The Progressive Economics Forum

Over the years, federal budget legislation has acquired the feel of U.S. omnibus bills (the Farm Bill is probably the quintessential example). To some extent, this is to be expected. Ever since the “disastrous” Trudeau era, the imperial Department of Finance has not-so-quietly re-asserted its domain over the federal bureaucracy. One manifestation of Finance’s power [...]

And so, as we recover from Tuesday’s budget and recoil at the spectacle that is the Cadman affair, let us all pause and mark this moment for it may be the last of an era, one we may come to know as the “pre-PBO” era, an era where, in the context of contrived “budgetary scarcity,” [...]

If anyone had any doubt…

I want to piggy-back very briefly on Marc’s post from Tuesday (and update yesterday) which suggested that the proposed Tax-Free Savings Account won’t “promote investment” like the government says it will (see page 76 of Budget). The empirical literature I’ve seen certainly supports his argument — most corporate investment is financed from retained earnings, which [...]

This post was inspired by my wife, a non-economist (thankfully) who asked me the other day for my opinion on the endless equalization debate. My answer was simple: follow the politics. As every insider knows, the excommunication of Bill Casey, an MP from Nova Scotia, is only the tip of the iceberg of discontent over [...]

I’m not a big fan of business journalism. For the most part, it’s a lazy, sycophantic, uninspired, biased, occasionally self-interested (in a conflict-of-interest sense) and worse yet, boring business. I should know, I was once part of the fold. In my experience, at least half of financial journalists are in it for the food (gotta [...]

Over the last little while, some of my compadres here at Relentlessly Progressive Economics have intuited and sometimes even insisted that while Stéphane Dion’s socially liberal bona fides are not in question, his economic policy proposals place him well to the right of centre. Well, now we have proof from none other than Mr. Dion [...]

While we’re all breathlessly awaiting the federal government’s long-promised revisions to the Copyright Act, interested parties may want to check out Bill C-47, the federal government’s proposed legislation to grant extra special intellectual property right protection for the Olympic movement and its related symbols.  For a summary of the legislation, check out the Library of [...]

Arun DuBois signing in after a long absence. I’m breaking radio silence because (a) I suddenly have a bit more free time (how do the rest of you do it? You folks are machines!); and (b) my righteous indignation has been stoked to full throttle this week after reading one too many Globe and Mail [...]

This is good news and good timing. With Steve Jobs on side, maybe the folks at Heritage/Industry will reconsider their quaint attachment to rigid intellectual property rights measures when they set about drafting amendments to the copyright act. Dare to dream…

The recent flurry of stories about Canada’s copyright laxity (see below) suggests that the “rights holder” community is softening up the Canadian public for a strong dose of copyright medicine. Want to see first-run movies at your local theatre just like everyone else in North America? Better support some tough new copyright (and criminal code) [...]

It is the policy that dare not speak its name. For the better part of the last 20 years, the idea of a guaranteed annual income (GAI), a government funded unconditional annual income floor below which no family or individual can fall, has been met with ridicule, dismissal, silence and, more often than not, legislation [...]