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…
The massively subsidized European power grid is in no way proof that the underlying renewables technology is viable
A few years back, I had a chat with a reporter who had recently moved to Calgary from Europe, where he covered energy issues. In a discussion about renewables, he gave the oft-heard opinion that Europe was, of course, “ahead” of Canada. His eyes widened with admiration for how Europeans were greening their power grid.…
Billions are spent on the CBC, hundreds of millions are redirected by the CRTC to ensure we’re informed. Is more federal funding for local news justified?
The smartest thing the federal government could have done to answer pleas for subsidy from the nation’s newspaper publishers is nothing. The next smartest thing it could have done is what I suggested it do last August – get the CBC out of the domestic advertising business and make all of its news content available…
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…
