When one government offers incentives and another one doesn't, then the comptetion to attract new businesses is no longer a level playing field
When Toronto-based Wattpad chose Halifax over Calgary as the site of its second headquarters last month, the question on many people’s minds was: Which of the two cited factors was the deciding one – concerns about Western separatism or cuts to Alberta’s tax credits for tech companies? The answer isn’t quite as simple as either/other.…
The Ontario government continually makes corporate welfare payments that fly in the face of social policy
The Ontario government’s public accounts should be a source of despair to any taxpayer. They provide the latest reminder that politicians are addicted to spending other people’s money and will spend it on just about anything. That a government program is without public demand or is unsupported by sound economic reasoning doesn’t deter governments from…
Corporate welfare causes an economic loss, exacerbated by the fact that it encourages businesses to devote resources seeking government funds
Corporate welfare handouts are a policy staple of politicians of all stripes – and they’re all wasting public money. Liberals who mistakenly think government spending is the driver of economic growth love handing out free cash to claim they’re “creating jobs.” Conservatives say they’re against corporate welfare – but only sometimes, and only if it’s…
Rather than relying on carbon pricing to make things happen, the government is picking winners and losers
By Elmira Aliakbari and Ashley Stedman The Fraser Institute The federal government announced recently that it will provide up to $12 million in subsidies to Canadian supermarket giant Loblaws Inc. for new energy-efficient refrigerators. Unfortunately, the subsidy proves again that the nation’s climate plan is severely flawed. According to the government’s news release, the subsidy…
When organizations are heavily regulated, funded by taxpayers and unlikely to shoulder losses, they’re private in name only
If buzzwords were the path to prosperity, Canada would be growing like gangbusters. But it’s not. And the federal government’s Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative (VCCI) – with an expansion announced in Ottawa’s recent economic statement – is a case of lofty words anathema to efficient and healthy capital markets. Once we peel off the feel-good wrapper of innovation…
If government believes it should discourage alcohol consumption, why does it subsidize the beer and wine industries?
With much fanfare, the Ontario government has brought back “Buck-a-Beer” by lowering the government-mandated price floor on a bottle or can of beer (with alcohol volume below 5.6 per cent) from $1.25 to $1. Ontarians who don’t drink or who consume only more expensive alcoholic beverages won’t be much affected by this policy. But for…
Billions of Canadian taxpayers’ dollars go into ventures that don’t need or waste the money. And there is little oversight
What do the federal government, responsibility and transparency have in common? When it comes to handing money to corporations, not much. Working-class Canadians watch helplessly as their hard-earned money is taxed away to be put into the laps of large businesses – often the same ones that receive it year after year. These dollar amounts…
Billions of dollars in spending announcements allow politicians to burnish their green credentials. But they don't get the job done
“Around the world, businesses, governments and experts agree that carbon pricing is the cheapest and most efficient way to cut carbon pollution,” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, recently tweeted. If what she says is true, it means all other anti-carbon strategies – including regulations and subsidies – are unnecessarily expensive and inefficient.…
There’s no better way to waste public funds than to have programs where everyone is spending everyone else’s money
Premier Doug Ford has already broken a key promise. Instead of putting money back into the pockets of Ontarians, the new Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario is apparently hiking expenses. We know this because that great bastion of sound fiscal logic and clear economic thinking – the Toronto Star editorial board – says so. The Green Ontario Fund, which Ford plans to cut, “is putting money…
We need to scrap corporate welfare in order to restore Canada’s business tax advantage over the U.S.
It’s been more than two months since federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said he would study Canada’s crumbling business tax advantage – while cautioning against any “impulsive” measures in response to tax changes south of the border that overnight wiped away a decade-plus business tax advantage over the United States. Yet, despite a chorus of…
When Toronto-based Wattpad chose Halifax over Calgary as the site of its second headquarters last month, the question on many people’s minds was: Which of the two cited factors was the deciding one – concerns about Western separatism or cuts to Alberta’s tax credits for tech companies? The answer isn’t quite as simple as either/other.…
