to EI, Edmontonians are not so lucky. According to the 2016 federal budget, only Albertans outside Edmonton will see increases to EI…

Ontario’s Education Quality and Accountability Office’s (EQAO) 2015/2016 results from mathematics assessments should give parents in the province reason to worry. There was some positive news in that reading and writing scores increased over five years, but mathematics scores plummeted. The percentage of Grade 3 students who met the provincial math standard fell to 63 per cent from 68 per cent…

Last week’s announcement that former Pan Am Games chief Saad Rafi will run the proposed Ontario Retirement Pension Plan makes it sound ready to go. It is not. Until Ontarians get some basic information about how the scheme is supposed to work, the ORPP is more notion than actual plan. The provincial government has released some specs. The contribution rate: Employers and employees…

September 27, 2016 – Fourth-pillar assets significantly improve the outlook for Canadian households’ retirement readiness, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “The Bigger Picture: How the Fourth Pillar Impacts Retirement Preparedness,” authors Jeremy Kronick and Alexandre Laurin provide a comprehensive assessment of fourth-pillar assets in Canada. “Contrary to popular…