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Hugh Segal is principal of Massey College. He served in the Canadian Senate as a Conservative from Ontario and was vice-chair of the subcommittee on urban poverty. Every democracy’s internal legitimacy is tied to how fair the residents of that country feel their society is or tries to be. The fairness of laws, the fairness of government generally, the mix of fairness and opportunity…

Free licensed child care. It sounds like a parents’ dream. But look a little closer at the Government of Ontario’s recently announced plan to deliver free licensed child care for preschoolers, and flaws emerge. Beyond the arguably late starting age of 2½ years, this initiative could have unwelcome consequences due to its limited accessibility and its potential to create excess demand for licensed…

Opinions on pipelines are flowing around Canada more quickly than the oil. The ultimate decisions on natural resource projects, however, ought to derive from facts. As an economist studying income inequality over the last 15 years, I can offer a key fact to the debate. In my view, nothing has contributed more than natural resources to buttressing the Canadian middle class against the rapidly…

This week’s review of the Ontario government’s pre-election financial report from the provincial Auditor-General reconfirmed what The Globe and Mail reported last weekend: The government is using an accounting trick to shrink its reported deficit and debt. It is hiding the cost of borrowing to subsidize electricity prices over the next few years by inventing an “asset” – revenue from the higher…

Canadians want a reliable retirement income so they can enjoy life without worrying about outliving their savings. They also want flexibility so they can adapt to changing circumstances, particularly relative to their health. Delaying receipt of public-pension benefits — Canada or Quebec Pension Plans (C/QPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) — to age 75 can help on both counts. Retirement planning is…

  Although Canadians today are richer than ever, the gap between average and median household wealth has grown also. By this measure, the main drivers of wealth inequality between Canadian households over the 2005-16 period have been rising real estate prices and an aging population, according to the 2016 Survey of Financial Security released by Statistics Canada. However, surveys…