This work provides a historical overview that identifies parallels between the fiscal challenges facing Canadian governments in the 1990s and those facing governments in 2011. It highlights how the federal government, as well as various provincial governments in the 1980s, failed to balance...

The discussion of the limitations of government and subsequent government failure is wholly absent from debate in Canada where, unfortunately, we still assume that governments act benevolently and without institutional constraints. That this is not true is plain to see in the pages of the...

In 2012, the federal government implemented changes to Old Age Security (OAS), one of three key income programs for seniors. While the main reform — an increase in the age of eligibility — is a positive first step in reforming programs for seniors in the face of historic demographic change,...

A lack of non-wage benefits data mean that there is insufficient information to make a definitive comparison of total compensation between the private and public sectors. But the data that are available indicate that the public sector enjoys a clear wage premium. After controlling for such...

As Ontario's provincial government continues to struggle with both deficits and finding ways to constrain spending, there is heightened interest in how wages and non-wage benefits (compensation) in the public sector compare with those in the private sector. While a lack of non-wage benefits data...