Ontario faces a $19.7 billion unfunded liability at its Workplace Safety Insurance Board (WSIB) based on a fair-value accounting approach. In the report, the authors say the WSIB, which levies employer premiums intended to fund benefits for employees injured in the workplace, has a problem that...

The relative soundness of the Canadian domestic financial system throughout the crisis suggests that Canada’s regulatory framework does not require a major overhaul. But Canada could benefit if other countries introduced reforms to improve their macroeconomic stability. Other reforms are needed.

More than a decade after Quebec and the federal government implemented significant personal income tax rate reductions, what has happened to Quebecers’ take-home pay? This paper answers the question by looking at marginal effective tax rates (METRs) on personal income, which measure the impact...

The 2011 Canadian federal budget, should it succeed in Parliament, would launch a new strategic spending review, alongside minor cost-cutting initiatives. The fate of the budget balance and the potential for an early return to surplus as envisioned, therefore, depend entirely on the...

The marginal effective tax rate (METR) on personal income, explain the authors, measures the impact, on take-home pay, of federal and provincial income taxes combined with the impact of reductions and clawbacks of income-tested tax credits and benefits as individual or family income rises. These...

The federal government’s role in mortgage markets is pervasive and should be scaled back, while encouraging more competition in the mortgage insurance business, according to this study. The author notes that the mortgage insurance book of Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, CMHC, which is...

Low income seniors face extremely heavy tax burdens across Canada, according to a new C.D. Howe Institute report. In “Who Loses Most? The Impact of Taxes and Transfers on Retirement Incomes,” authors Finn Poschmann and Alexandre Laurin show that seniors can be hit hard by taxes and benefit...

The aim of the book is to investigate how PPP reforms function in comparison to the more traditional methods of providing public sector services and infrastructure and who typically experiences the successes and failures of these reforms.

Over the past 30 years, sick days have risen in Canada’s workforce, overall, raising important questions about why days lost owing to reported illness are climbing, and how demographic and institutional change may have affected reported rates and may do so in the future. The data show striking...

Putting an end to Ontario’s archaic retail sales tax and adopting a value-added tax like the GST would sharply lower the effective tax rate on new business investment and offer the province a much-needed economic boost.