The government requires a complete 180-degree turn in policy
By Jason Clemens Milagros Palacios and Niels Veldhuis The Fraser Institute In a recent interview, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland explained the need to focus on economic growth to deal with many of Canada’s fiscal issues, including our high debt levels. Minister Freeland is correct that higher rates of economic growth would solve many of…
Food manufacturing lacks investment, suffers from thin margins, faces additional grocers’ fees and must deal with aging facilities
By Sylvain Charlebois and Amy Hill Dalhousie University Canadian food and beverage manufacturing plays a key role in supporting farmers and the rest of the food supply chain. The second largest manufacturing sector, food and beverage, contributed $26.5 billion to Canadian gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. Just 10 manufacturing sectors – including food manufacturing…
U of A students providing free support to hundreds of business owners looking to create an online presence
While Paige Lutz didn’t know what she wanted to do when she joined the Alberta School of Business four years ago, she certainly didn’t foresee herself balancing the final classes of her degree with a University of Alberta-linked job she loves, helping traditional bricks-and-mortar businesses make the jump to virtual. “The fact that I’ve landed…
The Arctic, and all its alluring possibilities, is not part of the future as the energy and investment industries see it unfolding
Toronto-Dominion Bank announced recently it won’t loan money toward any oil and gas or related development in the Arctic. While this may elicit joy from the woke anti-fossil-fuel global warmists, this was in reality a very easy decision for TD. So too will it be for others like investment banks, institutional investors, and financial entities…
Price controls undermine investment, remove incentive for innovation and backfire for consumers
There’s a pervasive belief in Canada that wireless phone service prices are a ripoff. To suggest otherwise is heresy. Countless commentaries provide fodder for this belief, and every few years a politician takes on the purported problem. In the mid-2010s, for example, Industry Minister James Moore supported the entry of Verizon, although the U.S.-based prospective…
While oil and gas investment has grown substantially in other parts of the world, Canada has failed to keep pace
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre Over the past decade, one oft-heard claim is that oil and gas is a ‘sunset’ industry, where investment in Canada can be expected to decline given a worldwide flight from oil and investment. However, international data (available from 2009 to 2017) show no such worldwide flight…
We have yet to see the damage done to corporate balance sheets. And many consumers will constrain their spending
Our puppy Winnie died last week. If I was a betting man, I would have said Winnie would have lived to the ripe old age of 12 years old, which is the average life expectancy for a bichon frise. That, however, didn’t come to pass. Winnie was mischievous and playful, and in the end that…
The oil price crash of recent weeks has triggered a wave of huge exploration and production capital expenditure cuts
Lack of appetite to invest in the energy sector is leading the world into a supply crunch, says the International Energy Agency (IEA) in its recently unveiled World Energy Investment (WEI) 2020 report. The COVID-19 pandemic is having widespread and often dramatic effects on investments in the energy sector. At the start of the year,…
New Canadian rules shift all the burden and risks to consumers, and may push away investors
By Daniel Duarte Research associate Frontier Centre for Public Policy Canadian regulators are putting a crosshair on exchanges that hold cryptocurrencies for their clients. This business model, also called a custodial or centralized exchange, is prevalent all over the world but is headed for extinction in Canada, setting back the nascent financial technology (fintech) industry.…
Increasing the federal tax would be anti-investment, anti-entrepreneurship, anti-innovation and anti-green
By Niels Veldhuis and Jake Fuss The Fraser Institute At a time when the country faces momentous economic challenges, it’s hard to think of a more damaging policy than a capital gains tax hike. Yet rumours persist that prior to the COVID-19 crisis and economic downturn, that’s exactly what the federal government planned to do.…