The Progressive Economics Forum

Here is my Economy Lab piece on the study by Philip Cross released yesterday. On close examination, his “expanding sectors” turn out to be low value-added resource processing and his argument that Canadian manufacturing is not in decline does not hold water. The decline in output has been far greater than in the US and [...]

The following is another guest post by Robyn Allan: A report recently released by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute claims Canada does not suffer from the Dutch disease. Unfortunately, the studies the authors draw on for this conclusion are riddled by it. The Dutch disease is a situation where rapid export of a nation’s raw resources along [...]

Statistics Canada reported today that 2,500 fewer Canadians received Employment Insurance (EI) benefits in March. In total, only 549,400 out of 1,356,200 officially unemployed workers got benefits. The context for proposals to clamp down on EI is that only 40% of unemployed Canadians currently receive benefits. The Harper government wants to exclude even more jobless workers [...]

Jason Clemens, who hangs his hat at several right-wing think-tanks (the Fraser, Pacific Research and Macdonald-Laurier Institutes), lauds Canadian fiscal conservatism in today’s Wall Street Journal: Canada’s government, for example, has grown smaller over the last 15 years. Total government spending as a share of the economy peaked at a little over 53% in 1993. [...]

Statistics Canada figures indicate that private non-financial corporations held $471 billion of cash in the first quarter of 2011 ($322 billion of Canadian currency plus $149 billion worth of foreign currency).  Including short-term paper would bring this total to half a trillion dollars, enough to pay off the national debt (i.e. accumulated deficit). Cash hoarding [...]

Perhaps the most compelling villain on Star Trek: The Next Generation was the Borg, which seeks to assimilate other groups into its hive. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute seems to be performing this function for Canada’s conservative pundits (although corporate-tax cutters also resemble the Ferengi). Yesterday’s Globe featured an op-ed by Brian Lee Crowley, former President of [...]

I appreciate a compelling headline, but “The Walls that Divide Us” in today’s Globe and Mail is way over the top. For building the myth of “internal trade barriers,” Barrie McKenna’s column should have been entitled, “Another Brick in the Wall.” Three claims are especially questionable. First, “A recent back-of-the-envelope calculation by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute puts [...]

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, which has been leading the charge against mostly unidentified “inter-provincial trade barriers,” is now posting complaints about the “intrusive” census long form. Are different-sized cream containers in various provinces and having to spend 20 minutes filling out a form once every couple of decades really the worst problems facing libertarians in Canada? [...]

Over at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Robert Knox has tried to rebut my rebuttal of his C. D. Howe Institute paper. (I am still waiting for a rebuttal of my rebuttal of his more recent Macdonald-Laurier Institute paper.) Knox’s post sheds light on how his side of the debate sees the issue. But I begin with [...]

Brian Lee Crowley used to run the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. Through the new Macdonald-Laurier Institute, he is now (to paraphrase ZZ Top) not only bad, but also nationwide. So far, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute has released two papers. I missed the first one in March. The second paper, released on Monday, is entitled Citizen [...]