Expect reduced jurisdictional choice and competition, higher tax burdens and more political patronage
Rhetoric is one thing; reality is another. As is becoming increasingly clear, the proposal from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) earlier this year for a 15 per cent global minimum for corporate taxation is nothing of the sort. Although the initiative slated for 2023 won’t and can’t achieve a level playing field…
The idea that the sky is falling and major restrictions are necessary should be greeted with skepticism
Travel and work over the past two years have brought me to many jurisdictions. What continues to strike me is the way the responses to COVID-19 have been varied, arbitrary and often draconian. I look at Canada and see raging debates over mask mandates, vaccine-status segregation, lockdowns and event restrictions, including bans on religious gatherings…
Ever-higher minimum wages are pricing more people out of the job market and reducing economic opportunity
Minimum wages are on the rise again in Ontario. As of Oct. 1, the province’s incessant central planners have not one but six higher price controls for labour. These hurt the most vulnerable Canadians and do the bidding of unions. However, vociferous proponents delude themselves into thinking they have the moral high ground and are…
The alleged dangers will be news to countless families who have grown up on raw milk
There’s a legal way to consume raw milk in Canada: buy it in the United States and bring it home. Of the 13 states bordering Canada, 12 have legal raw milk. More than 40 have it legal in some form, yet the U.S. has not had a death from raw milk in more than two…
Opposition to the Communist Party of China’s aggression needs to be multilateral
The Chinese economy is growing and surpassing the United States economy in size. That stature, with its consequent soft and hard power, means opposition to the Communist Party of China’s regime needs to be multilateral. No matter how much unipolarity the U.S. has enjoyed in recent decades, it can’t go it alone and would benefit…
Canada's investment growth rate has dropped below that of the United States and many other developed countries
Alarm bells ought to be ringing in Canada. Business, industrial and foreign direct investment have performed pitifully over the past decade, with no reason to believe there will be a turnaround any time soon. As noted by fellow Troy Media contributor Steven Globerman of Western Washington University, “from 2010 to 2019, Canada’s investment growth rate…
The continued reliance on cash is a symbol of good governance
When I audited an economics class in the Rice University School of Business, the lecturer compared inflation to slow-growing cancer and deflation to a heart attack. The implication was that deflation – declining prices – is fatal and worse than inflation. This Keynesian fearmongering, which empowers central banks to water down currencies, is common but…
The Trudeau government is papering over its policy failures by rationing housing to the working class
There’s no mystery as to why Canada has seen a record-setting housing spike in the past year: negative real interest rates and monetary debasement from federal deficits. Rather than considering fiscal austerity and getting inflation under control, the federal government has opted to ration home buying and exclude those on the margins. Officials have raised,…
Despite decades of subsidies by Canadian taxpayers, Bombardier Inc. continues to be mired in a financial crisis jeopardizing its future. The latest humiliation came as the company had to sell its train-making division to pay off a substantial amount of debt due this year. Once a proud symbol of Canadian entrepreneurship, it now is the…
Fear often trumps any proportionality or civil-liberties concern. After the virus passes, surveillance tools will remain
Crises are the perfect breeding ground for authoritarians and social engineers. The extreme measures governments have rolled out to contain the COVID-19 pandemic remind us that fear often trumps any proportionality or civil-liberties concern. Since it originated in Wuhan, the crisis has exposed the spread and depth of the Communist Party of China’s mass-surveillance apparatus.…