The Commentary released today its 2011 federal Shadow Budget with a five-step plan to end the flow of red ink in Ottawa ahead of the government's five-year timeline. In this paper, the authors show how Ottawa can return to budget surpluses in four years through more ambitious spending restraint...

A key question in Canada's pensions debate is whether Canadians will be able to maintain their living standards in retirement, and if policy needs to respond to the risk that some will experience painful declines. To date, it has been very difficult to estimate how current trends might affect...

Government spending overruns and missed revenue targets remain a common occurrence in Canada. Countrywide, spending overruns by the federal, provincial and territorial governments over the past decade exceeded $70 billion, limiting debt reduction and tax relief in earlier years, and materially...

Ottawa has an opportunity in the 2010 Federal Budget to improve retirement saving prospects for many Canadians. In a paper released today, the author outlines straightforward, no-regrets ways Ottawa can facilitate more saving and make cost-effective risk-pooling available to the majority of...

Spending restraint is key to achieving a balanced federal budget over the next five years and should form part of Ottawa's March Budget. This Backgrounder demonstrates how to limit the rise in the federal debt by prudently reining in spending growth rather than raising taxes, so that past and...

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

Financial instruments indexed to the general price level are of great potential use to borrowers and lenders alike. But up until recently, they have been relatively scarce – in part because private borrowers dislike offering protection against inflation that they do not control. Since the...

Canada is in the happy position of being able to address its fiscal challenges not just through eliminating deficits, but also by promoting growth in the economy and the tax base. This report takes a two-pronged approach: first, an accelerated plan to achieve budgetary surplus in three years;...

The ongoing transition of the Canadian pension system offers valuable lessons for the rest of the world. Improving the voluntary and contractual retirement saving arrangements that constitute the private pillars of the system requires recognition among policy makers and the public that shoring...