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Looking around the OECD, Canada is an average-tax nation overall but relies far more on income taxes and much less on consumption levies than most other industrialized nations. Leaning so hard on income taxes hurts our economic performance. Every tax creates economic distortions but some overused taxes are more damaging than others. By raising more of our revenue from the less damaging taxes we…

In the current debate about how to make housing affordable in Canada, there is a curious omission: the role of monetary policy, both of excessively loose monetary policy in creating the problem and of more responsible monetary policy in solving it. The global financial crisis of 2008-09 led central banks around the world to reduce interest rates to historically low levels, which made…

Just over two decades ago, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act put the regulation of corporate compliance on the map. It has since become a governance preoccupation, spawning armies of compliance professionals, commanding a substantial portion of every board’s agenda and costing hundreds of billions of dollars. Elaborate legal mechanisms — such as sentencing guidelines, whistleblowing regimes and personal…

Published in the Globe and Mail Throughout my career, the Income Tax Act has grown increasingly complex – complicating even the simplest transactions. This underscores the need for a thorough review of the ITA. That’s a sentiment shared by CPA Canada in our 2024 pre-budget submission, which recommended prioritizing a principled approach to tax policy and administration that is driven by purpose…

Published in the Globe and Mail The creation of the Canada and Quebec pension plans in the 1960s and subsequent amendments to them in the 1990s is a compelling story of how governments worked together to create and sustain one of Canada’s greatest public-policy achievements. Today we are faced with the thorny issue of how to determine a fair basis on which Alberta might choose to exit the CPP.…

The federal expenditure management system looks good on paper. Transparency is served by publication of five-year spending plans for major spending categories in the annual budget and detailed information in the government’s main estimates and departmental plans. Efficiency and effectiveness are served by setting objectives for program spending and requiring departments to report on the…