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The Bank of Canada announced on Wednesday that it was holding its overnight rate target constant at 1.75 per cent. Many analysts had been predicting a lowering of the rate since at least Oct. 30, when the bank also held the rate steady and the U.S. Federal Funds Rate dropped a quarter percentage point. A recent Reuters poll reports that a majority of forecasters now expect the Canadian…

Job quality and compensation are key determinants of living standards. Workers in non-standard jobs are particularly vulnerable as a growing number find themselves precariously employed. The government can protect this group by offering more equitable access to both employment insurance and job-training programs to better address income and employment insecurity. Traditionally, preferred jobs are…

For Canadians concerned about national finances, the 2019 federal election campaign has been a double whammy. Personal smears and social-media mobbing have mostly eclipsed substance. And the discussions of budgetary policy that have cut through the noise have been discouraging. Especially the commitments for more and bigger deficits: even more red ink in the next four years than was spilled in…

Toronto city council has just approved an extra increase in property taxes — another 1.0 per cent in 2020 and 2021 on top of a previously approved 0.5 per cent hike, and a full 1.5 per cent for four years starting in 2022. Mayor John Tory, previously a staunch supporter of holding the line on property taxes, pushed it. The vote went 22-3 in favour — a convincing margin considering most…

The idea of an annual wealth tax has taken on new prominence since French economist Thomas Piketty famously proposed a global wealth tax in 2013. Senator Elizabeth Warren has made a national wealth tax a plank in her campaign to become the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. And, the NDP recently announced that its election platform would include a one percent tax on the net worth of…

Ontario Premier Doug Ford uses the term “hallway medicine” to describe the overcrowding in hospitals, with patients languishing outside for want of beds. The image creates a potent picture of people needlessly suffering because of an ill-organized and poorly funded non-system in which institutional interests are put before patients. This image has defined the problem to be addressed. The…