This paper discusses and describes measures of poverty and, on the basis of that discussion, proposes a public policy response that more closely and more easily targets income support to where it is most needed and most effective. Our review of poverty measures shows there are many holes that...

Over the past two decades there has occurred a shift in economic power from central Canada to other parts of the country. Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador have both claimed a noticeably larger share of Canada's GDP since 1995 but easily the largest shift of economic output has been to...

On September 6th, 2014, members of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta elected Jim Prentice as leader of their party, and Premier of Alberta.The School of Public Policy assembled its key thinkers in economic, taxation, energy and natural resource policy to provide unsolicited but...

The boom and bust in energy prices experienced recently has its parallels in the boom and bust of energy prices in the 1970s and 1980s. The earlier boom period saw the Government of Alberta struggle with restraining spending and so became heavily dependent on high energy prices. When in 1986...

Defining a government by its finances is a tricky business. Adding to the complexity, governments can change the way they report those finances. This is the case in Alberta where, beginning under former premier Jim Prentice, the government switched from presenting its budgets from a fiscal plan...

We make use of monthly data describing the number of visits to food banks operated by the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto. We identify the extent to which food bank visits may be associated with changes to public policies, to changes in the cost of shelter and to changes in labour market...

The essays collected for this publication are designed to provide readers and particularly those in Ontario a better sense of where the province's debt stands today, the expectations for the future, and warnings about the likely costs of inaction. Part of the motivation for this publication was...