Spending control and greater reliance on their own revenues are more promising responses to provincial budget pressures than higher federal transfers, according to a new report released today by the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Adaptability, Accountability and Sustainability: Intergovernmental...

In Canada, most government cash benefit payments require recipients to file a tax return. Individuals who fail to participate in the tax system, often the most vulnerable in society, may forgo important government benefits (or even entitlements to government services when such services are tied...

The current federal fiscal framework is imprudent and unfair to future generations. A new approach to fiscal policy is needed.The government has demonstrated a bias for deficit financing. Budgets from 2016 to 2019 showed deficits throughout each five-year forecast horizon. A commitment to...

The federal government’s massive spending and borrowing during the COVID-19 pandemic has desensitized Canadians to fiscal excess.The government has promised costly new programs without revenue to cover them or measures to boost economic growth and the tax base. This Shadow Federal Budget for...

With the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic behind us, a concerning trajectory of federal spending has become clear. The economic rebound and higher inflation have boosted federal revenues, and the government is spending almost all the new money.While some new spending is arguably effective in...

As families earn more taxable income, government benefit entitlements are reduced (or “clawed back”) at various phase-out rates, which reduces their overall cost for governments and ensures that they remain targeted to the intended lower-income families. However, benefit reductions act like...

Inflation and taxation are a painful combination. Money losing its purchasing power hurts on its own, but tax provisions that ignore inflation can multiply the pain for earners, savers, and recipients of benefit programs as well.This E-Brief identifies problematic interactions between inflation...

Tax rules requiring RRIF withdrawals need revamping. Longer lives and lower returns increase the likelihood that mandatory minimum withdrawals will leave seniors with negligible income from their tax-deferred saving in their later years.Government impatience for revenue should not force holders...

In the last several years, the financial situation of the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) has been deteriorating, a trend evidenced by the latest actuarial projections. In this e-brief, Senior Policy Analyst Alexandre Laurin points out how last year’s losses at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du...

Governments are major employers, and many provide defined benefit pension plans with full inflation indexing and generous early retirement provisions. Hence, changes in thinking about, and accounting for, the costs of defined benefit pension plans have major implications for government finances....