Our friends at MSN have really stirred the maple syrup pot up with this story- which one of the following companies is the most surprising for you? Leave us a note in the comments section at the bottom of the article.
Many beloved Canadian brands that fill shopping carts and homes across the country have something surprising in common—they’re actually owned by foreign investors and companies. Behind familiar logos and proud Canadian histories stand international corporations that have quietly acquired these businesses, often maintaining their strong local identity while decisions are made overseas.
This eye-opening list reveals 8 well-known Canadian companies that now operate under foreign ownership.
While these businesses still employ thousands of Canadians and remain important parts of communities nationwide, their profits and major corporate choices flow to boardrooms in places like the United States, Europe, and Asia. Each example shows how Canada’s business landscape has evolved in today’s global economy.
A Canadian fast-food icon, Tim Hortons has been owned by Restaurant Brands International since 2014, with its headquarters in Toronto but major control from Brazil-based 3G Capital. The beloved coffee chain started in Hamilton, Ontario in 1964 as a single donut shop. Today, it serves millions of customers daily across Canada and has expanded into 14 countries. The Brazilian investment firm maintains the Canadian feel of the brand while pushing for global growth.
Hudson’s Bay Company, founded in 1670, is now owned by American businessman Richard Baker’s NRDC Equity Partners. The historic retailer shifted from Canadian ownership in 2008 through a $1.1 billion deal. HBC continues to operate The Bay stores across Canada while managing an extensive real estate portfolio. The company maintains its Canadian identity despite being controlled from south of the border.
The Montreal-based entertainment company, famous for its artistic circus shows, was acquired by TPG Capital, a U.S. private equity firm, in 2015. Following financial difficulties during the pandemic, ownership changed again in 2020 to a group including Catalyst Capital Group. The company still creates its shows in Montreal. The creative spirit of Cirque remains distinctly Quebec-based despite foreign investment control.
The luxury winter coat maker, started in Toronto in 1957, sold a majority stake to U.S.-based Bain Capital in 2013. The company continues to manufacture its core products in Canada, maintaining its made-in-Canada promise. The brand has expanded globally under foreign ownership while keeping its Canadian headquarters. The international success of Canada Goose proves that Canadian craftsmanship can thrive under foreign ownership.
The Canadian hardware retailer Rona underwent major ownership changes in recent years. After operating independently for decades, the Quebec-based chain was acquired by U.S. home improvement leader Lowe’s in a $3.2 billion deal completed in 2016. However, Lowe’s ownership proved relatively short-lived. In 2023, the American retailer divested Rona, selling it to Sycamore Partners, a private equity firm headquartered in New York, for $2.4 billion. Despite these corporate transitions, Rona maintained its distinct brand identity in the Canadian home improvement marketplace.
Ontario-based CARA Operations (now Recipe Unlimited) purchased Quebec’s St-Hubert restaurants for $537 million in 2016. The restaurant chain, founded in Montreal in 1951, maintains its distinct Quebec identity. Multiple foreign investment firms hold significant stakes in Recipe Unlimited through the parent company MTY Food Group. The company continues operating across Quebec while major business decisions are made outside the province.
In 2019, Toronto-based Onex Corporation acquired Westjet for $5 billion, with significant backing from international investors and foreign private equity firms. The airline maintains its headquarters in Calgary and continues operating as a Canadian carrier. Major foreign institutional investors hold substantial positions through Onex Corporation. While preserving its Canadian operations, the company’s ownership structure includes significant international investment.
Suncor Energy owns Petro-Canada stations, with significant foreign institutional investors holding major stakes. The company merged with Suncor in 2009 in a $19 billion deal. Petro-Canada remains a prominent Canadian retail fuel brand. International investment firms hold substantial voting shares in the parent company.
Loblaw Companies Limited, a Canadian company, acquired Shoppers Drug Mart in 2014 for $12.4 billion. Despite its Canadian roots, the pharmacy chain has significant foreign institutional investment. Under this foreign ownership, Shoppers Drug Mart continues to expand its healthcare services across Canada.
Presenters at last year’s C.D. Howe Institute’s conference on Canada’s debt problem had some pointed advice for our federal and provincial governments:
Canada’s public debt should be reduced about 10 percentage points of Canada’s GDP to ensure fiscal policy can be used to cushion the effects of future economic crises. Since major crises happen frequently, prudence suggests that the target should be achieved before the decade is out.
Tax increases harm economic performance, so elimination of public spending that does not provide enough benefits to offset this damage should be the first step in reducing deficits and debt. This will require undertaking comprehensive value-for-money assessments to identify wasteful spending.
Post-conference analysis found that achieving this prudent debt target would require increasing the combined federal-provincial primary balance by 1.4 percent of GDP, or $43 billion, starting in 2025/26. This amount includes a buffer – ensuring an 80 percent probability of meeting the debt target – to account for inevitable economic downturns, other crises that raise deficits and debt, and the uncertainty posed by fluctuating interest rates on financing costs.
The conference was one of four on deficits and debt held in Canada over the past 40 years. A clear and consistent message from these conferences – which politicians have yet to fully absorb – is that debt has economic costs and, therefore, imposes a burden on future generations. In this Commentary, the authors report on, and offer their analysis of, the findings of the latest conference.
Introduction
Does Canada have a debt problem? The answer from a recent C.D. Howe Institute conference is a resounding “yes.” Canada’s public debt should be about 10 percentage points of GDP lower to ensure sustainability. Given that major crises, which put upward pressure on deficits and debt, happen frequently, this target should be achieved before the decade is out.
The May 2024 conference was one of four on deficits and debt held in Canada over the past 40 years. Each aimed to provide guidance to policymakers on managing deficits and debt. While a common thread was concern about the economic cost of public debt, each conference provided context-specific policy advice.
The first conference, “Deficits: How Big and How Bad?” (Conklin and Courchene 1983), occurred when debt levels were rising rapidly but still relatively low. The key policy issue then was whether fiscal consolidation or expansion to support the economy was appropriate.
In the 1994 conference, “Deficit Reduction – What Pain, What Gain?” (Robson and Scarth 1994), and the 2002 conference, “Is the Debt War Over?” (Ragan and Watson 2004), there were clear recommendations to reduce debt levels. In 1994, this was motivated by concerns over economic damage caused by debt approaching 100 percent of GDP and questions about fiscal sustainability. By 2002, although the debt ratio had fallen substantially, further debt reduction was still advocated to reduce the burden on future generations who will not benefit from the spending.
A combination of discretionary measures and sustained economic growth led to a substantial reduction in the combined federal-provincial debt ratio from 2002 until the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. The debt ratio stabilized at a relatively high level after the crisis until the pandemic. The massive increase in debt during the pandemic and subsequent government spending raised the overall federal-provincial net debt ratio to about 75 percent of GDP, nearing levels from the time of the “Debt War” conference. This surge, combined with concerns about further increases, refocused attention on debt sustainability. This concern was reflected in the May conference, “Does Canada Have a Debt Problem?”, which recommended a debt target based on the need for fiscal prudence.
The latest conference included sessions on the economic costs of debt, the sustainability of federal debt, guidance for policymakers on a prudent and fair debt target, and reforming the federal fiscal framework. However, given the one-day format, not all issues could be thoroughly addressed. This report not only summarizes the proceedings but also fills some gaps by providing additional analysis to complement the presenters’ advice.
Economic Costs of Public Debt
Interest expenses were central to the analysis by University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe of the economic costs of public debt. Interest paid on the public debt is often considered a transfer among individuals with no real impact on the economy. However, higher interest payments for a given level of program spending necessitate higher taxes, which harm economic performance by affecting incentives to work, save and invest. If not financed by tax increases, higher interest payments will crowd out valued program spending.
When discussing the opportunity cost of interest payments – the benefits of lower tax rates or higher program spending – Tombe cited work by Dahlby and Ferede (2022). They estimate the economic cost of raising an extra dollar of tax revenue, referred to as the “marginal cost of public funds” (MCPF). The MCPF includes both the dollar taken from the private sector and the loss in output per dollar of tax revenue raised due to reduced incentives to work, save and invest. Higher taxes shrink the tax base not only because of reduced economic activity but also due to efforts to reduce taxable income without changing economic behaviour.
Dahlby and Ferede (2022) find a very high cost from raising taxes. For the corporate income tax, the federal MCPF in 2021 was approximately two.1The MCPF from raising the top federal personal income tax rate has been higher than its corporate tax counterpart since 2012, when the corporate tax rate was reduced to 15 percent. The gap increased in 2016 when the top federal marginal personal income tax rate increased to 33 percent, pushing the MCPF to about 2.9.
The federal government expects to pay $54.1 billion in public debt charges in the current fiscal year. The economic cost of these payments is substantial. If the opportunity cost of these payments is lower corporate income taxes, their economic cost would also be about $54 billion. If their opportunity cost is a lower top personal income tax rate, their economic cost would exceed $100 billion. If the contribution from corporate income and top personal income tax were equal, the economic cost would be about $75 billion.
Other costs of public debt arise from a reduction in the national savings rate, which is the sum of public and private sector savings rates. Government deficits represent public sector dissaving, so with a constant private savings rate, national savings will decline when governments run deficits. Tombe highlighted the impact of lower national savings on investment, presenting data showing a negative correlation between debt ratios and investment ratios across countries (Figure 1). He stated there is “probably” a causal relationship between higher debt ratios and lower investment ratios.
Although Tombe did not elaborate, there are reasons to be circumspect about asserting causality. One reason is that the private savings rate may rise in response to budget deficits if economic agents anticipate higher future taxes to service the debt. Households might increase savings in anticipation, partially offsetting the decline in national savings. There is evidence that expansionary fiscal policy is partially offset by increased household savings. Johnson (2004) concluded that household savings would increase by 30-50 percent of the increase in government debt. In a recent study of fiscal expansions in the Euro area from 1999 to 2019, Checherita-Westphal and Stechert (2021) found that 19 percent of a fiscal stimulus is offset by higher household savings in the short-term, rising to 41 percent in the long-term.
Another reason for being cautious about inferring causality is that in an open economy, a decline in national savings does not necessarily lead to lower domestic investment, as any shortfall can be offset by borrowing from abroad. However, interest payments on borrowed funds and the return on foreign-owned capital reduce national income. An additional cost arises because the resulting current account deterioration must be offset by higher net exports, which requires a reduction in real wages in the export sector.
To complement Tombe’s analysis, we present an estimate of the economic cost of reduced national savings. In a closed economy with constant household savings, a budget deficit leads to a dollar-for-dollar crowding out of investment. Using historical returns on capital and assuming that national savings decline by 60 percent of the deficit due to offsetting increases in household savings, the $1,372 billion in federal net debt in the current fiscal year would have an economic cost of about $90 billion.2 This calculation does not capture the impact of lower capital intensity on productivity, so it underestimates the true cost.
If foreign savings offset the decline in national savings and foreigners invest directly in Canada, they receive the return on this capital, so the gross economic cost remains the same. However, the return is subject to corporate income tax, so the net economic cost would be about 25 percent lower. If Canadian firms borrow abroad to finance domestic investment, the economic cost is the interest paid to foreigners. While gross interest payments to foreigners will be less than the return on capital unless there is a large country-risk premium, interest payments are taxed more lightly.3 Therefore, the net economic cost may not differ substantially.
An additional cost of accessing foreign savings arises because higher capital servicing charges put downward pressure on the current account balance, which must be offset by an increase in net exports. In a small economy, export and import prices are determined in world markets, so the increase in net exports requires a decline in real wages in the export sector. However, if a country’s exports have unique features, increased supply can lower export prices, adding to the economic cost of borrowing from abroad (Burgess 1996).
Calculating the economic cost of investment crowding out when foreign borrowing is possible as the net-of-tax return on capital paid to foreigners establishes a minimum cost because it excludes the reductions in real wages required to increase net exports. The minimum cost would, therefore, be 0.75 x $90 billion = $68 billion, where the $90 billion reflects the economic cost of lower investment, adjusted by a factor of 0.75 to represent corporate income taxes on the returns paid to foreign investors. The $75 billion cost associated with raising taxes to finance higher federal interest expenses does not change with the availability of foreign financing, so the overall cost of the federal debt is approximately $142 billion, or 4.7 percent of GDP in 2024/25.
A similar calculation can be performed for overall provincial debt. In 2021/22, provincial net debt amounted to $784.7 billion, with debt service charges of $30.6 billion. Using the same weighted average economic cost of taxation as for the federal government, the economic cost of provincial debt service charges was $42 billion. The cost of investment crowding out adds another $39 billion, bringing the total cost of debt at the provincial level to $81 billion, or 3.2 percent of GDP in 2021/22. Assuming provincial debt remains at the same percentage of GDP from 2021/22 to 2024/25, the overall cost of Canada’s debt is about 8 percent of GDP.
Benefits of Debt and Its Optimal Level
Tombe also discussed the benefits of public debt, noting its role in financing long-lived assets, stabilizing the economy and smoothing tax rates over time. Governments should borrow to finance investments that will benefit future generations and should finance current expenditures out of current taxes. Spending on education, health and knowledge creation raises special concerns because it benefits both current and future generations. However, since each generation must make these investments, financing them through current revenues typically aligns with the benefit principle.
Counter-cyclical fiscal policy enhances social well-being by mitigating costly deviations from full employment. Additionally, governments can reduce the harmful effects of distortionary taxes by keeping them stable. Since the efficiency cost of taxes is higher when rates are above average than when rates are below average,4 governments should set tax rates at levels sufficient to support expected spending over the cycle and allow deficits to rise and fall in response to unexpected expenditures.5
An issue absent from discussions at the conference was the role of public debt in addressing market imperfections, which can improve efficiency. One such imperfection is the lack of adequate insurance markets against individual-specific wage income losses. As a result, individuals “self-insure” by increasing savings, which is more costly than paying the premiums in a well-functioning insurance market. Public debt puts upward pressure on interest rates and provides a safe savings instrument, allowing households to reduce their savings closer to the efficient level.
Unlike the efficiency gains from using public debt to stabilize the economy and smooth tax rates, mitigating the impact of inadequate insurance markets may justify a permanent increase in public debt. With a well-functioning insurance market, the optimal public debt ratio would be negative – governments should be net savers rather than net debtors. This would allow governments to finance expenditures from interest received on assets rather than from distortionary taxes.6
Empirical issues raised by the inadequate insurance-market approach include whether correcting the market failure is sufficient to make the optimal debt ratio positive and whether the penalty for deviating from the optimal ratio is significant enough to affect the choice of a debt target. Early analyses of incomplete markets found a positive optimal debt ratio. For instance, Aiyagari and McGrattan (1998) calculated an optimal debt ratio of 66 percent of GDP for the US economy. However, Peterman and Sager (2018), using a model with many of the same features as Aiyagari and McGrattan but incorporating multiple generations with standard life cycles instead of a single generation with an infinite life span, found that net government saving is optimal in the US economy. The main reason for the different result is that individuals in a life-cycle model spend a substantial fraction of their working lives accumulating enough savings to make self-insurance possible, so the benefit from self-insurance is smaller than if infinite life spans are assumed.
These results are less relevant for Canada for two reasons. First, employment insurance and other income support measures are more generous in Canada, so self-insurance leading to excess saving is less of an issue. Second, the US analysis assumes deficits are financed entirely by domestic savings, which is a much less realistic assumption for Canada. Foreign borrowing reduces the optimal debt ratio because it lessens the upward pressure on interest rates, which diminishes the impact of public debt on “self-insurance” savings and raises the cost of debt. James and Karam (2001) modified the Aiyagari and McGrattan model to allow borrowing from abroad, which changes the optimal debt ratio from 66 percent to about -80 percent. This qualitative result – that access to foreign savings reduces the optimal debt ratio – has been confirmed by other researchers (Nakajima and Takahashi 2017; Okamoto 2024; and Cozzi 2022).
This review suggests that the inadequate-markets approach does not reverse the conclusion from standard models that the optimal debt ratio is negative, implying that welfare gains can be realized when debt levels are reduced. However, the studies reviewed indicate that the penalty for deviating from the optimal debt ratio is small. In three of the six optimal debt studies reviewed, it is possible to compare the estimated economic costs. In the Peterman/Sager and Nakajima/Takahashi studies, a one-percentage-point increase in the debt ratio reduces consumption by .003 percent. The corresponding figure in the Cozzi study is much higher, approximately .02 percent. These estimates are very low relative to the estimates presented earlier, which imply a loss of .05 percent per percentage-point increase in the debt ratio.
It seems likely that these models are substantially understating the cost of debt. The benefits would have to be understated by an even larger percentage to overturn the conclusion that governments should be creditors not debtors. Since the argument for incurring debt to improve market efficiency is weak, the debt ratio should be chosen by considering only its impact on generational fairness. However, since debt is one of several factors affecting generational transfers, debt policy may have to deviate from the benefit principle to achieve a desired balance of the well-being of current and future generations.
Sustainability Analysis
High debt also raises concerns about its prudence or sustainability: can the interest expense be financed without requiring tax increases or cuts in program spending in the future? In his presentation, Alex Laurin, the Institute’s Vice President and Director of Research, challenged the federal budget’s claim that federal public finances are sustainable (Canada 2024, 382). The federal government’s sustainability claim is based on long-term projections showing a continuously declining debt-to-GDP ratio, reaching nine percent by 2055/56. Moreover, this trend holds even with less optimistic assumptions about interest rates and economic growth.
Laurin argued that this projection is not a convincing demonstration of sustainability for three reasons:
1) Interest Rate Assumptions: In the base case, the effective interest rate on federal debt (r) remains below the growth rate of the economy (g) for 32 years, which puts continuous downward pressure on the debt ratio. This assumption is inconsistent with the historical record. Over the past 35 and 45 years ending in 2022/23, averages of r-g are positive, at 0.8 and 0.4 percentage points, respectively. Only when the averaging period is extended back to include the high-inflation period starting in the 1970s does the multi-year average turn negative.7
2) Program Spending Assumptions: While revenues are assumed to grow in line with GDP, program spending decreases by about one percentage point of GDP over the projection period, causing the primary surplus to rise and putting downward pressure on the debt ratio. A more realistic “no policy change” assumption would keep the share of program spending roughly constant, allowing an assessment of the sustainability of current spending levels.
3) Exclusion of Economic Downturns: The projection fails to explicitly include economic downturns. Over the last 60 years, Canada has experienced five recessions, each prompting discretionary temporary stimulus measures that permanently increased debt. The policy response averaged 1.09 percentage points of potential GDP for each percentage point deviation from potential GDP (Table 1).
Laurin presented an alternative debt projection, assuming that overall program spending grows in line with GDP from 2029/30 to 2055/56 and that r equals g on average over the projection period.8 With these changes, the decline in the federal debt ratio is less pronounced, reaching 29 percent in 2055/56 compared to 9 percent in the budget projection.
Economic downturns were included in the projection by simulating 1,000 random probabilistic scenarios – assuming the frequency and magnitude of recessions over the past 60 years are representative of the future. Laurin assessed debt sustainability by calculating the probability that the debt ratio remains at or falls below its initial value over the projection period.9 The simulations showed an even chance that the debt ratio will exceed its 2028/29 value late in the projection period. Under the International Monetary Fund’s classification (IMF 2022), Canada’s federal debt would be considered unsustainable.
Some conference participants suggested that Laurin’s analysis might not fully capture the risks associated with the federal fiscal position because it assesses a single r-g profile. They also emphasized the importance of including provincial and territorial governments in any sustainability analysis, as these levels are most affected by demographic aging.
For this report, Laurin modified his approach to include provincial and territorial governments’ net debt and to capture the risks of r-g deviating from its assumed zero average over the long term. He introduced variability in the interest-rate growth-rate gap based on historical data, allowing for a more comprehensive risk assessment (methods and assumptions are provided in Appendix).
The modified analysis showed that, without any simulated shocks, the combined federal and provincial/territorial net debt-to-GDP ratio initially declines and then stabilizes until 2041/42, when rising healthcare costs due to demographic aging – and the associated interest on provincial debt – cause it to rise steadily (Figure 2, black dashed line). Introducing interest rate and recession shocks significantly alters the outlook, indicating a 50 percent chance that the debt ratio will begin its long-term rise in 2035/36, eventually surpassing 100 percent of GDP (black dotted line). There is a 20 percent chance (the 80th percentile) that the debt ratio will not decrease substantially from its current level and start a steady increase in 2033/34 (grey dotted line). Conversely, there is only a 20 percent chance (the 20th percentile) that the ratio will stay below its near-term value for the entire projection period (gold dotted line).
A Prudent and Fair Target
Prudence
According to McGill economist Christopher Ragan, the main concern about Canada’s high public debt is that it will reduce our ability to borrow to address the next economic crisis. He analysed this issue using three zones for the debt ratio: red (top), yellow (middle) and green (bottom) (Figure 3). The red (top) zone, which represents unsustainable debt, starts roughly five percentage points below the 1995 federal-provincial debt ratio’s peak of 100 percent, when Canada entered a period of “forced austerity.” This entry point to the red (top) zone is higher than the 90 percent threshold for negative effects on growth developed by Reinhart and Rogoff (2010). However, the threshold would be lower if the interest rate on public debt (r) were higher than the rate of economic growth (g).
Ragan argued that the current combined federal-provincial debt-to-GDP ratio is in the yellow (middle) “cautionary” zone. The height of this zone is determined by the buffer required to avoid being pushed into the red (top) zone by an economic crisis. Entering the red (top) zone would mean sharply higher interest rates and lower growth.
To avoid this, Ragan set the buffer at 28 percentage points of GDP, about a quarter more than the increase in the debt ratio during the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the frequency of economic crises, he advocated returning to the green (bottom) zone by 2029/30, nine years after the end of the pandemic-induced recession. This requires reducing the federal-provincial debt ratio by about 10 percentage points.
Laurin followed up by determining the fiscal effort required to return to the green (bottom) zone with high probability. His calculations show that, starting in the next fiscal year (2025/26), the combined federal-provincial primary balance would need to increase permanently by 1.38 percent of GDP – or $42.9 billion in 2025/26.10 If implemented through spending reductions, provincial spending would have to decline by about 7 percent, or federal spending would have to fall by almost 9 percent. Note that such spending reductions would still not fully return the combined federal-provincial program spending/GDP ratio to its pre-pandemic 2018/19 value. The federal government could achieve the same effect by raising the GST to 8.5 percent. However, since most spending pressures from an aging population are on provincial governments, it would be sound policy for the federal government to transfer tax points to provincial governments (Kim and Dougherty 2020). Even with near-term fiscal adjustment, additional consolidation may be necessary in the future to prevent a rise in the debt/GDP ratio.
Ragan favoured achieving the debt target through expenditure restraint rather than raising taxes, which he thinks may have reached their limit. Restraining expenditures will be particularly challenging given medium-term pressures from an aging society, rising military and security needs, and potentially increased public investments for the transition to a green economy. Canada, therefore, needs an ongoing and thorough program review to identify low-priority spending.
Fairness
Financing current government spending with debt is generally considered fair if the debt-to-GDP ratio is constant or declining over time, implying that future generations can receive the same level of government services without facing higher tax rates. However, stable tax rates alone are insufficient to prevent intergenerational transfers. Taxes must increase to finance the interest on the debt or remain higher than they would be otherwise. If the tax increase applies to both current and future generations, tax rates would be stable but higher than they would be without the increased debt. The higher tax rates required to finance debt interest and the deficit-induced reduction in national-savings transfer part of the cost of government spending to future generations who do not benefit from the spending.
Assessing generational fairness requires understanding the extent of intergenerational transfers resulting from fiscal policy. The presentation by Parisa Mahboubi, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Institute, offered insights into this issue using generational accounts. These accounts show lifetime net taxes imposed by federal and provincial governments for each birth cohort from 1923 to 2023 and for a composite future generation consisting of all persons born after 2023. The lifetime tax burdens of the 2023 birth cohort and future generations are comparable because a complete life cycle is captured in both cases. Her analysis shows that future generations are expected to face a slightly higher lifetime net tax burden than the youngest living generation.
Preparing generational accounts requires information on lifetime taxes and transfers for each birth cohort alive today and for future generations. Projected values of taxes paid by current birth cohorts are developed based on age-specific profiles of different types of taxes,11 assuming unchanged tax policies. Spending on health, education, elderly benefits, child benefits, social assistance and GST credits vary by age, while other government expenditures are evenly distributed per capita. Per capita taxes, transfers and expenditures are assumed to grow at the same rate as productivity.
The lifetime net tax burdens for currently alive birth cohorts are calculated as the present value of projected tax payments less the present value of projected government transfers the cohort will receive. Lifetime net tax burdens of future generations are calculated using the “no free lunch” constraint: someone, sometime, must pay for all that the government spends (US Congressional Budget Office 1995). The lifetime net tax burden of future generations equals the amount of future spending not paid by currently alive generations.12
In the baseline scenario, productivity grows 0.94 percent annually, the average GDP per capita growth from 2002 to 2022. The discount rate is the average return on real return bonds over the same period, 1.3 percent.13 Statistics Canada’s medium-growth scenario14 is used for demographic projections, with population growing at an average annual rate of 0.85 percent over the 100-year projection, driven entirely by net immigration. The ratio of those over 65 to those aged 18-65 – the old-age dependency ratio – more than doubles over the projection period, rising from 30 percent to 72 percent (Figure 4).
The increase in the old-age dependency ratio drives upward trends in elderly benefits and health-related expenditures as a share of GDP. Other categories of age-specific spending remain roughly constant.
In the baseline scenario, the lifetime net tax burden of future generations (“unborn”) exceeds that of the cohort born in 2023 (“newborn”) by $23,000 per person (Figure 5). Factors influencing this result include:15
Fiscal Position in the Base Year: In 2023, federal and provincial tax revenues exceeded program spending by over one percent of GDP. A smaller primary surplus would have decreased the lifetime net tax burden of the newly born, increasing the burden on the unborn.
Population Growth: Faster population growth reduces the relative tax burden on future generations by slowing the rise in the old-age dependency ratio and reducing the per-capita burden of existing debt.
Healthcare Costs: If real healthcare costs increase faster than productivity growth, the recently born will pay a smaller share, leaving more for future generations.
The baseline assumptions represent the midpoint of a range of plausible values. While results are sensitive to changes in assumptions, the baseline is considered the most likely outcome. The generational accounts, therefore, suggest that fiscal policy is generationally fair.
However, other factors must be considered when assessing fairness:
Population Stability: If there were no net population growth, the tax burden on future generations would be much higher, even if the old-age dependency ratio did not change, because the cost of existing debt would be spread over a smaller population. This observation draws attention to the fact that future generations will be paying for services they did not receive, even with stable lifetime net taxes.
Income Growth: Future generations will likely be richer due to productivity growth, which could justify asking them to bear some costs of current consumption. However, parents may not wish to pass on costs to their children, even if incomes are rising over time. Population growth through immigration substantially reduces intergenerational linkages, which could encourage the current generation to increase the target size of intergenerational transfers.
New Spending Pressures: The generational accounts do not capture new pressures like rising military and security commitments or higher spending to achieve a net-zero emissions economy. In both cases, underspending in the past has pushed costs into the future. Pre-funding some of this spending by increasing taxes in the near term would even out contributions across generations.
Comparisons with Near Term Future Generations: Generational accounts compare a representative future generation with the most recent birth cohort. Comparing the tax burden of living generations with the burden on near-term future generations is also relevant.
While the generational accounts indicate that the federal-provincial fiscal stance is fair to future generations under current assumptions, it is beneficial to supplement this analysis with assessments over shorter time horizons. For example, virtually all living generations benefited from the debt-financed income stabilization and health measures implemented during the pandemic-induced recession. There is a strong fairness argument for paying down pandemic-related debt before the next generation starts working and paying taxes, which would occur over the 2035-to-2045 period (Lester 2021).
Federal and provincial Covid-related spending amounted to approximately $430 billion from 2020/21 to 2022/23.16 Federal and provincial debt was $2,092 million in 2022/23. Reducing the level of debt to $1,660 million no later than 2045/46 would be fair to generations born in 2019 and later. However, in Laurin’s prudent scenario, in which debt is sustainable with 80 percent probability, the level of debt rises continuously over the projection period. The gap between the prudent and fair level of debt is $1,200 million in 2035/36. Achieving a fair level of debt would require more fiscal consolidation than is needed to achieve sustainability.
Reforming Expenditure Management
Ragan’s debt target and the recommendation to achieve it through expenditure restraint raise two issues:
1) Building Consensus: How to build a consensus on the proposed debt target and increase the likelihood of achieving it.
2) Identifying Savings: How to identify programs that don’t provide enough value to justify raising taxes to finance them.
Economist and C.D. Howe Institute Fellow-in-Residence John Lester emphasized that achieving a political consensus on a more prudent fiscal approach requires vigorous and sustained advocacy. Part of this advocacy involves convincing governments to surrender some policy flexibility to increase the odds of achieving the target reduction in debt and reduce the risk of relapse after the next crisis.
Lester and Laurin (2023) propose a principles-based fiscal governance framework intended to reduce the bias toward deficit financing in both good times and bad. Governments should adopt guiding principles for fiscal policy, set operational rules for achieving target outcomes and transparently assess consistency with these principles.
At the conference, Lester expanded upon one element of the governance framework: a binding multi-year ceiling on non-cyclical spending. A key motivation for this proposal is the failure to adhere to spending tracks set out in budgets and fiscal updates. For example, in the federal government’s 2019 Economic and Fiscal Update, program spending was projected to decline as a share of GDP, reaching 13.8 percent by 2024/25. The spending ratio projected for 2024/25 increased in successive budgets so that in 2024-25 it will be almost 2 percentage points higher than projected in 2019.18
Binding multi-year expenditure ceilings apply in 11 OECD member countries (Moretti, Keller, and Majercak 2023).19 In the Netherlands and Switzerland, the ceilings are set out in legislation that constrains expenditure growth. Alberta has recently adopted a similar approach.20 However, in most countries, expenditure ceilings are set by the government to ensure consistency with its self-defined fiscal objectives, which may or may not include expenditure restraint. This is the general approach recommended for Canada, although the hope is that the self-defined objective will be to achieve the debt target through expenditure restraint.
The expenditure ceiling would be binding for five years, ideally developed in the first year of a new electoral mandate after a campaign outlining spending plans in detail. The ceiling would cover all categories of spending directly affected by policy decisions. It would be updated annually to account for forecasting errors in program determinants (e.g., inflation, population growth). There would be escape clauses for major economic recessions, natural disasters and war. The ceiling could include a reserve for new policy initiatives, but in the context of expenditure restraint new initiatives may need to be funded by eliminating or modifying existing programs.
Identifying the programs that should be scaled back or eliminated because they don’t provide enough benefits to justify raising taxes to finance them requires, according to Lester, an overhaul of the way the government manages its spending, particularly the performance management framework that is key to establishing value for money. Yves Giroux set the stage for this discussion by describing the federal government’s current expenditure management system.
The requirement to evaluate programs was formalized following the creation of the Office of the Comptroller General in 1978. Despite several modifications, program evaluations have not been successful in affecting strategic spending decisions. The Ministerial Task Force on Program Review (the Nielsen Task Force) from 1984 to 1986 described evaluations as “generally useless and inadequate for the work of program review” (quoted in Grady and Phidd 1993). More recently, McDavid et al. (2018, 302) conclude that evaluations do not “address questions that would be asked as cabinet decision-makers choose among programs and policies.”
Under the current evaluation policy, federal government departments have considerable flexibility in conducting evaluations. They may focus on design and delivery, program beneficiary responses or a comparison of program costs and benefits. A review of 48 evaluations prepared since 2020 in eight departments21 found that only four went beyond assessing operational efficiency and impacts on beneficiaries to examine whether the program represented value for taxpayer money. Three of these applied formal benefit-cost analysis, which is the standard for assessing regulatory proposals.22
Evaluating programs in terms of operational efficiency and beneficiary impacts helps improve programs, but if evaluations are to inform strategic spending decisions, value-for-money assessments must be mandatory. These assessments should be based on the benefit-cost framework applied to regulatory proposals.
Benefit-cost analysis of regulatory proposals – and by extension, spending programs – assesses the overall social benefits and costs of policy initiatives. The quantitative analysis attempts to determine if the economic pie is larger or smaller after government intervention. For example, economic development programs (business subsidies) are implemented with the expectation that they will increase overall real income. To assess this, benefit-cost analysis considers not only the additional investment and employment resulting from the subsidy but also the opportunity cost of workers and capital – the amount that would have been earned otherwise. The net increase in the economic pie is the incremental earnings of workers and capital less efficiency losses from raising taxes or issuing debt to finance the subsidy and resources used to administer and apply for it.
The nature of the assessment should vary by program type. Business subsidies, labour market development programs and climate change mitigation/adaptation measures have benefits and costs measurable in monetary terms. These programs could be ranked by their net social benefits, allowing comparisons within and across program categories. Programs where benefits are less than costs would be candidates for elimination or modification.
A more nuanced approach is needed when assessing social programs and other measures with a fairness goal for several reasons. Their economic impact is ambiguous, and a negative economic impact is not a sufficient reason to eliminate a program. In addition, support for an income redistribution program depends on who benefits from it. As a result, evaluations of social programs should be more descriptive than prescriptive. They should present information on the economic impacts of measures, their fiscal cost, including administration expenses, and a discussion of who benefits from the program and how they benefit. Evaluations should also assess how the program fits into other measures providing support to the target population. This information will allow elected officials and, since all evaluations would be made public, Canadians, generally, to form an evidence-based opinion on the value for money of social programs.
A thorough assessment of government programs through a value-for-money lens may not identify enough wasteful spending to achieve deficit and debt targets. If so, tax increases should be used to achieve the objectives.
Adopting and achieving the debt target will require a political commitment that currently does not exist. The task for policy analysts is to help build a consensus on a more prudent approach to fiscal policy and a revamped expenditure management system. According to Lester, this consensus should be ratified by legislation setting out general principles for sound fiscal policy, supplemented with non-legislated operational rules to guide annual policy and monitor progress. This approach would impose discipline on fiscal policy while allowing flexibility to address unexpected developments. Legislation would strengthen the consensus on fiscal prudence and help prevent backsliding by future politicians.
Conclusion
The evidence presented at the conference confirmed that Canada has a debt problem. Existing debt levels are not prudent, and they raise concerns about generational fairness. Prudence requires that Canada’s public debt be reduced by about 10 percentage points of GDP before the decade’s end. This would require increasing the combined federal-provincial primary balance by 1.4 percent of GDP, or $43 billion, starting in 2025/26.
Tax increases harm economic performance, so elimination of public spending that does not provide enough benefits to offset this damage should be the first step in reducing deficits and debt. Identifying wasteful spending will require comprehensive value-for-money assessments. Governments must not take the easy way out by implementing across-the-board spending cuts. Successful expenditure restraint will also require setting binding multi-year expenditure ceilings to prevent governments from spending revenue windfalls or from increasing spending to improve chances of electoral success.
Canada’s public debt is imposing a burden on future generations. A comparison of the lifetime tax burden on the recently born with distant future generations reveals only a small generational transfer in favour of the recently born. However, burden shifting is much larger from currently living generations to persons born shortly after the pandemic-induced recession. The $430 billion in pandemic-related debt should be paid down by the people that benefited from the income stabilization measures. Achieving this fairness objective would require more fiscal consolidation than needed to ensure sustainability of the debt. For the Silo, Alexandre Laurin/John Lester via C.D. Howe Institute.
Appendix: Assumptions and Methods for the Sustainability Analysis
References
Aiyagari, S. Rao, and Ellen R. McGrattan. 1998. “The Optimum Quantity of Debt.” Journal of Monetary Economics 42 (3): 447–69.
Ambler, Steve, and Craig Alexander. 2015. “One Percent? For Real? Insights from Modern Growth Theory about Future Investment Returns.” E-Brief. Toronto: C.D. Howe Institute. October.
Burgess, David F. 1996. “Fiscal Deficits and Intergenerational Welfare in Almost Small Open Economies.” Canadian Journal of Economics, 885–909.
Canada. 2024. “Budget 2024.” Department of Finance Canada. April.
Checherita-Westphal, Cristina D., and Marcel Stechert. 2021. “Household Saving and Fiscal Policy: Evidence for the Euro Area from a Thick Modelling Perspective.” Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3992188.
Conklin, David, and Thomas Courchene. 1983. “Deficits: How Big and How Bad?” Special Research Report. Toronto: Ontario Economic Council.
Grady, Patrick, and Richard W. Phidd. 1993. “Budget Envelopes, Policy Making and Accountability.” Government and Competitiveness Project, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University. http://global-economics.ca/budgetenvelopes.pdf.
International Monetary Fund (IMF). 2022. “Staff Guidance Note on the Sovereign Risk and Debt Sustainability Framework for Market Access Countries.” 2022–039. IMF Policy Papers.
James, Steven, and Philippe Karam. 2001. “The Role of Government Debt in a World of Incomplete Financial Markets.” Department of Finance, Economic and Fiscal Policy Branch.
Jenkins, Glenn, and Chun-Yan Kuo. 2007. “The Economic Opportunity Cost of Capital for Canada-an Empirical Update.” Queen’s Economics Department Working Paper. Available at: https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/189409.
Kim, Junghum, and Sean Dougherty (eds.) 2020. “Adaptability, accountability and sustainability: Intergovernmental fiscal arrangements in Canada,” in Ageing and Fiscal Challenges across Levels of Government, OECD Publishing, Paris.
Mahboubi, Parisa. 2019. Intergenerational Fairness: Will Our Kids Live Better than We Do? Commentary 529. Toronto: C.D. Howe Institute. January.
McDavid, Jim, Astrid Brousselle, Robert P. Shepherd, and David Zussman. 2018. “Linking Evaluation and Spending Reviews: Challenges and Prospects.” Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation 32 (3): 297–304. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjpe.43176.
Modigliani, Franco. 1983. “Government Deficits, Inflation and Future Generations.” In Deficits: How Big and How Bad, pp. 55–71.
Nakajima, Tomoyuki, and Shuhei Takahashi. 2017. “The Optimum Quantity of Debt for Japan.” Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 46:17–26.
Okamoto, Akira. 2024. “The Optimum Quantity of Debt for an Aging Japan: Welfare and Demographic Dynamics.” The Japanese Economic Review. May. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42973-024-00156-7.
Panizza, Ugo, Richard Varghese, and Yi Huang. 2019. “Public debt and private investment.” Centre for Economic Policy Research. VOXEU Column. December 4.
Reinhart, Carmen M., and Kenneth S. Rogoff. 2010. “Growth in a Time of Debt.” American Economic Review 100 (2): 573–78. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.100.2.573.
Robson, William, and Parisa Mahboubi. 2024. Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt: The Fiscal Implications of Demographic Change for Ottawa and the Provinces. Commentary 665. Toronto: C.D. Howe Institute. August.
Robson, William, and William Scarth. 1994. Deficit Reduction – What Pain, What Gain? (Policy Study 23). Toronto: C.D. Howe Institute.
Canadian consumers and businesses pay more than $80 billion a year in property & casualty insurance premiums with an upward trend consistently in excess of our anemic GDP growth rate. The total cost is now more than 3 percent of GDP. … But how does Canada benchmark relative to its global peers?
• Canadians pay higher premiums for property and casualty insurance than citizens in many, if not most, other developed nations. This Commentary uses OECD data and private industry data to compare the national P&C insurance sector’s premiums as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product with its international peers and is an update of the findings of the author’s 2021 edition of this report.
• The Commentary focuses on liability, property and auto insurance to compare costs across nations. Then, it takes a deeper dive into the Canadian data to compare personal property and auto insurance among all provinces and territories.
• When it comes to costs for property insurance, the study finds Canada is in the top ranks, paying 1.23 percent of GDP in premiums, almost double the 0.66 percent average of other G7 peers and even higher than the 0.52 percent OECD average.For automobile insurance (which here includes both personal and commercial), Canadians appear to be paying, on average, the highest premiums in the world, relative to GDP.
• Within Canada, inter-provincial benchmarking for personal property insurance shows the higher average premiums paid in Canada – relative to the rest of the developed world – appear to be shared equally by most provinces. However, province-by-province comparisons of personal auto insurance show that there are substantial differences among provinces, with four jurisdictions producing higher-than-average results. Two of the four (Saskatchewan and Manitoba) are government-monopoly jurisdictions – in fact, these are the two highest in terms of costs. The two other outliers (Ontario and Alberta) are served by a competitive private sector, but Alberta has chosen until very recently to maintain a costly tort environment and Ontario mandates particularly generous accident benefits and has experienced a plague of auto theft.
• In the case of automobile insurance, just a handful of provinces need to think harder about how to improve car insurance premiums. But to reduce the cost of living for homeowners, the solutions required must be national in scope and include public/private partnerships to share the rapidly increasing risk-transfer price of natural catastrophe events.
Read the full article by Alister Campbell via this PDF.
Key Canadian trade laws do not refer to national security as a factor that allows Canada to counter threats from imports of goods or services. Given the tense geopolitical situation, I propose ways to close this “national security gap.”
The gap is particularly worrisome in two key import-governing legislation: (1) the Customs Tariff Act and (2) the Export and Import Permits Act.
I will show why the omission of the national security element in these and possibly other statutes needs to be remedied.
National Security & Chinese Exports
The Americans imposed surcharges on Chinese EVs, steel, aluminum, semiconductors and other products in May 2024 in response to heavily subsidized Chinese imports that were said to have breached international trade rules.
The EU started applying countervailing duties on Chinese EVs in July this year, using a more standard trade remedy process to counter the injurious impact of subsidized imports on the European automotive industry.
The danger posed by Chinese EVs, steel and aluminum imports, plus these actions by Canada’s major trading partners, led the Canadian government to apply comparable tariff surcharges. The strategic threat posed by China’s state-subsidized exports made for the right response by Canada.
While existing laws allowed the federal cabinet to take action in this case, it also brought home the fact that there is an absence of any reference to “national security” in some of Canada’s major trade law statutes.
Section 53 – Canada’s Rapid Response Mechanism
In the United States, Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, along with Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, authorize the president to increase tariffs on imports if the quantity or circumstances surrounding those imports are deemed to threaten national security.1
Section 232 was used by the Trump administration in 2018 to apply surcharges to a range of imports from numerous countries, including Canada. However, these tariffs were ultimately dropped in the face of threats by Canada to retaliate against American goods exported to Canada.
Unlike the US, Canada lacks the legislative means to impose import surcharges on the basis of national security. The closest we have is Section 53 of the Customs Tariff Act, which focuses on the enforcement of Canada’s rights under trade agreements and responses to practices that negatively affect Canadian trade. It was Section 53 that was used in the August decision on Chinese EVs, etc., referred to earlier.
Indeed, there are similarities between Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 and Section 53 of the Customs Tariff Act.But while existing laws allowed the federal cabinet to act in this case, the case brought home the fact that there is an absence of any reference to “national security” in some of Canada’s major trade law statutes.
Governments have shied away from using Section 53 as a policy tool over the years. It was used only once before its present deployment, in response to the Trump administration’s surcharges on Canadian steel and aluminum in 2018 and 2020.2
The surcharges were ultimately withdrawn when the US tariffs were terminated.Section 53 comes under Division 4 of the Actentitled “Special Measures, Emergency Measures and Safeguards,” giving the government broad powers to apply unilateral tariff measures on the joint recommendation of the ministers of Finance and Global Affairs:
…for the purpose of enforcing Canada’s rights
under a trade agreement in relation to a country
or of responding to acts, policies or practices of
the government of a country that adversely affect,
or lead directly or indirectly to adverse effects on,
trade in goods or services of Canada…
There is no requirement for public consultations or input under this provision. Although the government held a round of stakeholder consultations before moving on Chinese imports in August, it was not legally obliged to do so. While the ministerial recommendations must be fact-based and supported by credible data, the law is effective in that nothing inhibits rapid action by the federal cabinet. In this respect, it is a superior tool to Section 232 of the American legislation.3
The critical shortcoming, on the other hand, is that while allowing the government to protect Canadian trade interests in a fairly rapid fashion, Section 53 does not allow action on imports found to be threatening national security, whether it be economic, military or other. There is clearly a need to repair this omission, not only here but in Canada’s other trade laws.
In my view, we need a national security component in Section 53 as the Canadian counterpart to Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act.
Import Controls and National Security
Together with tariff measures, Canada can control imports under the Export and Import Permits Act(EIPA) through the creation of import (and export) control lists designed to achieve particular strategic, security and economic objectives. These lists are established by orders-in-council,
requiring listed goods and technology to have a permit in order to be imported or exported. These permits are issued by the Trade Controls and Technical Barriers Bureau in Global Affairs Canada (GAC). Without a permit, imports of controlled items are illegal.
While Section 5(1) of EIPA provides for the creation of import control lists covering arms, ammunition and military items, it fails to provide for imports of goods or technology to be controlled for national security reasons. The Act could not have been used, for example, to deal with the effects on national security of imports of Chinese EVs, steel, aluminum or any other goods or technology. EIPA is thus deficient in this regard.
There is a related issue when it comes to export controls. Section 3(1) of EIPA authorizes the establishment of export control lists, among other reasons:
“(a)…to ensure that arms, ammunition,
implements or munitions of war, etc. … otherwise
having a strategic nature or value will not be made
available to any destination where their use might
be detrimental to the security of Canada.”
The reference to the “security of Canada” under paragraph (a) is the only such reference in the statute and is confined to the security aspects of imports of arms, ammunition, munitions of war, etc. While not as significant as the problems regarding import controls, it is nonetheless a serious omission.
The result is that as EIPA is currently drafted, the federal government lacks the legal authority to create import or export controls designed to protect or safeguard Canadian security. EIPA needs to be amended to add this authority on the part of the government.
Indeed, it may be desirable to re-consider much of the architecture of EIPA from the viewpoint of safeguarding Canada’s security interests on both the export and import side.
Controlling Imports Through Sanctions
Canada’s sanctions laws are found in the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (JVCFOA), the United Nations Act, and, notably, the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA). Each of these statutes allows the federal cabinet to issue sanctions through regulations
applicable to specific countries and/or jurisdictions and prohibiting transactions in specific items of goods or technology. None of these laws allow sanctions for matters related to Canadian security.
SEMA is Canada’s most widely used sanctions legislation. Section 4 is the only part of the Act that uses the term “security,” but only in instances when, among other matters:
(b) a grave breach of international peace and
security has occurred that has resulted in or is likely
to result in a serious international crisis.
Because of the restrictions on international peace and security, the government lacks the authority to issue sanctions dealing with national security interests.4
For example, Canada’s sanctions on Russia are directed at countering actions that “constitute a grave breach of international peace and security that has resulted or is likely to result in a serious international crisis,” with no reference to Canadian national security interests.
SEMA should be amended to allow prohibitions of any transaction or dealings of any kind where Canada’s national security is at risk.
Trade Remedies and National Security
In accordance with the GATT/WTO Agreement, antidumping and countervailing (AD/CV) duties can be applied to dumped or subsidized imports when a domestic industry is injured or threatened with injury from exactly the same imports as that industry produces. In Canada, these are provided for under the Special Import Measures Act (SIMA).
SIMA actions are driven by complaints filed by domestic producers who make exactly the same or directly competitive products as the imported items. It means, for example, that in the absence of a Canadian industry threatened with injury or actually injured by the same type of Chinese EVs, aluminum or steel imports as those producers make, AD/CV duty remedies would not be available. SIMA makes no reference to national security as a factor in the application of these duties.
In short, because the SIMA process is geared to provide protection to domestic producers and private sector industries, it is inappropriate as a vehicle for dealing with national economic security concerns that range well beyond those private interests.
The same is true in the case of safeguards, another kind of trade action allowed under the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement to counter floods of imports that are not dumped or subsidized but, because of their volume, cause or threaten serious injury to domestic producers of the same product.
In Canada, safeguard measures come under the Canadian International Trade Tribunal Act, where an inquiry takes place and, if recommended by the Tribunal, are applied under the Customs Tariff Act.
As in the case of dumped or subsidized imports, safeguard measures are designed to protect specific domestic industries and not to deal with overarching national security issues.
Again, because the objective of these remedial measures in international and Canadian trade law is to protect a domestic industry from financial harm due to imports and not to deal with broader questions of national security, the absence of reference to “security” in these various statutes does not seem to be a significant issue.
National Security under International Trade Law
Article XXI of the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT) is the only provision in the entire WTO package that deals with national security. That article (entitled “Security Exceptions”) allows departures from normal trade rules to permit unilateral trade-restrictive measures that a contracting party “considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests…taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations.”
The drafting of GATT Article XXI dates back to the post-World War II Bretton Woods era. What was considered an international emergency at that time was war, regional armed conflict or a global pandemic like the Asian flu of 1918-1920. The same broad view of international emergency conditions was applied when the Uruguay Round negotiations took place (1991-1994) leading to the conclusion of the WTO Agreement.
With recent cataclysmic changes in the world, whatever the WTO-administered multilateral system might prescribe, governments are moving to protect a range of national (and economic) security concerns by means of unilateral measures in ways that were not envisaged when the Bretton Woods architecture was devised in the late 1940s.
For decades, there was little recourse to Article XXI exceptions. However, their use emerged in the last number of years with the unilateral surcharges imposed by Trump.
The situation is different – and materially different – in the case of Chinese exports, not only EVs, steel or aluminum but also in technologically advanced or other critical items. These are goods that, by abundant evidence, are heavily subsidized, with massive overcapacity, exported to global markets as part of the Chinese government’s strategy to enhance its geopolitical position – facts uncovered in the EV situation through detailed investigations by the EU and the US.5
Thus, aggressive actions by China and possibly other countries in strategically sensitive areas take the issue beyond the WTO ruling in the US-Section 232 case and raise these to the level of an “emergency in international relations.”
In summary, the concept of an international emergency is much changed in today’s digitized, cyber-intensified world, including the aggressive and destabilizing policies of Chinese state capitalism and other bad actors. The application of GATT/WTO rules drafted in 1947 and updated in the 1990s must be adapted to deal with today’s realities if they are to provide governments with meaningful recourse.
Conclusions
In conclusion, Canada has a panoply of criminal, investment, intelligence gathering and other laws that address national security concerns. However, there is a notable absence of the term “national security” in Canada’s core trade law statutes.
This absence is of concern in the Customs Tariff Act and the Export and Import Permits Act, two important statutes that give the government authority to act to counter injurious imports threatening Canada’s national security.
Given the state of world affairs and the challenges Canada faces from aggressive players like China, Russia, Iran and others, the omissions in these statutes need to be remedied. This should be acted on immediately. There is also a lack of reference to national security in Canada’s sanctions legislation, notably the Special Economic Measures Act (SEMA), the main Canadian sanctions statute.
Amendments should be made to make security concerns a ground for imposing sanctions here as well. The findings of EU agencies on Chinese BEV after a detailed investigation support the view that Chinese state capitalism and its centrally planned industrial capacity are geared toward dominating world markets in critical goods, part of that country’s geopolitical strategy. These and other similar governmental actions can be said to meet the “emergency in international relations” threshold under the WTO Agreement.
Given the state of affairs at the WTO, including the paralysis of its dispute settlement system, amendments to or reinterpretation of the GATT rules are difficult, if not impossible. The result is that governments will be resorting to unilateral application of the Article XXI exclusion in their own national security measures. While the situation may evolve at the WTO, and without diminishing Canada’s support for the multilateral rules-based system, the federal government should bring forth measures to add reference to national security interests in the above statutes. For the Silo, Lawrence L. Herman/ C.D. Howe Institute.
International Economic Policy Council Members
Co-Chairs: Marta Morgan, Pierre S. Pettigrew Members: Ari Van Assche Stephen Beatty Stuart Bergman Dan Ciuriak Catherine Cobden John Curtis Robert Dimitrieff Rick Ekstein Carolina Gallo Victor Gomez Peter Hall Lawrence Herman Caroline Hughes Jim Keon Jean-Marc Leclerc Meredith Lilly Michael McAdoo Marcella Munro Jeanette Patell Representative, Amazon Canada Joanne Pitkin Rob Stewart Aaron Sydor Daniel Trefle
1 The Trade Expansion Act of 1962 (Pub. L. 87–794, 76 Stat. 872, enacted October 11, 1962, codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 7); The Trade Act of 1974 (Pub. L. 93–618, 88 Stat. 1978, enacted January 3, 1975, codified at 19 U.S.C. ch. 12).
2 The government announced it was applying these “to encourage a prompt end to the U.S. tariffs, which negatively affect Canadian workers and businesses and threaten to undermine the integrity of the global trading system.” See: “United States Surtax Order (Steel and Aluminum),” Government of Canada, June 28, 2018, https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2018/2018-07-11/html/sordors152-eng.html.
3 Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act allows the president to impose import restrictions – but these must be based on an investigation and affirmative determination by the Department of Commerce that certain imports threaten to impair US national security.
4 The array of Canada’s sanctions can be found on the GAC website at: https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/sanctions/current-actuelles.aspx?lang=eng.
5 The EU measures followed a countervailing duty approach, as opposed to direct action in the case of Canada and the US. In its extremely detailed investigation, EU agencies found, on the basis of massive evidence, that: “ . . . the BEV [battery electric vehicle] industry is thus regarded as a key/strategic industry, whose development is actively pursued by the GOC as a policy objective. The BEV sector is shown to be of paramount importance for the GOC and receives political support for its accelerated development. Including from vital inputs to the end product. On the basis of the policy documents referred to in this section, the Commission concluded that the GOC intervenes in the BEV industry to implement the related policies and interferes with the free play of market forces in the BEV sector, notably by promoting and supporting the sector through various means and key steps in their production and sale.”See: “Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/1866,” European Union, July 3, 2024, at para. 253, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2024/1866/oj
The Pakistani national who allegedly plotted to travel to New York to murder Jews was seeking refugee status in Canada, according to an immigration consultant.
Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, who came to Canada in June 2023 on a student visa, was arrested on Sept. 4 by the RCMP for allegedly intending to carry out a mass shooting targeting Jews in New York City. He was charged by U.S. authorities with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), and the United States is seeking to have him extradited.
Fazal Qadeer, an immigration consultant who had worked with Khan, said Khan was applying for refugee status on the basis of sexual orientation, saying he is gay, CBC reported on Oct. 7.
It is not known what Khan’s refugee claim status was when he was arrested, but Qadeer said Khan had recently had a lengthy interview with Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said in September that Khan entered Canada on a student visa.
According to a U.S. criminal complaint that was unsealed in September 2024, Khan repeatedly expressed his support for ISIS and his intention to carry out a terrorist attack around November 2023.
That month, he began interacting online with an undercover FBI agent, and explained his plan to attack Jewish religious centres in the United States around the time of the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel.
In a statement, IRCC said it would not comment on individual cases, but that all asylum claimants receive an “independent and fair assessment on the individual merits of their claim,” which included whether they fear persecution based on race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or if they are LGBT.
Minister ‘Confident’ in Screening System
Khan’s arrest came months after a father and son were arrested by the RCMP in Richmond Hill, Ont., for allegedly being in the “advanced stages of planning a serious, violent attack in Toronto.” The two are facing nine terrorism charges, including conspiracy to commit murder on behalf of ISIS.
Ahmed Eldidi had been admitted into Canada in 2019 and later given citizenship, while Mostafa Eldidi was granted refugee status, according to documents provided by IRCC.
Miller defended Ottawa’s immigration system when appearing before the House of Commons public safety committee in September, saying the government remains “confident in the way our biometric system works in the progressive screening that operates in our country.”
Miller told the committee that Ahmed Eldidi had his initial temporary resident visa application refused because of concerns he would not leave Canada at the end of his authorized stay, but his second application was approved after an officer was satisfied he merely intended to visit Canada. He was given a favourable recommendation, Miller said, and officers found no issues that made him inadmissible to Canada.
Conservative MPs on the committee questioned screening procedures and accused the Liberal government of removing the mandatory requirement for police background checks for arrivals from some countries including Pakistan in 2018.
The IRCC’s website currently states that those applying for permanent residence, citizenship, or the International Experience Canada program “may need to provide a police certificate for any other programs” if they have a prior criminal record, but does not specifically mention Pakistan. For the Silo, Matthew Horwood.
Featured image- RCMP logo is seen outside the force’s ‘E’ division headquarters in Surrey, B.C., on March 16, 2023. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck.
OPP officers stand near the scene of a shooting where one Ontario Provincial Police officer was killed and two others were injured in the town of Bourget, Ont. on May 11, 2023. The Canadian Press/Patrick Doyle
Violent crime is surging in some of Canada’s major cities, with sexual assault rates showing the largest increase over the short and long term, according to a new report.
Sexual assault cases climbed in eight of nine major cities over the past seven years, with Ottawa being the exception to the trend, according to a study [read the full report at the end of this post] by the Macdonald Laurier Institute (MLI). The incidence of sexual assault has risen since 2016 in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, Peel, Ont., and York, Ont., with the last nearly doubling from 2016 to 2023.
“In recent years there has been a surge in violent crime across Canada as a whole,” says the report authored by Dave Snow and Rickard Audas, senior fellows at MLI. “We found that violent crime was increasing in many cities in the short-term, most notably for sexual assaults and robberies.”
Winnipeg and Edmonton recorded the highest number of sexual assault cases during the seven-year period. In 2023, Edmonton had a sexual assault rate of 108.64 cases per 100,000 people, while Winnipeg saw a rate of 107.76. Toronto followed at 97.8 cases.
The rate in Peel, on the other hand, was 52.15 cases last year, the lowest among all major cities.
The study’s goal was to analyze crime trends at a local level. To do so, the authors looked at 10 years of police-reported violent crime records from nine major cities, which they say account for one-third of the Canadian population.
They considered four crime categories: homicide, aggravated assault, sexual assault, and robbery. They did not include Vancouver data on sexual assault because of differences in how it reports the crime, they noted.
Winnipeg: Highest Robbery Rates
The robbery rate in Manitoba’s capital last year was nearly triple that of every other major city, at 305.82 cases per 100,000 population, according to the report. The rate has increased by more than 50 percent since 2016, decreasing slightly from 2019 to 2021, and reaching a peak in 2023.
The authors noted the rate decline coincides with the years of pandemic lockdowns.
The second highest robbery rate last year was in Edmonton, which had less than half that of Winnipeg, at 106.01 cases per 100,000 population. Alberta’s capital city had the second highest rate for the entire period, while Montreal and Toronto have followed closely in recent years.
By contrast, York reported the lowest robbery rates since 2016 among all major cities, with 31.66 cases last year. Ottawa and Peel also reported lower rates than other cities.
Edmonton: Highest Rates of Aggravated Assault
Edmonton’s aggravated assault rate in 2023 was more than four times that of any other major Canadian city except Winnipeg, said the report, at 38.72 incidents per 100,000 population compared to Winnipeg’s 22.81.
Aggravated assault refers to injuring, maiming, disfiguring, or endangering someone’s life, according to the Criminal Code of Canada.
The aggravated assault rate from 2016 to 2023 was highest in Edmonton, where it’s been rising steadily over the last decade, according to the study. Winnipeg had the second highest rates in the study period.
The authors said that despite being Canada’s largest city, Toronto has experienced “a considerable decline” in its aggravated assault rate over the last decade, with 8.29 cases in 2023.
York had the lowest rates since 2016, followed by Peel and Montreal. For The Silo, Carolina Avendano/The Epoch Times.
Let’s Hope for Solid Hit from the PBO’s Third Swing at Carbon Tax Analysis
The “corrected” analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office of the carbon tax and rebates is due soon. One hopes it will get more things right in this third crack at evaluating the government of Canada’s assurance that most Canadians will receive enough from the carbon tax rebates to cover their cost of paying the tax.
Reporting in 2022 and in an update last year, the PBO analysis confirmed the government assertion so long as induced economic effects from the carbon levy are not included. However, once the economic damage from the levy is included, the PBO concluded that the rebates fall short of keeping family budgets whole.
The PBO’s conclusion was seized on by Conservative politicians and others to justify calls to revoke the carbon tax. Now, more knives have come out. The NDP says it would scrap the tax on households and put the burden on large emitters, but it does not yet explain how it would square that with the current big-emitter carbon tax. And BC, where carbon taxing began in Canada, has said it would drop the tax if Ottawa removed the legal requirement.
Much is at stake with this third PBO swing.
After the second report, the PBO admitted that its analysis had included, in addition to the carbon tax on households, the tax on large emitters as well. The economic impacts had been taken from work passed over to the PBO by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), which included the effects of the tax as applied to both industrial and household payers. The budget officer said the error was small and had little consequence for the analysis and promised a corrected version this fall.
The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that 20-48 percent of the emissions reduction by 2030 will come from the levy on large emitters compared to 8-14 percent from households. Given the scale of the large emitters tax, it is likely that it has significant economic effects on any forecast. Fixing this should not, however, be the most consequential revision to its analysis.
The PBO’s first two efforts had an analytical asymmetry. It measured the economic cost originating in the tax, exaggerated as it turned out, but did not attempt to capture the economic benefits (not to mention any health gains) from the effects of the household carbon levy in mitigating climate change. Put differently, their work was, in effect, based upon the faulty premise that climate change brings no economic damage. The massive and growing costs of cleaning up fire and flood damage and adapting to the many other consequences of global warming bear evidence of such costs. The PBO could and should do its own analysis of those climate change costs and, hence, the benefits of mitigation. Or it could more easily tap into the substantial body of available literature.
Lowering Canada’s Gross Domestic Product
In Damage Control, the Canadian Climate Institute estimated climate change would lower the Gross Domestic Product by $35 billion from what it would otherwise have been in 2030; the impact would rise to $80 to $103 billion by 2055. Through cutting emissions, the household carbon tax will reduce this cost. International literature is rich, and the PBO could review it for applicability to Canada. As but one example, Howard and Sterner’s (2017) meta-analysis on the impacts of climate change concluded most studies underestimated them. Their preferred estimate points to a GDP hit of between 7 and 8 percent of GDP if there are no catastrophic damages and 9 to 10 percent if there are. Conceptual thinking is also advancing. Consideration is being given to there being “tipping points” where a certain degree of climate change may have much more non-linear dramatic economic effects. Some, like Stern and Stigliz, even question the worth of comparing an economic outlook with mitigation action against a status quo baseline as the PBO has done. They argue that without mitigation, there may not be a sustainable economic outcome.
Finally, those still inclined to think that a corrected Fall 2024 PBO report will provide ammunition to “axe the tax” need to ask themselves two questions.
First, is there value in the emissions reduction resulting from the household carbon tax? The Canadian Climate Institute concludes that the 8-14 percent contribution to emissions reduction by 2030 will grow in later years. Even with the tax and all the other policies announced to date, there is a 42-megatonne gap in Canada’s 2030 emissions reduction target. More than 200 Canadian economists signed an open letter asserting that “carbon pricing is the lowest cost approach because it gives each person and business the flexibility to choose the best way to reduce their carbon footprints. Other methods, such as direct regulations, tend to be more intrusive and inflexible, and cost more.” If not the household carbon tax, then what else?
Don Drummond is the Stauffer-Dunning Fellow in Global Public Policy and Adjunct Professor at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University and a Fellow-In-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute.
Several individuals in the UK have been sentenced to prison for posts they made online as authorities crack down on recent protests that led to race-motivated crimes. The laws that were used for the arrests in the UK compare as strikingly similar to Canadian laws dealing with online speech, including both existing legislation and the proposed Bill C-63. Why It Matters: Bill C-63, which has received second reading, significantly changes the laws governing online content in Canada.
“It’s alarming that the bill [C-63] enables individuals to anonymously file complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against those they deem to be posting hate speech. If found guilty, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal can impose fines of up to $70,000 cad and issue takedown orders for the content in question.
“If the courts believe you are likely to commit a ‘hate crime’ or disseminate ‘hate propaganda’ (not defined), you can be placed under house arrest and your ability to communicate with others restricted.” revolver.news
Via eurocanadians.ca/ The People’s Choice by Sean Adl-Tabatabai: The Trudeau government has introduced a potentially Orwellian new law called the Online Harms Bill C-63, which will give police the power to retroactively search the Internet for ‘hate speech’ violations and arrest offenders, even if the offence occurred before the law existed. This new bill is aimed at safeguarding the masses from so-called “hate speech”.
Revolver.news reports: The real shocker in this bill is the alarming retroactive aspect.
Essentially, whatever you’ve said in the past can now be weaponized against you by today’s draconian standards. Historian Dr. Muriel Blaive has weighed in on this draconian law, labeling it outright “mad.” She points out how it literally spits in the face of all Western legal traditions, especially the one about only being punished if you infringed on a law that was valid at the time of committing a crime.
The Canadian law proposal is outright mad. It is retroactive, which goes against all our Western legal tradition, according to which you can be punished only if you infringed a law that was valid at the time when you committed a crime: “And it isn’t just stuff you’ve posted after the new law comes into force you can get into trouble for – oh, no – but anything you’ve posted, ever, dating back to the dawn of the internet. In other words, it’s a gold-embossed invitation to offence archaeologists to do their worst, with the prospect of a $20,000 cad reward if they hit paydirt. The only way to protect yourself is to go through all your social media accounts and painstakingly delete anything remotely controversial you’ve ever said.”
“Although, that won’t protect you from another clause in the bill – and this is where it trips over into as yet unimagined dystopian territory. If the courts believe you are likely to commit a ‘hate crime’ or disseminate ‘hate propaganda’ (not defined), you can be placed under house arrest and your ability to communicate with others restricted. That is, a court can force you to wear an ankle bracelet, prevent you using any of your communication devices and then instruct you not to leave the house. If the court believes there’s a risk you may get drunk or high and start tweeting under the influence – although how is unclear, given you can’t use your phone or a PC – it can order you to submit regular urine samples to the authorities. Anyone who refuses to comply with these diktats can be sent to prison.”
By externalizing the defense of free speech to the right and extreme right and by endorsing repression, the liberal left is playing a very dangerous game here. For those of us who are NOT on the right and extreme right, this is rather disheartening… The left is actually shooting itself in the foot and will come back whining, ‘amazed’ that ordinary people are so ‘ungrateful.’ Indeed it seems to have forgotten that the rule of law implies to solve disagreements in the voting booth rather than by silencing those who disagree with us. How can it hope to get the support of the public for this insanity?
An online X user recently shared that his wife wrote a letter to every Canadian MP concerning this chilling bill, and only one MP responded. He posted MP Rachel Thomas’s reply, which many are now calling one of the most insightful and well-crafted summaries on this alarming issue.
My wife wrote to all Canadian MP’s about our opposition to the Online Harms Bill C-63. MP Rachael Thomas of Lethbridge is the only one who wrote back … It is the best written summary of issues I have seen yet. Long, but here it is…
“Thank you for writing to me regarding Bill C-63, the Liberal’s latest rendition of their online harms legislation.
While the federal government has touted this bill as an initiative to protect children, it does little to accomplish this noble cause, and a great deal to inhibit freedom of speech. Permit me to outline the bill in more detail.
There are four key parts to the bill: Part 1 creates the Online Harms Act; Part 2 amends the Criminal Code; Part 3 amends the Canadian Human Rights Act, and Part 4 amends An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service. I will focus on the first three parts of the bill in the rest of the letter.
Part 1: The bureaucratic arm will consist of three entities: the Digital Safety Commission, Digital Safety Ombudsperson, and Digital Safety Office. These new offices are made up almost entirely of Cabinet appointees and are given powers to receive and investigate complaints concerning harmful content, collect data, and develop more regulations. The Chairperson of the Digital Safety Commission would be voted on by Parliament. The Digital Safety Commission may investigate complaints and hold hearings regarding violations of the Act. The commission may act with the power of the federal court and may authorize any person to investigate compliance and non-compliance.
Penalties for violating an order of the commission or hindering anyone they authorize depend on whether a regulated service or individual commits the violation. The maximum penalty for a violation is not more than 8% of the gross global revenue of the person that is believed to have committed the violation or $25 million, whichever is greater. Cabinet and the Digital Safety Commission can make further regulations concerning the Commission’s powers and financial enforcement (fines).
Setting up a bureaucratic arm will do little-to-nothing to protect children. The last thing our system can handle right now is a stack of new complaints. It can’t even handle the existing ones.
Part 2: Bill C-63 creates a new hate crime offence that will make any offence under the Criminal Code, or any Act of Parliament, an indictable offence and punishable to life in prison if the offence was motivated by hatred. A definition of ‘hatred’ is introduced in s. 319(7), which is defined to mean ‘the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike.’ s. 319 (8) includes the clarification that the communication of a statement does not incite or promote hatred, for the purposes of this section, solely because it discredits, humiliates, hurts or offends.
Furthermore, the bill increases the punishment for an offence in s. 318 (1), advocating genocide, to imprisonment for life. The current punishment is up to 5 years. The bill also increases the punishments for offences in s. 319 (public incitement of hatred, wilful promotion of hatred, wilful promotion of antisemitism) from up to 2 years to not more than 5 years.
Alarmingly, a peace bond is created for ‘fear of hate propaganda offence or hate crime.’ This will allow a person to seek a court-ordered peace bond if they reasonably fear that someone will commit a hate propaganda offence or hate crime against them in the future. If you’ve watched the movie “Minority Report” you know how scary this is.
Part 3: The bill reinstates Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which empowers officials at the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to make subjective determinations as to what forms of expression constitute hate speech, and they may also decide on remedies including fines. This will allow any individual or group in Canada to file complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against users who post ‘hate speech’ online, with an accused facing fines of up to $50,000.
The legislation defines hate speech as content that is “likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of such a prohibited ground.” In other words, the content doesn’t necessarily have to directly express vilification; it only needs to be assessed as “likely to” vilify someone by a human rights tribunal. Section 13 is a punitive regime that lacks procedural safeguards and rights of the accused that exist in criminal law. Truth is no defence, and the standard of proof that will apply to Section 13 is “balance of probabilities,” not “beyond reasonable doubt,” as exists in a criminal case.
As you have rightly pointed out, Parts 2 and 3 of this bill are a direct attack on freedom of speech and will have a significant chilling effect as people fear the possibility of house arrest or life in prison. Margaret Atwood has gone so far as to say that C-63 invites the possibility of revenge accusations and the risk of “thoughtcrime.”
Furthermore, its alarming that the bill enables individuals to anonymously file complaints with the Canadian Human Rights Commission against those they deem to be posting hate speech. If found guilty, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal can impose fines of up to $70,000 and issue takedown orders for the content in question. Additionally, the tribunal is granted the authority to shield the identities of complainants and prohibit defendants from disclosing this information if uncovered. In essence, accusers of hate speech will have their identities safeguarded, while those accused face significant financial penalties.
Common-sense Conservatives believe that we should criminalize and enforce laws against sexually victimizing a child or revictimizing a survivor online, bullying a child online, inducing a child to harm themselves or inciting violence. Criminal bans on intimate content communicated without consent, including deepfakes, must be enforced and expanded. Conservatives believe that these serious acts should be criminalized, investigated by police, tried in court, and punished with jail, not pushed off to a new bureaucratic entity that does nothing to prevent crimes and provides no justice to victims. We will bring forward changes to the Criminal Code that will actually protect children without infringing on free speech.
Thank you again for writing to me, and please accept my best wishes.
Warmest regards,
Rachael Thomas Member of Parliament for Lethbridge”
On her fridge door, along with numerous family pictures, Danielle Brandt has a handwritten quote by Dr. John Trainer: “Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.”
A proud Calgary mother of three boys (Aiden, 10, Theodore, 4, and Silas, 2), Mrs. Brandt is a homemaker. Her husband, Adam Brandt, is the breadwinner. At the core of their parenting philosophy is the belief that strong families make strong societies, Mrs. Brandt says.
She was a music teacher before becoming a stay-at-home mom, but when she returned to work shortly after giving birth to her first child, she says she realized she wanted to be fully involved in raising her children.
“The idea that your identity is found at home with your family and not out in the world with your peers, and that your parents and your family are what matters first … that’s the reason I wanted to be home with my children.”
While Mrs. Brandt persists in adhering to her traditional role in the family, there is declining interest among young Canadian women to pursue the same path.
Canadians are “increasingly less likely” to form families, and if they do, they are choosing to have fewer children, if any at all, according to a May 2024 report jointly published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) and the Centre for the Study of Living Standards.
The same report, based on evidence from existing data and literature, found that traditional families enjoy more prosperity and better health.
Adults who are in a couple tend to earn more money per person than singles of the same age and, if married, they tend to live longer, have healthier lifestyles, and are less stressed. Similarly, children benefit from being raised by their two biological parents in a stable marriage, appearing to have a higher standard of living and educational attainment, and being less likely to engage in risky behaviour, the report found.
But a significant fraction of Canadian children will see their families break up by the time they are 14, and more than a quarter live in one-parent families, the report said. The author, Tim Sargent, deputy executive director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, concluded that the rates of family dissolution in Canada are higher than those in the United States and the UK, culturally comparable countries.
Janice Fiamengo, a retired University of Ottawa English professor who now gives talks on the role of women in society, says the downward trends in family formation are largely due to how women’s priorities are being redefined in Canada.
“Their primary goal in life is to be independent, to have a career, and to regard marriage and childbearing as secondary, if not undesirable in general,” Ms. Fiamengo told The Epoch Times, describing the trends and messages aimed at young women today.
Trends Among Canadian Women
Women are now taking longer to complete their higher education. From 2000–2022, the participation in education of women aged 20 to 24 rose by 12 percent (to 51 percent), according to Statistics Canada.
Only 37 percent of men in the same age range participated in education in 2022, and that rate grew by just four percentage points since 2000. Similar trends are seen among men and women aged 25 to 29.
Women’s participation in the labour market has also increased dramatically in recent decades, with fewer and fewer women choosing to be stay-at-home moms.
Employment among women aged 25 to 54 has almost doubled from 40 percent in 1976 to about 80 percent as of May 2024, according to Statistics Canada. Employment rates for women in general remain higher than they were prior to the pandemic in 2017 and 2019.
In addition, more women aged 25 to 34 now delay living with their partner. The proportion of those who live with their parents increased by 3.3 percentage points, from 12.8 percent in 2011 to 16.1 percent in 2021.
Marriage rates are on the decline while divorce rates are increasing, and women are waiting until later to have children.
At the same time, Canada’s fertility rate has been declining persistently for the past 15 years, with the national rate hitting an all-time low in 2022 at 1.3 children per woman.
A study by the think tank Cardus found that the top factors that diminish a woman’s desire to be a mother are wanting to grow as a person, wanting to save money, focusing on a career, and believing that kids require intense care.
“Any woman who decides that what she primarily wants to do is to marry and to have children, that woman is seen as having failed, having let down other women, and having failed herself,” says Ms. Fiamengo.
She says the prevalence of feminism in Canada has played a role in shaping these views.
Changing Views on Traditional Family Roles
It wasn’t until the second-wave feminism of the 1980s that an idea with communist roots took hold—the dissolution of the traditional family structure, Ms. Fiamengo says.
Feminism takes many forms and contains different ideas—in the 19th century, it was about women’s suffrage. The idea that the traditional family is at odds with gender equality and women’s fulfilment has its origins in communist ideology.
In his 1884 book titled “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” Friedrich Engels, based on notes by Karl Marx, made the first allusion to the monogamous family as “the world historical defeat of the female sex,” in which the woman was reduced to servitude and turned into an instrument for the production of children.
He thus advocated for the liberation of the wife, the abolishment of the family, and for the care and education of the children to become a public affair.
“[Engels] explicitly makes that connection, that the man—the patriarch—is the capitalist oppressor. The woman is in the situation of being the oppressed worker or the sex slave in the family,” says Ms. Fiamengo.
“He saw no distinction between prostitution, in which a woman is bought by a man to have her body used for the man’s pleasure, and the situation of a woman in a marriage.”
Betty Friedan’s 1963 book “The Feminine Mystique,” a precursor of feminism as a struggle between genders, urged women to break free from the domestic sphere and find their own identity outside the home. Friedan promulgated that fulfillment could not be found through marriage and motherhood alone.
Ms. Fiamengo says feminism’s lack of encouragement for women to start a family makes them miss out on what she thinks is one of the greatest joys of human life—childbearing.
“The fact that our government doesn’t encourage marriage … or encourage couples to stay together for the good of their children, is doing a terrible disservice to the future generations,” she says.
Peter Jon Mitchell, program director for Cardus Family, says the prevalent view of marriage in Canada is that “it’s nice, but unnecessary.”
“We don’t really talk a lot about marriage and the benefits of marriage in our culture.” Mr. Mitchell also that, compared to the United States, where the two-parent privilege—the fact that children fare better in two-parent rather than single-parent households—and the benefits of marriage are part of the public discourse, Canada lags behind.
The May MLI report cites some studies showing that children in two-parent households fare better. One published by the National Library of Medicine in 2014 found such children do better physically, emotionally, and academically.
Likewise, in a 2015 research paper, David Ribar, honorary professor at the University of Melbourne, found that children who grow up with married parents enjoy more economic and family stability. Mr. Ribar argues that the benefits of marriage for children’s wellbeing are hard to replicate through policy interventions other than those that support marriage itself.
Consequences of Putting Family Role Second
Sociologist Brigitte Berger noted in her book “The Emerging Role of Women” that work is important for both sexes. Yet liberation through work means different things to different people.
To the working-class women and the poor, for whom work is a necessity, liberation means freedom from financial burden and the freedom to devote time to things that matter outside of work, such as family, community, and hobbies. Among women for whom work is not a necessity, modern thinking has led them to find identity and liberation through paid labour.
According to a 2021 survey by the Canadian Women’s Foundation, 28 percent of mothers reported difficulty keeping up with work demands, and half of mothers felt exhausted trying to balance work and childcare responsibilities.
“I think most mothers would prefer to be part-time,” says Mrs. Brandt. “They don’t actually want to leave their kids 100 percent of the time with someone else.”
She says the widespread notion that women can do it all is not realistic and can lead many to burnout. “I can’t fully parent my children well and fully do another job [outside the home], at least not the way I want to,” she says. “Something has to give; there’s not enough of me.”
Mrs. Brandt says she is not worried about her chances of returning to work at some stage.
“We live a long time nowadays. You can’t always have kids, you can’t always be with your kids when they’re young or get that time back when they’re young,” she adds. “But you could do a career later, and that’s the amazing thing about our culture, too.”
Last year, a study by the think tank Cardus found that half of Canadian women are not having as many children as they would like, and that this group reported lower life satisfaction than women who achieved their fertility goals.
Cardus senior fellow Lyman Stone noted low fertility rates are not because women want few kids, but the timeline most of them follow for school, work, self-development, and marriage leaves too few economically stable years to achieve the families they want.
One of the most striking findings of the May MLI report is that Canada has seen a marked deterioration in the mental health of young women over the last decade.
More than three-quarters of women aged 15 to 30 reported excellent or very good mental health between 2009 and 2010. Throughout the following nine years, that figure dropped 22.5 percentage points, to 54 percent. For women aged 31 to 46, mental well-being also declined, but only by 10.1 percentage points.
Source: Canadian Community Health Survey, 2003 to 2019. (Chart: Carolina Avendano/The Epoch Times)
Motherhood and Women’s Happiness
A Cardus 2023 study concluded that women’s happiness and fertility are linked. The think tank surveyed 2,700 women aged 18 to 44 about family and fertility, and found that mothers are happier than non-mothers everywhere (except when they are under 25 or living in poverty).
“The role of the mother really is to nurture and to develop children,” says Mrs. Brandt. “My husband is a wonderful nurturer, he’s fantastic at it, but my boys, even the ones that have the closest relationship with him, they still need mom … I’m still the safe place.
“I am not saying that men can’t do it, but sometimes women are built for it, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Danielle Brandt with her youngest son, Silas, at her Calgary home on June 1, 2024. Mrs. Brandt homeschools her oldest son, Aiden, because she saw he was falling behind in class. Seeing the positive response, she now plans to also homeschool her other two children. (Carolina Avendano/The Epoch Times)
She draws inspiration from her mother, who was also a teacher turned homemaker. Mrs. Brandt says her mother was always available for her and her three siblings, and would show up at their most important moments, including sporting events, school functions or field trips. “We felt like we were the priority because we were,” she says.
But being a stay-at-home mom is also demanding, Mrs. Brandt adds. Although it’s rewarding, she says the challenge is that there is no time off. “But at the end of the day, when I look at my children and see them peacefully sleeping, [I think to myself] ‘That’s it, that’s what this is about,’” she says. “They are the future generation. I want to pour into that, and there is no more valuable work than that.” For the Silo, Carolina Avendano.
Featured image- Danielle and Adam Brandt with their sons Silas (L), Aiden (C), and Theodore at their home in Calgary on June 1, 2024. (Carolina Avendano/The Epoch Times)
About 14 percent of Canadians aged 12 and older – approximately 4.6 million people – did not have a regular health-care provider in 2022, according to Statistics Canada. Even more alarming, about 6.6 million Canadians rely on family doctors aged 65 and over, meaning that even more people could soon find themselves adrift as their physician retires.
Canada has the highest number of general practitioners per capita among comparator countries, yet ranks worst in terms of having a doctor or a regular place for medical care (only 86.2 percent of surveyed Canadians had one in 2023).
What is happening?
Several factors are at play.
First, it’s no secret that the physician workforce, much like the rest of our population, is aging. There aren’t enough new graduates to replace retiring physicians and meet the needs of a growing population. [Canada currently has one of the highest Immigration rates in the world with rates growing steadily and currently sit at around 1.2% population increase each year. CP]
Moreover, physicians have been spending fewer hours on direct patient care. Administrative tasks, such as paperwork for insurance claims, sick notes, and duplicate form requests from different organizations, consume approximately 18.5 million hours of physician time annually in Canada, equivalent to 55.6 million patient visits. Economic and cultural factors are also steering medical trainees towards specialties rather than general family practice. Without changes, the gap between the supply and demand for family physicians will only widen.
My recent C.D. Howe Institute analysis shows that under a normal retirement scenario – where 57 percent of family physicians aged 75 and over retire – the projected supply of family physicians in 2032 will meet 90 percent of the demand. If all family physicians aged 75 and over were to retire, only 78 percent of projected demand would be met, leaving us 13,845 family physicians short.
This means that about 9.6 million Canadians could be without a family physician in the next decade. The consequences of this shortage could be dire, leading to delayed or inadequate care, increased costs, and a strain on other parts of the healthcare system.
With only about 1,550 family physicians completing residency in 2022, the current pipeline of graduates is insufficient. What needs to be done?
Increasing numbers is essential, but will not suffice to meet the demands of a growing and aging population. We need a comprehensive strategy, and five well-established strategies can help.
First, we need to increase the number of training positions for prospective family doctors and accelerate pathways for international medical graduates to enter family medicine, whether direct-to-practice or through residency positions.
Second, administrative processes need to be streamlined to reduce family physicians’ unnecessary workload, freeing more time for direct patient care.
Another strategy is to introduce payment models such as capitation or bundled payments that better support family physicians, making family practice more attractive and encouraging more patient enrolment and after-hours care.
As well, allowing other primary-care providers, such as nurse practitioners and pharmacists, to take on a broader range of responsibilities could assist with sharing the workload and improving patient access.
Finally, developing and expanding team-based models of care that bring together health-care professionals to provide comprehensive and continuous patient care could also benefit Canadians.
The good news is that some of these steps are starting in some provinces.
Nova Scotia is advancing on all fronts; creating a new designated pathway to residency for international medical graduates; committed to reducing physician red tape by 80 percent by 2024; is a leader in paying family physicians with alternate payment; introduced pharmacist-delivered primary care for 31 minor ailments; and expanded team-based care at new and existing locations. Similarly, British Columbia and Ontario have made notable advancements in several of the five strategies.
Improving primary-care access is a nationwide challenge that requires concerted efforts and innovative solutions. By learning from the policies and experiences of different provinces, Canada can develop and implement effective strategies to ensure every Canadian has access to a family physician and the primary care they need. Canada’s health-care system – and the health of its people – depends on it.
For the Silo, Tingting Zhang -Junior Policy Analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute.
June,2024 – Lengthy delays and regulatory uncertainty is deterring investment in major infrastructure projects in Canada, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Smoothing the Path: How Canada Can Make Faster Major-Project Decisions”, authors Charles DeLand and Brad Gilmour find that Canada’s regulatory approval process is creating high costs for investors and preventing critical projects in hydrocarbon production, mining, electricity generation, electricity transmission, ports and other infrastructure from being built.
Sectors that have historically driven business investment and productivity in Canada—mining, oil and gas—are most affected by complex regulatory procedures.
While investments in these sectors have supported high incomes for workers and high revenues for government in the past, they are now trending downwards. “Canada is struggling to complete large infrastructure projects in a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable price and the proposed amendments to the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) are insufficient,” says Gilmour.
Canadians have been debating whether Canada’s regulatory and permitting processes strike the right balance between attracting investments in major resource projects and mitigating potential harm from those investments.
These regulatory processes typically apply to complex and expensive projects, such as mines, large hydrocarbon production projects (oil sands, liquefied natural gas [LNG], offshore oil), electricity generation (hydroelectric dams, nuclear), electricity transmission (wires), ports and oil or natural gas pipelines. These projects often involve multiple levels of jurisdiction and can prove particularly slow to gain government approval.
Canada struggles to complete large infrastructure projects, let alone cheaply and quickly. We propose improving major project approval processes by: (a) ensuring that provincial and federal governments respect jurisdictional boundaries; (b) leaving the decision-making to the expert, politically independent tribunals that are best positioned to assess the overall public interest of an activity; (c) drafting legislation with precision that focuses review on matters that are relevant to the particular project being assessed; and (d) confirming the need to rely on the regulatory review process and the approvals granted for the construction and operation of the project.
Did you know that Canada’s five biggest banks are among the 20 largest fossil fuel financiers in the world?
Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, they have invested over$900 billion into the fossil fuel industry. This means that your hard-earned dollars are being invested in projects that make it impossible to meet Canada’s climate targets. While not well known, the financial sector is the missing piece in ensuring a climate-safe future.
Last week, the CEOs of Canada’s top 5 banks were in Ottawa testifying about their role in the climate crisis. Environmental Defence was on the front line of this critical moment. We were invited to testify in this important study and use our expertise to advise policy solutions to align our financial system with climate action.
Canada can only keep a safer climate if finance aligns with climate action, and new rules from the government would help make that happen. And, we are creating public awareness of the issue and mobilizing Canadians to speak up by writing letters and attending rallies- increasing the pressure on the federal government to take action.
At a time when climate-fueled disasters (such as wildfires, droughts and floods) are rising, it’s ludicrous that Canadian banks are allowed to fund oil and gas industries at a rate of over $100 billion per year. We will be watching future proceedings closely. And, we will continue to push the federal government to ensure that Canadian banks are helping, not hindering our climate goals. For The Silo, Alex Walker. Program Manager, Climate Finance for Environmental Defence.
Many people are surprised to learn that for seventy-five years and counting, Russian aircraft regularly enter Canada territory. For example, on September 11, 2022, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected, tracked and positively identified two Russian maritime patrol aircraft entering and operating within the Alaskan and Canadian Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ).
photo: DND
NORAD and USNORTHCOM are Canadian and the American bi-national military commands charged with three missions in the defense of North America: aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning.
The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American nor Canadian sovereign airspace.
Contrary to how you may feel about it, Russian activity in the North American ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone) is not seen as a threat nor is the activity seen as provocative. NORAD tracks and positively identifies foreign military aircraft that enter the ADIZ, and routinely monitors foreign aircraft movements and as required, escorts them from the ADIZ.
THULE AIR BASE, Greenland —Thule’s ballistic missile early warning radar
The radar is operated by the 12th Space Warning Squadron, a geographically-separated unit of the 21st Space Wing. This upgrade completes another step toward a fully-operational missile defense system for the United States and Canada and friends and allies.
NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based radars, airborne radar and fighter aircraft to track and identify aircraft and inform appropriate actions. We remain ready to employ a number of response options in the defense of North America and Arctic sovereignty.
Canada’s North Warning System Radar Sites. image:cbc
Aside from Thule Air Base, Greenland, and other Alaskan air bases, defensive operations are also based out of Canadian Forces Station Alert, Nunavut; Whitehorse, Yukon; Yellowknife, Northwest Territories; 17 Wing/Canadian Forces Base Winnipeg, Manitoba; 22 Wing North Bay, Ontario and 5 Wing Goose Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador.
The expanded Canadian Air Defence Identification Zone (CADIZ).
Another operation saw Canadian CF-18 fighters operating from northern airfields to intercept aircraft role-playing as threats. Fighter aircraft were supported by Royal Canadian Air Force and United States Air Force KC-135 air-to-air refuelers.
The monitoring and control of North American airspace remains a primary mission focus area for NORAD. The command maintains robust air defense capabilities to execute the airspace mission over the continental U.S., Alaska and Canada.
General Glen VanHerck
“Exercising in the Arctic allows us to demonstrate our resiliency and advance our operational capabilities that are critical for integrated deterrence and layered defense,” said General Glen VanHerck, NORAD/USNORTHCOM commander. “The men and women of NORAD, in Canada and the United States, remain steadfast in our sacred obligation of deterring threats, and if required, defending North America.”
An increasing number of Canadians can’t afford a house or find a decent-paying job. Some can’t find a date or are fed up with the bitter politics, while others are in search of adventure, are sick of the cold winters, or simply miss the feeling of ‘being home’.
The solution they seek? Leave Canada.
The rising cost of living, record-high immigration, a stagnating economy, and political tensions are prompting rising numbers of Canadians—both native and naturalized—to leave the country.
Canada is increasingly becoming a country of emigrants, as well as a country of immigrants, experts say.
“We’re definitely seeing a lot more interest from people wanting to leave Canada,” Michael Rosmer, founder of Offshore Citizen, a Dubai-based company that offers relocation services to people around the globe. “This is disproportionate to their numbers overall.”
He said many of his clients are motivated by the increasing ability to work from anywhere, plus political tensions within Canada accompanied by a feeling of lost freedoms. Also a factor is the rising standard of living of many countries that were once far below Canada in terms of health care, education, and other services.
While Canada was once considered among the best places in the world to live, “it’s like the world has flipped,” Mr. Rosmer said. “The alternatives have gotten meaningfully better. Today if you go to Kuala Lumpur you’re going to find that it is arguably better than any Canadian city.”
Some 94,576 people emigrated from Canada from mid-2022 to mid-2023, an increase of 1.8 percent from 92,876 in the year-earlier period, and up sharply from 66,627 in the period from mid-2020 to mid-2021, which fell during the pandemic lockdowns, according to data from Statistics Canada.
A study released last year by the immigration advocacy group Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) showed immigrants are also increasingly reluctant to stay, with the proportion who stick around to obtain full citizenship within 10 years of receiving permanent resident status plunging to 45.7 percent in 2021 from 60 percent in 2016 and 75.1 percent in 2001.
Cameron MacDonald, a 29-year-old from the Niagara Falls region of Ontario who left Canada in March for Japan, cited the high cost of living as the main reason for his move, which uprooted him from friends, family, and a job as an anti-fraud analyst with a major Canadian bank. He is now studying Japanese and looking for a job with a foreign firm, while living in Tokyo, which has a population density of 6,363 people per square kilometre compared to Toronto’s 4,427.8 per square kilometre.
“Here in Tokyo, the world’s biggest city, I pay $650 a month for a room that I would have had to pay $2,000 for in Toronto.” I had a routine and a cushy bank job and I was even living with my dad after a while but I still couldn’t get ahead financially.”
He said the high cost of housing in Toronto means that all of his friends of a similar age in Canada are still living with their parents and, as many of them consider starting families, they are watching his move with the thought of moving abroad themselves.
“My five-year goal includes a wife, a house, and kids and there’s no way I could afford that in Canada,” Mr. MacDonald said. “You can’t really date and find a wife when you’re living with your dad.”
“In Japan, I wake up with a smile on my face every day,” he said. “It’s like I have found a new passion—I can start a family here.
High Immigration
Like many people, Mr. MacDonald blames Canada’s rapid pace of immigration for driving up the cost of living and forcing him to move abroad.
As of Oct. 1, 2023, Canada’s population was estimated at 40,528,396, a record increase of 430,635 people in the previous three months alone, according to Statistics Canada. That growth rate, at 1.1 percent in a quarter, was the highest since 1957, amid Canada’s baby boom plus an immigration surge fueled by a refugee crisis in Hungary at the time.
In just the first nine months of last year, Canada’s population grew by 1,030,378 people, more than any other year dating back to confederation in 1867, the statistics show. And 96 percent of that growth came from immigration. Overall, the population grew 30 percent since it reached the 30 million figure in 1997.
Canada’s Plan to Welcome 500000 Immigrants by 2025. ascenda.com
Indeed, rapid population growth has outstripped economic growth in recent years, lowering the standard of living in Canada as more people compete for less housing space and place greater strains on health care, education, and other services, according to a study published in May by the Fraser Institute. The study shows Canada’s real gross domestic product per person dropped 3 percent between April 2019 and the end of last year, from $59,905 to $58,111. The only steeper drops in the 40 years covered by the study were from 1989 to 1994, with a decline of 5.3 percent, and the financial crisis of 2008 to 2009, when it dropped 5.2 percent.
Another factor propelling emigration may be the aging of the baby boomer generation. As more Canadians reach retirement age, emigration to the United States, particularly to sunny states such as Florida, is accelerating.
A study by Statistics Canada also shows that high immigration tends to push up emigration because some immigrants move back to their home country. The study showed that 15 percent of the people who immigrated to Canada between 1982 and 2017 returned within 20 years of admission.
Whatever the root cause, the interest in leaving Canada has caught the attention of the global industry of specialists offering services to wealthier emigrants around the world.
Videos created by people seeking to offer second-passport services and other relocation help are growing in popularity. “Nine Steps to Escape Canada,” a YouTube video watched 362,000 times, “5 Reasons to Leave Canada in 2024,“ watched by 261,000 and ”Canada is Dying!,” with 531,000 viewers are some of the most popular.
Jay Suresh, the founder of Goodlife Investor, which offers emigration services to people around the world looking to obtain second passports, foreign tax advantages, and other benefits, says the number of Canadians looking for dual citizenship jumped after the Canadian government banned unvaccinated people from flying or travelling by train in late 2021 until the summer of 2022.
“This was an eye-opener for a lot of people. They got frustrated with just that one citizenship and they wanted multiple citizenships,” he said in a video promoting his company. Now, he says, Canadians are nearly tied with U.S. citizens in searches for second passports, even though the United States has 10 times Canada’s population. For the Silo, Adam Brown.
Featured image: People line up to go through security screening at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Aug. 5, 2022. (The Canadian Press/Nathan Denette)
With the Canadian government’s high debt-to-GDP ratios, such as a ratio of debt to nominal GDP sitting at 68 percent in March 2023, economists warn that government debt could become unsustainably high if Ottawa fails to reduce spending, increase productivity, and re-establish business confidence.
“We’re not growing our income per capita, which means that we’re not going to get the tax revenues that we need, plus we’re getting a lot of people retiring. So the situation could end up becoming quite unmanageable if we keep our pace that we’re going,” said Jack Mintz, president’s fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.
The federal government has run back-to-back budget deficits since the 2008 financial recession, with government spending spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, Canada’s debt as a percentage of nominal GDP rose from around 51 percent in 2009 to 74 percent by 2021, for example. Nominal refers to the current value for the particular year without taking inflation into account.
The two previous federal budgets have attempted to lower government spending, but the federal government will still post a $40 billion deficit in 2023–24, which they project will shrink to a $20 billion deficit by 2028–29.
The Liberal government’s response to criticism by the opposition that Canada’s debt could lead the country into a financial crisis has been that Canada has among the best debt-to-GDP ratios in the G7.
According to Mr. Mintz, while Canada’s debt situation is not as bad as it once was, it doesn’t mean that it may not impact Canada’s prosperity prospects.
Mr. Mintz points out that Canada’s debt situation is not nearly as bad as in 1996. The government’s ratio of debt to nominal GDP ratio reached 83 percent that year.
Mr. Mintz also noted that Canada continues to have a triple-A credit rating according to the world’s leading credit agencies, meaning the country’s debt is not yet seen as problematic.
“We’re still viewed as having a much better credit line compared to a number of other countries. … But at some point, the credit agencies might look at that gross debt number and start asking the question, ‘Is it starting to become unsustainable?’” he said.
Lower Productivity Hampering Debt Payments
The federal government’s ability to pay off its debt could be hampered by low productivity, according to Steve Ambler, professor emeritus of economics at Université du Québec à Montréal.
“The thing that worries me in terms of federal government debt is we are currently in a period of extremely low productivity growth and low overall growth,” he said.
In March, the Bank of Canada’s senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers warned that Canada’s poor productivity had reached emergency levels.
Although Statistics Canada said the country’s labour productivity showed a small gain at the end of 2023, that came after six consecutive quarters of productivity decline.
The right honourable Jean Chrétien.
Mr. Ambler said an appropriate way to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio is to keep government spending from increasing while also raising productivity to increase tax revenues. He said this was the strategy of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, whose Liberal government established a budget surplus in three years by growing the economy and keeping government spending stagnant.
To lower Canada’s debt-to-GDP ratio, Mr. Ambler said the government should focus on increasing worker productivity, allowing its resource sector to grow, and easing back on discretionary spending.
He also cited a November 2023 C.D. Howe paper showing that business investment per worker in Canada has shrunk relative to the United States since 2015. Investments such as better tools for workers would increase productivity, while productivity growth would in turn create opportunities and competitive threats that spur businesses to invest, the paper said.
“Re-establishing business confidence would be almost the number one priority, especially in the resource sector,” Mr. Ambler said, adding that a future government might also be wise to lower the feds’ “wildly extravagant subsidy programs” for the electric vehicle (EV) sector.
The Liberal government has given tens of billions of dollars in subsidies for EV manufacturing projects in Canada since 2020, saying the factories will eventually create thousands of new jobs.
‘No Cushion’ to Mitigate Debt Issue
Joseph Barbuto, director of research at the Economic Longwave Research Group, has a more pessimistic view of Canada’s debt. He says that while federal debt is at levels similar to the 1990s, the crisis will be “larger” because the government does not have the “fiscal room to mitigate the downturn.”
Mr. Barbuto said that while the Canadian government was able to help alleviate its debt issues in the 1930s and 1990s by lowering its interest rates, it does not have that same luxury in 2024. The Bank of Canada lowered its key policy rate from 1.25 percent to 0.25 percent in 2020, and was forced to raise it to 5 percent by 2023 in response to rising inflation.
“There’s no interest rate cushion on the other side. Interest rates can only fall back to zero,” Mr. Barbuto said, noting that higher interest rates make it more difficult for governments to service their debt.
“The problem with the monetary system is there’s no fiscal discipline that is pushed on governments, unlike [individuals] or corporations,” he said.
“There will be a point where because of the accumulated interest with rising interest rates, eventually it’s going to overwhelm the government and then people will not lend the government any kind of capital.”
Mr. Barbuto also expressed concern over Canada’s private debt-to-GDP ratio. Private debt refers to debt owed by private, non-financial entities such as businesses and households, as opposed to public debt owed by governments and banks. Canada’s ratio of private debt to nominal GDP sat at 217 percent in December 2023 compared to 124 percent in 1995.
Mr. Barbuto said Canada’s private debt-to-GDP ratio is higher than that of Japan’s in the 1990s, and pointed out that the Japanese economy had stagnated after the country’s asset price bubble burst in 1992.
The research director believes the Canadian economy will eventually see a debt crisis and collapse in real estate that will result in austerity measures, a shrinkage in the size of government, and the “creative destruction” of the old political and economic system. He said this would be the continuation of an economic cycle that has repeatedly happened throughout history.
“[It’s] inevitable and necessary. A debt detox or deleveraging is the same thing as a drug detox. Nobody likes it, … but it’s a necessary part of the cycle for it then to go back up,” he said.
Paul Jenkins – The West and a Workable New World Order?
From: Paul Jenkins
To: Global governance observers
Date: May 2, 2024
Re: The West and a Workable New World Order?
One can describe the so-called liberal world order as a set of ideas for organizing world democracies. While openness and trade, rules and institutions, and co-operative security have been the principles that have shaped the liberal order, it also required sovereign nation states to provide the foundation for the creation and development of a system of intergovernmental organizations, or system of global governance.
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the system was designed primarily for the advancement, economically and politically, of Europe and the United States. Yet since 1945 the liberal world order has evolved, giving impetus to the steady increase in global economic integration to the benefit of many nations and people.
Advances in science and technology have been critical to the evolution of the liberal order, but there has also been a need for the structures of global governance to evolve and keep pace.
On the economic front, for example, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, following Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to abandon the dollar’s link to gold, gave rise to the creation of the G7. And the Asian Crisis of 1999 led to the creation of the G20.
Throughout the entire postwar period, however, tensions inherent between the sovereign authority of the nation-state and the need for collective global governance increasingly challenged the liberal order.
Indeed, the advent of the Cold War led to the liberal world order becoming hegemonic, organized around the economic and political strength of the United States with its dominance of global governance through the various institutions making up the global governance system.
But over the years, pushback took hold. As the benefits of global economic integration spread and the United States was no longer the singular engine of growth, both democratic and autocratic countries found voice and began to resist the principles that shaped the liberal order. Even core nations of the liberal order began to voice their concerns in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis as the market-based financial system failed to self-regulate (as had been advertised), and as the liberal order proved unable to provide social protection for those adversely affected by globalization.
Effectively, a new world order began to unfold, with the resulting slowing and even fragmentation [DS1][PJ2] of global economic integration.
At the same time though, virtually all nations, regardless of regime or stage of development, are facing the same challenges: Financial instabilities, rising inequality, weak productivity growth, climate change, spread of infectious disease, AI, cyber security and on and on.
These vulnerabilities represent global risks that can only be tackled and minimized through collective action. This in turn requires a new world order that treats the world as it is, not how we wish it to be.
What does this mean for the West, and in particular the United States and Canada?
The unique advantages of the United States are its open society, fair and law-based market economy, and allure for talent from around the world. To sustain these advantages, maintaining its wealth and its position as the centre of the free world, it cannot close its doors to further global economic integration.
Geopolitically, what might this look like?
John Ikenberry argues that the answer can be found in the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non-intervention of the Westphalian system, the 1648 treaties that ended the Thirty Years’ War and established the modern nation state. The key insight of the Westphalian system is that all countries are vulnerable to the same global risks. The leap forward in mindset that is required is the acceptance that states are the rightful political units of legitimate rule.
For the West, and the United States in particular, this implies the need to accept these new realities, and in so doing, the need to work together to build a new world order that preserves their liberal democratic values, and those of its allies, while at the same time recognizing that the economic challenges they face are not unique to them.
The unfolding relationship between the United States and China will define whether we achieve a workable new world order.
The economic incentives are there for this to happen.
For China, the incentive is further progress in closing both its internal income gap as well as the gap between itself and the developed world. The payoff would be setting in place the foundation for a sustained rise in living standards for all its citizens.
For the United States, the incentive is in preserving its strength as an open society and its vision of the world that has considered the interests of others. In many respects, it remains uniquely capable of playing the central role in sustaining the global economic system.
The challenge in re-imagining such a new world order is geopolitical. The task is to renew global governance with today’s realities in sharp focus.
Paul Jenkins. Mister Jenkins is a former senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada and a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute.
May, 2024 – Many of the federal government’s recent reforms in competition law sensibly strengthen the enforcement powers of the Competition Bureau and private actors seeking redress for allegedly anti-competitive behavior. However, amendments to the Competition Act that simply make it easier to meet legal tests for orders against allegedly anti-competitive conduct are over-reach, says a new report by our friends at the C.D. Howe Institute.
In “Uncertainty and the Burden of Proof in Canadian Competition Law,” author Edward M. Iacobucci, a professor in corporate and competition law at the University of Toronto and Competition Policy Scholar at the C.D. Howe Institute, says that while strengthening the enforcement powers of the Competition Bureau is welcome, other amendments to the Competition Act imply more profound changes to the fundamental posture of competition law.
Specifically, there is a family of amendments and proposals to move away from the bedrock principle that the burden rests with the Bureau to prove, on a balance of responsibilities, that a merger or practice by a dominant firm is likely to be or is anti-competitive.
For example, the author argues that lowering the burden of proof in mergers cases to “appreciable risk” of anti-competitive effects or something analogous would be a mistake.
“The overwhelming problem with this standard is that it is too easy to meet and fails to distinguish anti-competitive from benign conduct,” he states. He also disagrees with proposals to rely on market shares rather than competitive assessments in mergers cases. He objects in addition to abolishing the requirement to analyze anti-competitive effects in abuse of dominant position cases – recent amendments imply that pro-competitive conduct could be treated as an abuse of dominance.
Aside from competition law reform, the author notes that there are other policy reforms that could promote competition.
“Assuming competition has worsened in Canada, there are several remedial policies that I suspect would be far more important than competition law reform,” he says. “The OECD ranks Canada near the worst internationally in establishing regulatory barriers to competition.”
Regulation, internal trade barriers, restrictions on international competition and ownership, and other policies are all important contributors to reducing competition in Canada and, certainly in their collective impact, are more important than competition law, he argues.
Nevertheless, there are good reasons to take stock of Canadian competition law.
“The vulnerability of digital markets to market power stemming from network externalities and scale economies encourages reflection on whether the Competition Act continues to be suitable for present times.”
“I am skeptical of the narrative that the law requires sweeping reform to address the digital economy or to reverse a strong, secular decline in competition caused by competition law,” Iacobucci added. “But I am not skeptical that there is room for improvement. I encourage the government to focus on strengthening enforcement and to resist and even reverse recent reforms to the burden of proof.”
For The Silo, Edward M. Iacobucci, TSE Chair in Capital Markets, Faculty of Law, University of Toronto and C.D. Howe Competition Policy Scholar.
• There are good reasons to take stock of Canadian competition law. The vulnerability of digital markets to market power stemming from network externalities and scale economies encourages reflection on whether the Competition Act continues to be suitable for present times.
• Recently, a number of statutory amendments have been proposed to amend the Act, some have been tabled in Parliament and still others already adopted. The federal government recently passed consequential amendments that grant the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) the power to initiate market studies, to include scrutiny of vertical agreements as possibly anti-competitive collaborations, to repeal the efficiencies defence to mergers, and to lower the burden of proof in abuse of dominance cases.
• Many of the government’s actions to date sensibly strengthen the enforcement powers of the Competition Bureau and make it easier for private actors seeking redress for allegedly anti-competitive behaviour.
• There are, however, other actual and proposed amendments that imply profound changes to the fundamental posture of Canadian competition law. In particular there are actual and proposed amendments that move away from the bedrock principle that the burden rests with the Bureau to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that a merger or practice by a dominant firm is likely to be or is anti-competitive.
• While enhancing enforcement is welcome, legislative amendments that lower the burden of proof are a mistake.
Spring means fresh flowers and sunny days, but it also brings seasonal health issues as the weather gets warmer: from Rosacea to Lyme disease.
Most likely, you or someone you know has been affected by Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in North America with more than 300,000 cases diagnosed each year. In a timely new book, Conquering Lyme Disease(Columbia University Press), Columbia University Medical Center physicians Brian A. Fallon and Jennifer Sotsky reveal that despite the challenges to find a cure for this complex, debilitating disease, precision medicine and biotechnology are accelerating the discovery of new tools with which doctors will be able to diagnose it and treat patients.
“Through rapid genetic sequencing, scientists can identify many different strains of Borrelia burgdorferi as well as new tick-borne microbial infections, such as Borrelia miyamotoi, Borrelia mayonii, and the Heartland virus.” — Brian Fallon
Could groundbreaking technologies that rapidly increase our understanding and open up new pathways mean a cure for Lyme disease one day soon? The Global Search for Education is pleased to welcome Dr. Brian Fallon to find out how tech is tackling the ticks.
“Modern technology using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) allows one to discover with great rapidity all microbes that may be present within a sample of fluid.” — Brian Fallon
Brian, how has technology improved the research process for tick borne diseases?
Consider the difference in price of genome sequencing between 20 years ago and today. In 2003, it had taken the Human Genome Project about 4 years and costs estimated between $500 million to 1 billion…by 2006 the cost for sequencing a single human genome had dropped to 14 million……today a whole human genome can be sequenced within days for less than $1,000. This is a tremendous advance.
Why is genome sequencing so important? Let’s look at human tick-borne diseases. When two different people are infected with Borrelia burgdorferi (the microbe that causes Lyme disease), one will resolve the disease quickly after a course of antibiotics while the other may develop a chronic relapsing remitting illness. Why? Because one person might have gotten a more persistent strain, while the other received a less invasive strain that stays localized to the skin. Additionally, the genetic differences in the human determines how the immune system responds to the invading microbe. Understanding the genetics of the infection and of the human host allows scientists to unravel the mysteries of tick-borne illnesses.
Through rapid genetic sequencing, scientists can identify many different strains of Borrelia burgdorferi as well as new tick-borne microbial infections, such as Borrelia miyamotoi, Borrelia mayonii, and the Heartland virus. When the genome of a microbe is sequenced, it provides a starting point for the study of pathogenesis, vaccine development, and treatment. Discovery of these new microbes inside ticks has been enormously helpful. A patient who has had typical symptoms of Lyme disease after a tick bite but has tested negative on the blood tests for Lyme disease might puzzle clinicians. They may criticize the insensitivity of the Lyme disease tests. However, when this same patient is tested for the newly discovered tick-borne infection, Borrelia miyamotoi, the diagnosis is then clear. Yes, the patient had a Lyme-like illness, but it wasn’t Lyme disease: it was Borrelia Miyamotoi disease.
Modern technology using Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) allows one to discover with great rapidity all microbes that may be present within a sample of fluid. This “discovery based” approach using “unbiased next generation sequencing” enabled a 14 year old boy to be rescued from a fatal infection within 48 hours (Wilson et al, NEJM, 2014). This boy had endured 3 hospitalizations over 4 months, had over 100 diagnostic tests, spent 44 days in an ICU for encephalitis of unknown etiology, had a brain biopsy, and had to be put into a medically induced coma to prevent damage from his ongoing seizures.
Eventually Dr. Charles Chiu at U.C.S.F. employed NGS analysis of more than 8 million sequences with a bioinformatics pipeline (SURPI) for the detection of all known pathogens. The cause of the boy’s meningoencephalitis was revealed as Leptospira santarosai. He had likely acquired it in Puerto Rico, as it is not present in the continental United States. He received the appropriate antibiotics and was discharged 2 weeks later to rehab. This same approach is especially useful for uncommon infections as they might not be suspected; for example, rare tick-borne viruses such as Powassan Virus or Heartland Virus can be rapidly detected using this discovery approach.
DNA Double Helix
How has big data impacted the way advocacy groups support research?
A patient-generated source of Big Data is LymeDisease.org. This California based organization developed a survey called “My Lyme Data” that patients could fill out on the web about their clinical history and lab tests and treatments. In a short period of time, they had data on 10,000 patients whom they track over time. With this information, they provide a more comprehensive clinical view of the bulk of patients who are diagnosed with persistent symptoms despite treatment for Lyme Disease (aka Chronic Lyme Disease).
“In geographic areas where medical professionals are scarce, AI technologies will play an increasing role in improving patient care by allowing differential diagnoses to be generated and treatment options suggested through AI-based systems accessed through the internet.” — Brian Fallon
Jobs in all professions are being automated. Do you believe AI technologies will only assist doctors or will they replace physicians in some tasks? What does this mean for doctors, nurses, and the future of medicine?
Borrelia
While AI technologies will go a long way to assist health care providers to provide better care, its application to medical care is still just beginning. One can anticipate, however, that in geographic areas where medical professionals are scarce, AI technologies will play an increasing role in improving patient care by allowing differential diagnoses to be generated and treatment options suggested through AI-based systems accessed through the internet.
The general public has more access to information than ever before about Lyme disease from websites, medical organizations, articles and social media. Everyone can be their own “expert” or even their own “doctor.” Can you speak about the pros and cons of online health data in the era of fake news?
This obviously is a huge area of concern. Individuals used to turn to their physician or to the medical information books, such as the Merck Manual. Now, they turn to the web.
In a recent survey of patients who used the web to obtain health information (Doherty-Torstrick 2016), we learned that more than half of the 730 patients reported they experienced increased distress as a result of checking the web. We also learned from this survey that individuals who did not have a health education were more likely to spend more time on the web and were thus prone to develop more anxiety than those who were better educated from a health perspective. While some of the information they find may be accurate, other information may be well-intentioned but ill-informed, misleading, and even harmful.
“Researchers can rapidly screen thousands of drugs to determine which agents have the strongest ability to kill Borrelia spirochetes. This is possible because of the development of high throughput assays, which have proven more effective than the standard agents in eradicating both the stationary phase Borrelia and its more drug-tolerant persister-forms.” — Brian Fallon
Look into the future. What are the technologies you are most excited about in terms of helping to find cures for Lyme disease and improve patients quality of life?
Researchers can rapidly screen thousands of drugs to determine which agents have the strongest ability to kill Borrelia spirochetes (Feng 2014). This is possible because of the development of high throughput assays, which have identified new antibiotics that have proven more effective than the standard agents (doxycycline, amoxicillin) in eradicating both the stationary phase Borrelia and its more drug-tolerant persister-forms. While it cannot be assumed that what is true in the lab setting will translate to efficacy in humans, biotechnology advances have enabled the identification of new therapeutic agents, offering much hope for a wider array of treatment options for patients in the future.
Another major advance is “big data” conducted by biomedical information engineers trained in biostatistics and computer science. Internet search engine queries are being monitored to predict outbreaks of infectious disease. Unanticipated side effects of drugs and their interactions can be detected through analyzing millions of digital medical records from patients who have taken a particular drug. One can examine whether patients given an antibiotic did better when treated for longer or shorter periods, or whether patients with a pre-existing autoimmune disease are more likely to develop complications from a new onset Tick-borne infection than those without a history of autoimmune problems.
2005 James Gathany; William Nicholson The blacklegged ticks, I. pacificus, (depicted here), and I. scapularis, are known vectors for the zoonotic spirochetal bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, which is the pathogenic bacteria responsible for causing Lyme disease. The ticks, inoculated with the bacterium when they bite infected mice, squirrels and other small animals, subsequently pass the pathogens to their human victims when they obtain a blood meal.B. burgdorferi bacteria can infect several parts of the body, producing different symptoms at different times. Not all patients with Lyme disease will have all symptoms, and many of the symptoms can occur with other diseases as well. If you believe you may have Lyme disease, it is important that you consult your health care provider for proper diagnosis. The first sign of infection is usually a circular rash called “erythema migrans”, or EM. This rash occurs in approximately 70-80% of infected persons and begins at the site of a tick bite after a delay of 3-30 days. A distinctive feature of the rash is that it gradually expands over a period of several days, reaching up to 12 inches (30 cm) across. The center of the rash may clear as it enlarges, resulting in a bull’s-eye appearance. It may be warm but is not usually painful. Some patients develop additional EM lesions in other areas of the body after several days. Patients also experience symptoms of fatigue, chills, fever, headache, and muscle and joint aches, and swollen lymph nodes. In some cases, these may be the only symptoms of infection.
Our Lyme and Tick-borne Diseases Research Center, located at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) in New York City, is right next door to an international data resource. CUIMC is the coordinating center of a public health information initiative which includes medical records from approximately 400 million people drawn from eighty health-care organizations from around the world. This represents a unique opportunity to ask questions, generate hypotheses and get answers about Tick-borne diseases. When discovery is optimized, medical care is enhanced.
Brian Fallon, MD, MPH is the Director of the Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the author with Jennifer Sotsky of Conquering Lyme Disease: Science Bridges the Great Divide, published in 2018 by Columbia University Press.
The article below (Furthering the Benefits of Global Economic Integration through Institution Building: Canada as 2024 Chair of CPTPP) was first published by the C.D. Howe Institute by Paul Jenkins and Mark Kruger.
Introduction
Over the last 10 to 15 years, the global economy has become fragmented. There are many reasons for this fragmentation – both economic and geopolitical. A particularly important factor has been the inability of the institutions that provide the governance framework for international trade and finance to adapt to the changing realities of the global economy.
This erosion is reflected in the cycles of outcome-based measures of globalization, such as trade-to-GDP ratios. Research indicates that the development of institutions that promote global integration is highly correlated with more rapid economic growth. To secure the benefits of economic integration, the international community should re-commit to a set of common rules. This should involve the renewal of existing institutions in line with current economic realities.
But institutional renewal alone is not sufficient. Nurturing and growing new institutions are also critical, especially ones reflecting the realities of today’s global economy. Most promising in this regard is the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The CPTPP is seen as a “next generation” trade agreement. It takes World Trade Organization (WTO) rules further in several key areas, such as electronic commerce, intellectual property, and state-owned enterprises. Expansion of CPTPP represents a unique opportunity to strengthen global trade rules, deepen global economic cooperation on trade and sustain an open global trading system. The benefits for Canada of an expanded CPTPP are further diversification of its export markets and deepened ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific region.
Trusted Policy Intelligence
The challenge to enabling broad-based accession to CPTPP is geopolitical, reflecting the rising aspirations of the developing world, the associated heightened contest between democracy and autocracy, and the prioritization of security. Indeed, for many, today’s security concerns are at the forefront, trumping economic issues. We argue that recognition of the economic benefits of global economic integration must also remain at the forefront, and that research presented in this paper shows that institutional building is at the core of securing such benefits.
As 2024 Chair of the CPTPP Commission, Canada has an opportunity to play a leadership role, as it did in the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions 80 years ago, by again promoting global institution building, this time through the successful accession of countries to the CPTPP, both this year and over the long run.
Cycles in Global Economic Integration Former US Fed Chair Bernanke points out that the process of global economic integration has been going on for centuries. New technologies have been a major force in linking economies and markets but the process has not been a smooth and steady one. Rather, there have been waves of integration, dis-integration, and re-integration. Before World War I, the global economy was connected by extensive international trade, investment, and financial flows. Improved transportation – steamships, railways and canals – and communication – international mail and the telegraph – facilitated this “first era of globalization.” The gold standard linked countries financially and promoted currency stability. Trade barriers were reduced by the adoption of standardized customs procedures and trade regulations. The movement of goods, capital, and people was relatively unrestricted. The outbreak of World War I frayed global economic ties and set the stage for a more fragmented interwar period. The Treaty of Versailles imposed punitive measures on Germany, exacerbating economic hardships. Protectionist policies, such as high tariffs and competitive devaluations, became widespread as countries prioritized domestic interests. The collapse of the gold standard further destabilized international finance. In contrast to the cooperation seen before the war, countries pursued economic nationalism and isolationism. Protectionism increased in the 1930s as a result of the dislocation caused by the Great Depression. In an attempt to shield domestic industries from foreign competition and address soaring unemployment, many countries imposed tariffs and trade barriers. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the United States exemplified this trend, triggering a series of beggar-thy-neighbour policies. These protectionist policies exacerbated the downturn and contributed to a contraction in international trade that worsened the severity and duration of the Great Depression. Mindful of the lessons of the 1930s, a more liberal economic order was established in the aftermath of World War II. The creation of the Bretton Woods Institutions – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – provided the principal mechanisms for managing and governing the global economy over the second half of the 20th century. Building on the GATT, the formation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 provided the institutional framework for overseeing international trade and settling disputes. China became the 143rd member of the WTO in 2001 and almost all global trade became subject to a common set of rules. The rise and fall of international economic governance are reflected in the cycles of outcome-based measures of globalization. Looking at trade openness, i.e., the sum of exports and imports as a percentage of GDP, the IMF divides the process of global integration into five periods: (i) the industrialization era, (ii) the interwar era, (iii) the Bretton Woods era, (iv) the liberalization era, and (v) “slowbalization” (Figure 1). Many factors have contributed to the plateauing of trade openness in the last 10 to 15 years. The fallout from the Global Financial Crisis was severe and the recovery was tepid. Brexit, with its inward-looking perspective, has disengaged the UK from Europe. Populist protectionism has led to “re-shoring” in an effort to address rising inequalities and labour’s falling share of national income. There has been far-reaching cyclical and structural fallout from COVID-19. And while the AI revolution portends significant opportunities, uncertainties over labour displacement abound. Geopolitics has also played a critical role. Security concerns have become more important, trumping economic issues in the eyes of many. This has led to multiple sanctions, along with export and investment controls, being imposed to protect national security interests. The IMF has carried out several modelling exercises that estimate the consequences of fragmentation if further trade and technology barriers were to be imposed. The studies employ a variety of assumptions regarding trade restrictions and technology de-coupling. In summary, the cost of further fragmentation ranges from 1.5 to 6.9 percent of global GDP. As with all modelling exercises, a degree of caution is warranted. At the same time, these studies should not be viewed as upper-bound estimates because they disregard many other transmission channels of global economic integration.
De Jure and De Facto Globalization In assessing the evolution of globalization, however, it would be misleading to focus too narrowly on outcome-based measures such as the trade-to-GDP ratio depicted in Figure 1. The data compiled by KOF, a Swiss research institute, provide a more nuanced view of global economic integration. KOF constructs globalization indices that measure integration across economic, social, and political dimensions. Its globalization indices are among the most widely used in academic literature. KOF’s data set covers 203 countries over the period 1970 to 2021. Our focus here is on KOF’s economic indices. In terms of economic globalization, KOF looks at the evolution of finance as well as trade. Moreover, one of the unique aspects of KOF’s work is that it examines globalization on both de facto and de jure bases. KOF’s de facto globalization indices measure actual international flows and activities. In terms of trade, it includes cross-border goods and services flows and trading partner diversity. For financial globalization, its indices measure stocks of international assets and liabilities as well as cross-border payments and receipts. KOF’s de jure globalization indices try to capture the policies and conditions that, in principle, foster these flows and activities. For trade globalization, these include income from taxes on trade, non-tariff barriers, tariffs, and trade agreements. De jure financial globalization is designed to measure the institutional openness of a country to international financial flows and investments. Variables to measure capital account openness, investment restrictions and international agreements and treaties with investment provisions are included in these indices. The trends in KOF’s de facto and de jure economic globalization indices are shown in Figure 2. Both globalization measures increased rapidly from 1990 until the Global Financial Crisis. Both measures subsequently plateaued. In 2020, as the global pandemic took hold, the de facto index plunged to its lowest level since 2011. In 2021, it recovered half of the distance it lost the previous year. The de jure index has essentially been flat for the last decade. There has been a sharp divergence between KOF’s de facto and de jure trade globalization measures in the last five years (Figure 3). By 2020, de facto trade globalization had dropped to a 25-year low. Although it recovered somewhat in 2021, it remains well below the average of the last decade. In contrast, de jure trade globalization levelled off after the Global Financial Crisis. It reached a modest new high in 2019 and has essentially remained there since then. The trends in financial globalization are almost the reverse of those of trade globalization. De facto financial globalization continued to increase through 2020 and dipped slightly in 2021. De jure financial globalization has been essentially flat over the last two decades (Figure 4). The KOF researchers provide convincing econometric evidence that economic globalization supports per capita GDP growth. Importantly, their analysis shows that institutions matter. They demonstrate that the positive impact on growth from trade and financial globalization comes from institutional liberalization rather than greater economic flows. Through a series of panel regressions, the researchers show that it is the de jure trade and financial globalization indices that are correlated with more rapid per capita GDP growth. In contrast, there is no significant relationship between growth and the de facto indices. KOF’s conclusions are consistent with the work of Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi who examine the contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining relative income levels around the world. They find that institutional quality “trumps everything else.” Once institutions are controlled for, conventional measures of geography have weak effects on incomes and the contribution of trade is generally not significant. Thus, to recapture the economic benefits of free trade and open markets, countries need to recommit to finding ways to further de jure globalization; that is, putting in place the institutional building blocks in support of enhanced trade and financial integration.
Geopolitical Realities Institutional reform, however, requires trust and mutual respect among partners. Many would argue that such trust and respect is in limited supply today, especially between the United States and China. The United States is willing to endure the costs of heightened protectionism to purportedly strengthen the resilience of its economy and secure greater political security. This has resulted in multiple sanctions, particularly in areas of digital technologies. In response, China, amongst other measures, has imposed export controls on critical minerals used in advanced technology in defence of its geopolitical goals. Yet, as discussed by Fareed Zakaria in a Foreign Affairs article, The Self-Doubting Superpower, China has become the second largest economy in the world richer and more powerful within an integrated global economic system; a system that if overturned would result in severely negative consequences for China. For the United States, its inherent strength has been its commitment to open markets and its vision of the world that has considered the interests of others. In many respects, it remains uniquely capable of playing the central role in sustaining the global economic system. Following a recent trip to China, Treasury Secretary Yellen stated that “the relationship between the United States and China is one of the most consequential of our time,” and that it “is possible to achieve an economic relationship that is mutually beneficial in the long-run – one that supports growth and innovation on both sides.” This means that the United States would need to accommodate China’s legitimate efforts to sustain a rising standard of living for its citizens, while deterring illegitimate ones. For China, it would mean a clear and abiding commitment to an open, rules-based global economic system. It appears that there is currently no clear path forward for this change in mindset, given what many see as insurmountable geopolitics in both the United States and China. Yet, history shows that achieving and sustaining long-term economic growth is in every country’s best interest, and that such growth is best secured through ongoing global economic integration.
A Way Forward Recent discussions at the IMF’s Annual Meeting in Marrakech about IMF quota reform, including quota increases and realignment in quota shares to better reflect members’ relative positions in the global economy, are important signals of possible renewal. Similarly, calls to revamp the World Bank’s mandate, operational model, and ability to finance global public goods, such as climate transition, reflect a growing consensus that the Bretton Woods Institutions must change in the face of today’s realities. But institutional renewal alone is insufficient. Broad-based accession to the CPTPP represents a unique opportunity to strengthen global governance overall, and to address common challenges in ways that benefit both countries as well as the global economy. The CPTPP sets a high bar, requiring countries to:
eliminate or substantially reduce tariffs and other trade barriers;
make strong commitments to opening their markets;
abide by strict rules on competition, government procurement, state-owned enterprises, and protection of foreign companies; and
operate within, as well as help promote, a predictable, comprehensive framework in the critical area of digital trade flows. The United Kingdom formally agreed to join the CPTPP in July 2023. Once its Parliament ratifies the Agreement, the UK will join Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam in the trading block. Such a diverse membership clearly demonstrates that countries do not have to be geographically close to form an effective trading block. A half-dozen other countries have also applied to join the CPTPP, with China’s application having been the earliest received. Petri and Plummer estimate that joining the CPTPP would yield large economic benefits for China and the global economy. For the latter, the boost to global GDP would be in the order of $600 billion annually. The United States in joining would gain preferential access to rapidly growing Pacific Rim markets. Much of the additional market access would come from China’s opening of its service sector. Industrial policy and state-owned enterprises, however, will continue to play a much larger role in China than they do in Western economies. The key for China is to demonstrate that a socialist market economy (i.e., one that has a mixed capitalist market and government-controlled economy) can be consistent with fair trade. The process of China joining the CPTPP will undoubtedly be time-consuming. It took 15 years of negotiations before China joined the WTO in 2001. This was five more years, on average, than it took those countries that joined after 1995. The challenge for Canada, and subsequent chairs, is to ensure that China’s entry maintains the high standards CPTPP members have met so far. Broad based accession to the CPTPP, including the United States and China, however, is best viewed Page 8 Verbatim Trusted Policy Intelligence as a long-term goal. China would need to undertake unprecedented reforms, involving complex political challenges, including Taiwan’s potential accession. For its part, the United States would need to step well back from its current mercantilist mind set, which risks worsening.
Canada as Chair in 2024
While efforts to renew existing global institutions to better reflect current economic realities are important, we see promoting broad accession to the CPTPP as the best means to turn today’s global economic fragmentation around. At the heart of the global economic system is the open trading framework put in place at Bretton Woods in 1944. Many would see today’s fragmentation as becoming more acute, rather than getting better, due to geopolitical divisions. But further fragmentation is no way to save the open, rules-based global trading system that has served so many countries so well for so long.
While restrictions reflecting legitimate security concerns are inevitable, an open, competitive trading system remains in the best interests of all countries. As 2024 Chair of the CPTPP Commission, Canada has an opportunity to contribute to turning around the fragmentation of today’s global trading system and moving the global economy back along a path towards a more open, rules-based trading system.
An important goal for Canada’s chairmanship would be to clarify the rules of accession. This would be a big step forward in sustaining expansion of CPTPP. While today’s geopolitical realities surrounding the applications of both China and Taiwan represent a particularly challenging area to advance, significant progress in other areas must be made. It should accelerate inclusion of Costa Rica, Uruguay, Ecuador, and Ukraine, all of whom have applied. And it should help move forward discussions with South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, who have expressed interest in joining.
Over and above all that, however, at a more strategic level, Canada should also champion discussion and understanding of why building towards the long-run goal of broad accession to CPTPP is important. Open and inclusive institutions are at the core of providing the benefits of global economic integration to all countries.
Canada will also be Chair of the G7 Summit in 2025. This, along with the various ministerial and officials’ meetings leading up to the Summit, offers another critical avenue for Canada to take a leadership role in sustaining and promoting an open, rules-based global trading system.
So if you are a relentless adventure junkie, which countries should be on your radar this year?
Our friends at BestCasinoSites.net evaluated factors including the number of roller coasters, casinos, rock climbing opportunities, mountain bike routes, hiking trails, and off-road trails in 61 countries, to compile a global index ranking the best countries to visit for thrill-seekers.
Canada among top 15 countries for adventure lovers
From biking the Gulf Islands to ziplining over Niagara Falls, Canada ranks 12th best country to get that adrenaline fix, earning a notable final score of 6.87/10. With 60,300 hiking trails and 5,980 mountain biking routes, Canada boasts a geographically diverse landscape and is home to North America’s second-highest peak, Mount Logan, topping out at 5,959 meters.
Mount Logan is a whopping 6KM in elevation and ranks sixth in the world for most prominent peak.
Adrenaline checklist in Canada: Experience Niagara Falls on a zipline, Rock or ice climb in the Rocky Mountains, Jump over the Cheakamus River with Whistler Bungee.
Whistler Bungee: offering a 160 foot jump over the glacially fed River below.
France reigns as the adventure capital of the world
According to the study, France is the world’s adventure capital, boasting an overall adrenaline score of 8.86/10. Prized for its stunning mountain ranges from the Pyrenees, Alps to Chamonix, the country offers over 720,000 hiking trails. Test your limits by conquering Europe’s highest peak, the Mont Blanc ranges, towering at 4,810 metres, or by jumping on one of France’s 227 thrilling roller coaster rides!
Adrenaline checklist in France:Cliff Jumping from the Calanques, Rock climbing overhanging limestone in Provence, Cycling on a glacier.
Trailing behind in second is Mexico, achieving a final score of 8.56/10. Your journey to this Latin American gem can be incredibly action-packed as you scale Mexico’s iconic snow-capped cone, Pico de Orizaba, with a peak of 5,636 metres above sea level; tackle one of the world’s biggest sport climbing areas at El Potrero Chico; or indulge in the thrill of games at any of the 364 casinos* Mexico boasts.
Adrenaline checklist in Mexico:Extreme urban downhill biking in Taxco; Bungee jumping at Los Cabos, Zip-lining in the Jungles of Yucatan.
The land of paella and sangria ranks as the third must-visit destination for adventurous souls, scoring 8.41/10. Spain offers an enticing array of outdoorsy pursuits, boasting the highest number of thrill-seeking trails – from rock climbing (10,600), mountain biking (6,430,000), to hiking (10,300,000) – among all cities studied. Spain’s pristine landscape appears tailor-made for adventure enthusiasts.
Adrenaline checklist in Spain:Rock climbing In Picos De Europa; Canyoning at Junta de los Rios; Andalucía, Walking the El Caminito del Rey.
Argentina takes fourth place, earning an impressive final score of 8.34/10. Home to the third highest peak (6,960 metres) in the study, The Aconcagua attracts over 3,000 mountaineers annually, despite being nicknamed the ‘Mountain of Death’. With a whopping 172 casinos*, including South America’s largest casino complex, the Trilenium, Argentina offers ample opportunities for both seasoned risk-takers and casual players alike.
Adrenaline checklist in Argentina: Mountain biking in Bariloche; Ice trek on top of Perito Moreno Glacier, Paragliding with Condors in Córdoba.
From kayaking down the Grand Canyon to cliff camping in Colorado, the United States rounds off the top five adrenaline hotspots, earning an impressive final score of 8.16/10. With the highest density of casinos in the study totalling 2,937 across the country, and over 900 roller coasters – including the world’s second-fastest roller coaster, Kingda Ka – America is a must-visit if you crave the rush of adrenaline.
Adrenaline checklist in the US: Rafting in the Grand Canyon, Mountain biking the Grand Staircase in Utah, Rock Climbing in Yosemite National Park.
For the Silo, Alasdair Lindsay.
Methodology
The experts at BestCasinoSites.net compiled a global index ranking the best countries for thrill-seekers by considering seven factors, including: (i) Number of casinos (ii) Number of roller coasters (iii) Number of rock climbing trails (iv) Number of mountain bike trails (v) Number of hiking trails (vi) Number of off road trails and (vii) Highest peak height in each country.
Note: Countries with more than two missing values were omitted, resulting in 61 countries in the final dataset.
The experts collected the data from the below sources:
Note: In countries where gambling is illegal, the average number of casinos of all countries was taken (excluding US because of being a huge outlier) to ensure fairness and avoid penalising any specific country.
A press photographer works next to the logo of the World Economic Forum (WEF) at the opening of their annual meeting in Davos on Jan. 15, 2024. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Close interactions between Canadian cabinet ministers and the World Economic Forum are well-documented, but a newly revealed letter suggests forum staff may have been doing more work with the federal government than previously disclosed.
In an undated letter to a WEF official, former Finance Minister Bill Morneau praised the organization and its collaboration to achieve “common” objectives.
“I would also like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation to the WEF staff, for the support provided to the Government of Canada,” wrote Mr. Morneau in the letter obtained through the access-to-information regime.
Neither the WEF nor the Canadian government typically advertise what support the forum provides. The finance department has not replied to a request for information about the date of the letter and details of how WEF staff helped the government.
The letter was addressed to Philipp Rösler, a former German politician who served as a WEF manager and head of its Centre for Regional Strategies.
The federal government is known to have been involved in at least two WEF policy initiatives: the Known Traveller Digital Identification (KTDI) project and the Agile Nations network.
KTDI was a pilot project between Canada, the Netherlands, and private sector interests to develop a system of digital credentials for airplane travel between countries. Agile Nations is a group of countries working to streamline regulations to usher in the WEF-promoted “Fourth Industrial Revolution” that includes gene editing and artificial intelligence.
KTDI began in 2018, and Canada signed onto Agile Nations in November 2020, a few months after Mr. Morneau resigned during the WeCharity scandal. Both projects were worked on while Mr. Morneau was finance minister from 2015 to 2020.
Since both these projects fell outside of Mr. Morneau’s portfolio as finance minister, it seems to suggest that his letter of appreciation to the WEF was referring to other joint collaborations.
Canada’s then-minister of Finance Bill Morneau speaks to the Canadian Club of Canada in Toronto, on March 6, 2020. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)
The WEF’s mission statement says it is dedicated to “improving the state of the world.” It gathers leaders in the fields of politics, business, and activism to promote progressive policies on issues like climate change and making capitalism more “inclusive.” As is routine with the organization, it did not respond to requests for comment.
Critics of the WEF, which gathers world elites to shape global policies, often disagree with its progressive agenda and warn about its influence on countries.
“No staff, no ministers, no MPs in my caucus will be involved whatsoever in that organization,” Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre said in January.
He added that officials who attend the forum’s annual meeting in Davos are “high flying, high tax, high carbon hypocrites” who travel in private jets while telling average citizens not to “heat their homes or drive their pickup trucks.”
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has also criticized the WEF, saying in 2022 she finds it “distasteful when billionaires brag about how much control they have over political leaders, as the head of that organization has.”
Ms. Smith was likely referring to comments made by WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab in 2017, when he said said he was “very proud” to “penetrate the cabinets” of world governments, including that of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“I know that half of his cabinet or even more than half of his cabinet are actually Young Global Leaders of the World Economic Forum,” Mr. Schwab told an audience at Harvard University.
WEF founder Klaus Schwab delivers a speech during the “Crystal Award” ceremony at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, on Jan. 16, 2023. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
Davos Links
Mr. Morneau’s letter to the WEF comes from internal Finance Department records and is the only document in the release package that pertains to Mr. Morneau. It consists mostly of praise for the organization.
“As a Steward of Economic Growth and Social Inclusion, I have had the privilege of observing first-hand and benefiting from the WEF’s important contributions to foster public and private collaboration towards developing concrete solutions for strong, broad-based economic growth,” he wrote, adding that WEF analysis of different topics such as “structural reform priorities” was “helpful to develop substantive policy measures.”
He wrote that “as we enter another ambitious year for the WEF, I look forward to a continued fruitful collaboration to pursue our common objective of achieving stronger, sustainable and more inclusive growth.”
Other department records relate to current Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland and her involvement with the WEF. She is a board member of the forum and also an alumnus of the Young Global Leaders program that Mr. Schwab referenced.
Mr. Morneau, who resigned as minister in 2020, is listed on the WEF website as an “agenda contributor“ and a ”digital member.” He was a regular participant at the group’s annual meetings in Davos, Switzerland, while he was in office.
During those years, the Finance Department’s media relations office wasn’t shy about advertising ministerial trips to Davos.
“Canada’s strong presence at the Forum underscores the importance of this meeting for shaping the international agenda and advancing economic opportunities for Canadians,” read a January 2020 press release from the department announcing Mr. Morneau’s trip.
The Finance Department has not returned inquiries in recent years pertaining to Ms. Freeland’s involvement with the WEF, nor has it issued press releases referencing her involvement.
Some have questioned whether Ms. Freeland’s role as deputy prime minister and finance minister as well as a forum board member constitutes a conflict of interest. The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner said in its 2022 annual report it received more than 1,000 requests in a two-month period from members of the public to investigate the participation of MPs and ministers in the WEF.
The office said the requests “did not provide sufficient information to warrant an investigation.” Ms. Freeland’s leadership position with the WEF has been declared to the office and has therefore been cleared.
Canada’s immigration point system is designed to select skilled immigrants who have the potential to contribute to the country’s economic growth and meet its evolving skills needs. However, Canada faces challenges in fully leveraging increased immigration levels to enhance the well-being of Canadians due to weaknesses in capital investment and a quantity/quality trade-off in selecting economic immigrants. Furthermore, recent reforms may work at cross purposes to this goal. They include category-based selection that targets low-paying occupations, which can discourage capital investment, and a recent surge in the number of temporary residents in low-wage jobs that also may have adverse effects on the quality of potential candidates for permanent residency.
This study compares skilled immigration selection policy in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, with the objective of identifying key areas for improvement in Canadian policy. The skilled immigration point systems in Canada and Australia share some similarities, with both prioritizing a two-step immigration process, placing an emphasis on English proficiency and workforce age, and requiring pre-migration credential and English proficiency assessments. However, the two countries differ mainly in their strictness of criteria and their emphasis on occupational and language skills. Furthermore, Australia has shown more agility and creativity in its skilled migration reforms. Reforms in the UK and New Zealand have also put them ahead in the competition for talent.
Based on this international comparison, the author makes recommendations for improvement. They include: 1) Setting a Minimum Points Threshold for Eligibility. As it is, Canada imposes no minimum points threshold for eligibility in its Express Entry points-based system. 2) Considering a Pre-admission Earnings Factor. Studies show the importance of pre-immigration earnings in predicting immigrants’ outcomes after arrival. The UK, New Zealand and Australia include this factor. 3) Boosting Standards under the Language Requirement. Official language skills are as important in predicting the initial earnings of principal applicants admitted under Canada’s Express Entry system as pre-immigration Canadian work experience, and even more important than educational level and age at the time of immigration. 4) Raising Business Immigration Numbers. Canada faces the challenge of weak business investment but is failing to select business immigrants with entrepreneurial skills, putting it at a disadvantage compared to competitors like Australia and the UK.
The author thanks Tingting Zhang, Charles DeLand, Rosalie Wyonch, Charles Beach, Jodi Kasten, Mikal Skuterud and anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft. The author retains responsibility for any errors and the views expressed.
Parisa Mahboubi is a Senior Policy Analyst and leads the C.D. Howe Institute’s human capital policy program. Her research interest focuses on social policy with a concentration on demographic, skills, education, and labour market concerns. In addition to authoring research studies, she regularly writes a column for the Globe and Mail’s business section.
OTTAWA—Near the two-year anniversary of the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, hundreds of people gathered on Parliament Hill on Feb. 17 to celebrate the original Freedom Convoy protest and a recent victory in Federal Court.
People gather on Parliament Hill for the two-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy protest, on Feb. 17, 2024. (Matthew Horwood/The Epoch Times)Protesters march in downtown Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy protest, on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)People gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of the Freedom Convoy protest, on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)
“This is like coming home again. It’s a big family reunion,” said Edward Vachon, who attended the original trucker protest in early 2022.
“The spirit that was there two years ago is still here. We still have the same convictions and we’re standing up.”
Hundreds of people, many of whom attended the original truckers’ Freedom Convoy protest in downtown Ottawa, gathered on Parliament Hill and on Wellington Street in front of the Hill, waving Canadian flags and holding signs against government overreach.
Dozens of vehicles drove by the protest honking and waving Canadian flags throughout the day, but the Ottawa Police Service ensured that none of them parked downtown. The police wanted to avoid a repeat of the original Freedom Convoy protest where trucks encamped in the downtown core for weeks.
Later in the afternoon, the crowd participated in a march through downtown Ottawa under the close watch of Ottawa police.
Protesters gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of Freedom Convoy on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)Protesters gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of Freedom Convoy on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)
Bethan Nodwell, who helped organize the original Freedom Convoy protest, said the 2022 event “changed the course of Canadian history.” She said many of the people attending this weekend’s event were “forever changed” by the convoy and will continue to meet every year to celebrate “the new Canada that was born in 2022.”
Genevieve Desmarais, wearing a Canadian flag draped around her back, told our friends at The Epoch Times that she came to the Freedom Convoy protest two years ago because she was upset by government overreach with its COVID-19 restrictions.
Louis Desmarais said he saw the day’s events not only as a commemoration of the anniversary of the trucker protest but also as a celebration of the recent victory in Federal Court.
On Jan. 24, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that the Liberal government’s use of the Emergencies Act “was not justified in relation to the relevant factual and legal constraints that were required to be taken into consideration.”
“Finally, we got a federal judge to say ‘No, it was wrong to call the Emergencies Act, it wasn’t justified.’ That’s a big moment,” Mr. Desmarais said.
“Now the lawsuits are going to come out, that’s going to bring out the truth about all the lies, so that’s a step in the right direction.”
Protesters gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of Freedom Convoy on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)Protesters gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of Freedom Convoy on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)
Federal Court Justice Mosley found that invocation of the Emergencies Act infringed on Section 2(b) and Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 2(b) deals with “freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression,” and Section 8 deals with the “right to be secure against unreasonable search seizure.”
The freezing of protesters’ bank accounts was also not “minimally impairing,” Justice Mosley said, as the directive was overly broad and there were “less impairing options available.”
Emboldened by the court ruling, the original organizers of the Freedom Convoy filed a $2 million lawsuit on Feb. 13 against the federal government for violating their charter rights when it invoked the Emergencies Act. On Feb. 14, a total of 20 people who had their bank accounts frozen under the act also filed a tort lawsuit against federal ministers and financial institutions behind the decision.
Justice Mosley’s ruling was in contrast with that of the Public Order Emergency Commission created after the Emergencies Act was invoked, tasked with evaluating whether its use was justified. Justice Paul Rouleau, who oversaw the commission, ultimately said the government was within its rights to invoke the act on Feb. 14, 2022, to clear the protests.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa will appeal Justice Mosley’s ruling, saying that the decision to invoke the act was done following “careful deliberation” and was “the necessary thing to do.”
Protesters gather on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to mark the two-year anniversary of Freedom Convoy on Feb. 17, 2024. (Annie Wu/NTD)
Whilst climate change is at the forefront of most countries’ consciences, the issue is highly pressing here in Canada where we experience climate change at twice the world’s average due to our northerly location. Do you believe in the stated extreme effects of climate change or do you believe in a milder alternative? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of this article.
With this in mind, our friends at BonusFinder Canada utilized technology to predict exactly what Canada’s most popular tourist spots could look like in 100 years timeif we do not intervene and try to combat climate change. To do so, they asked OpenAI to write predictions for five top tourist hotspots (Niagara Falls, CN Tower, Notre-Dame Basilica, Hopewell Rocks, Confederation Bridge) based on factors such as global warming, overpopulation and extreme weather, and used these descriptions to generate AI images.
Niagara Falls – no intervention
Niagara Falls – positive intervention
Key changes without intervention:
● Significant reduction in water flow, affecting local ecosystems and the availability of freshwater resources.
● The falls are no longer safe to get close to due to erosion.
● The once lush surroundings have been replaced by concrete and pollution due to overpopulation.
CN Tower – no intervention
CN Tower – positive intervention
Key changes without intervention:
● Toronto is now largely inhospitable due to global warming and extreme weather events.
● Fires are not uncommon due to global warming and an abundance of refuse.
● Toronto faces major impacts of climate change, including higher temperatures, reduced air quality, and persistent heatwaves.
Notre-Dame Basilica – no intervention
Notre-Dame Basilica – positive intervention
Key changes without intervention:
● Extreme weather events, including severe heatwaves, have damaged the Basilica’s exterior and interior.
● The area surrounding the Basilica is overpopulated and increasingly inhospitable.
● The basilica remains heavily reliant on non-renewable energy sources, worsening the effects on the environment.
Hopewell Rocks – no intervention
Hopewell Rocks – positive intervention
Key changes without intervention:
● The main structure of the rocks has collapsed.
● The surrounding area is heavily urbanized and polluted.
● The beach is now dangerous, marshy and overgrown, but still attracts many tourists when the bay is uncovered, bringing further pollution and structural damage with each passing year.
Confederation Bridge – no intervention
Confederation Bridge – positive intervention
Key changes without intervention:
● Confederation Bridge has collapsed in areas, rendering the huge structure unusable.
● The water around the bridge is now full of concrete, industrial waste, pollution and urban runoff.
● Small portions of the bridge still stand in the water, serving as a reminder of our failure to act and combat urbanization and overpopulation.
Mahboubi, Skuterud – A Multi-Pronged Strategy for Managing Canada’s Surging Non-Permanent Resident Population
January, 2024 – Recent years have seen an unprecedented increase in Canada’s non-permanent resident population, far surpassing increases in annual admissions of new permanent residents. This unbalanced growth in the two migration streams will inevitably result in a growing undocumented population and forced deportations. Both developments risk inflaming Canada’s immigration politics and undermining public confidence in the immigration system. It is imperative that the government take immediate steps to stem the ongoing growth in foreign student and temporary foreign worker entries. Here’s how it can do it.
Recent years have seen an unprecedented increase in Canada’s non-permanent resident (NPR) population far surpassing increases in annual admissions of new permanent residents. This unbalanced growth in the two migration streams will inevitably result in a growing undocumented population and forced deportations. Both developments risk inflaming Canada’s immigration politics and undermining public confidence in the immigration system.
It is imperative that the government take immediate steps to stem the ongoing growth in foreign student and temporary foreign worker entries.
Several factors have contributed to the NPR population surge, including ad-hoc programs aimed at expanding eligibility for permanent status, the well-documented postsecondary appetite for international tuition revenue, and eased employer access to temporary foreign workers, most notably in low-wage occupations.
Statistics Canada estimates that by the fourth quarter of 2023, Canada’s non-permanent population had exceeded 2.5 million, while entries of new permanent residents remained below 500,000 and which the government has announced will stabilize in 2025. The tightening bottleneck in temporary-to-permanent residency flows is worsened because many permanent slots go to applicants residing abroad, not non-permanent residents.
A key factor driving the growth in non-permanent inflows is the government’s repeated announcements of ad hoc programs aimed at easing the pathway to PR status for lower-skilled migrants who would otherwise struggle to clear the hurdle of the Express Entry skilled-based points system.
Examples include the February 2021 decision to provide permanent status to all economic class candidates in the applicant pool regardless of their eligibility scores and the April 2021 provision of pathways to 90,000 “essential workers” including cashiers and truck drivers. And the government expanded the program in January 2023 to give PR status to undocumented construction workers and plans to broaden the program, allowing all undocumented people to apply for permanent status.
No wonder large numbers of migrants try their luck.
But given limited permanent admissions, large numbers of justifiably hopeful NPRs will be unable to realize their dreams. As their study and work permits expire, many will be unable or unwilling to return to their home countries. This leaves them increasingly vulnerable to workplace exploitation, which can distort wage outcomes in lower skilled labour markets, and leaves them in poverty with no recourse to government supports because they are ineligible.
Canada urgently requires a multipronged strategy to stem this ongoing NPR growth and restore the stability and integrity of the immigration system. In our view, policies should be aimed at helping applicants make better decisions about seeking NPR status in Canada by offering a straightforward, predictable system against which they can realistically assess their prospects.
On international students, we recommend reintroducing the cap on off-campus work at 20 hours a week that was waived in October 2022 and recently extended to April 30. Continued policy punting is unhelpful in restoring predictability for prospective foreign students. Study permits have become de facto work permits, and brings job-seekers, not committed students.
We also recommend restricting study permits to institutions of a certain standard. Designated Learning Institutions (DLIs) whose students are currently ineligible for Post-Graduate Work Permits should also be ineligible for study permits. The government should also revoke designation based on the measured immigration and labour market outcomes of an institution’s graduates. Those outcomes should be regularly published by the immigration department to help prospective migrants make informed decisions and combat false dreams pushed by education recruiters.
On temporary workers, extended measures allowing, for example, 30 percent of certain workforces to be low-wage temporary foreign workers, need reconsideration. Stemming the growth in the Low-Wage Stream of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and restoring the pre-2020 hiring regulations recognizes recent evidence of adverse effects of this program on wages and local unemployment rates.
Most important, the government needs to bring back predictability in its permanent resident admission system in the economic-class applicant pool. Though well intentioned, the one-off programs easing the pathway to permanent status are contributing to temporary resident explosion. The department needs to return to its Comprehensive Ranking System as it did before 2020. The transparency of its points system and a stable minimum eligibility score over time will mean that applicants can see what skills or training they need for entry, thereby advancing the objective of our skilled immigration program.
If these policy levers are collectively applied, they can stem the unhealthy growth in Canada’s non-permanent population, restore fairness and transparency in the permanent admission stream, and secure the immigration system’s integrity and sustainability. In doing so, we can ensure that Canada continues to be a welcoming and prosperous country for all. *note this article was sent as a letter by the C.D. Howe Institute authors to The Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
Parisa Mahboubi is a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute. Mikal Skuterud is a professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, director of the Canadian Labour Economics Forum and a fellow-in-residence of the C.D. Howe Institute.
Following Indonesia, the Philippines joins the World Economic Forum’s Blue Carbon Action Partnership to safeguard crucial coastline ecosystems in South-East Asia.
Mangroves and other littoral biospheres provide a critical buffer against climate change globally, but environmental degradation is putting them under threat.
Momentum builds at COP28 for the conservation and restoration of these critical blue carbon ecosystems, for the benefit of people, nature and the climate.
Learn more about the World Economic Forum’s work at COP28 here.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, December 2023 – The Government of the Philippines’ Department of Environment and Natural Resources announced yesterday at COP28 that it is joining the World Economic Forum’s Blue Carbon Action Partnership to accelerate the restoration and conservation of coastal ecosystems.
South-East Asia is home to almost one-third of mangroves globally, with nearly 20% of the world’s mangroves in Indonesia alone.
Blue carbon ecosystems such as mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes store up to five times more carbon per acre than tropical rainforests and have been receiving greater attention in recent years. Yet, these ecosystems are under threat of destruction. These important carbon sinks also provide support for livelihoods, food security, shoreline protection and habitat for numerous.
Eelgrass (seagrass) distribution on Canada’s sea coastlines are under threat.
Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (2020).
The importance of eelgrass to ecosystems was shown after a widespread wasting disease outbreak along the Atlantic coast of North America in the 1930s resulted in a 90% loss of eelgrass. It is estimated that populations of migratory Brant geese along the Atlantic coast, which rely heavily on eelgrass outside the breeding season, declined by as much as 90%. Declines of clams, lobsters, crabs, scallops, cod and flounder were also reported following the loss of eelgrass.
Eelgrass beds are highly productive and several studies have indicated that eelgrass beds contribute to the sequestration of “blue carbon” in marine sediments, providing a valuable ecosystem service in coastal areas.
“Coastal ecosystems such as mangroves are critical to life in the ocean and to those who live alongside it. Increasingly, we are also recognizing their vital role to buffer us against the worst effects of the climate crisis,” said Alfredo Giron, Acting Head of the Ocean Action Agenda and Friends of Ocean Action at the World Economic Forum. “When blue carbon benefits are recognized and valued by governments and businesses, who commit and invest in the restoration of mangrove, seagrass and salt marsh ecosystems around the world, everybody wins – people, nature, climate and ultimately, the planet.”
The newly launched National Blue Carbon Action Partnership in the Philippines will convene, coordinate and support implementation to scale high-quality blue carbon action, representing nearly 700 billion metric tons of carbon sequestered in mangroves and seagrasses in the country.
“The Philippines, endowed with rich biodiversity and extensive coastlines, is home to vast blue carbon ecosystems. We look forward to working with the Blue Carbon Action Partnership to facilitate the inclusive, whole-of-society approach to developing a shared ambition for blue carbon, community resilience, inclusive development and unlocking the Philippines’ potential to provide nature-based climate solutions for the rest of the world whilst supporting our programs for protected areas and preparing the country for participating in the new blue economy,” said Antonia Loyzaga, Secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources of the Philippines.
The Philippines partnership is the second to be launched after an agreement last year with the Government of Indonesia, which has also strengthened its partnership agreement with the World Economic Forum at COP28 and is preparing to launch its National Blue Carbon Action Partnership secretariat. Combined, the Philippines and Indonesia house 4 trillion tons of carbon in their blue carbon ecosystems, which is the carbon equivalent of over 11 trillion of barrels of oil consumed.
There is increasing demand for blue carbon ecosystem restoration and conservation to attain the multifaceted benefits these ecosystems provide, including food security, support for livelihoods, coastal protection and carbon storage. Working with its government partners, the Blue Carbon Action Partnership can support connecting finance with countries that have established policies to receive blue carbon ecosystem investment.
“The ocean is our largest buffer in tackling the climate crisis and it plays an essential role in climate change mitigation, resilience and adaptation as well as regulating the global weather system. It is encouraging to see the ocean gaining increasing prominence as a natural resource for accelerated climate action,” said Giron.
Canadians are still bouncing back from the health impacts of years of isolation. A recent survey of over 1,000 citizens shows that almost one-third of them don’t exercise at all, despite the country’s health officials’ recommendation of at least 150 minutes per week of physical activity. After all, finding the motivation to go to the gym or do that morning run can be difficult when you only have yourself to be accountable for. This is why more people are opting to attend weight loss classes, helping them to stay consistent with their routine. But the effects of weight loss classes transcend merely the physical. Here are a few ways they can benefit your overall health:
Physical wellness
Weight loss workshops are as crucial as meal plans and gym sessions because they provide holistic guidance and tips to keep you on the right track, from changing your relationship with food, sharing stories about your unique challenges, and sourcing motivation to keep exercising, among other benefits. By searching “weight loss classes near me” online, you can evaluate which features work for you. In-person classes allow you to meet with coaches and like-minded peers. If those don’t fit your schedule, a bevy of virtual workshops can connect you to a coach who will help you work on your wellness goals with science-backed strategies and inspiration, even at a distance. Peer group virtual workshops can help you get out of a fitness rut by providing support and accountability. These build the foundation for a consistent fitness routine that ultimately benefits your body.
Mental wellness
Group workouts offer a unique balm to your mental health that working out alone may not. A group setting facilitates a more engaging and energizing environment that encourages you to have fun and even engage in some healthy competition. If you’ve had a difficult day, it can help you get “out of your head” instead of stewing in negative thoughts. In a previous post, we talked about how yoga can calm the mind, relieve stress, and reduce anxiety. These effects are further emphasized in group yoga, where shared energy and cohesiveness can bring a comforting sense of community, encouraging dynamic balance and mental clarity. In a study, 64 women with severe anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were asked to participate in a weekly 1-hour yoga class for ten weeks. By the end, 52% of participants no longer met the criteria for PTSD.
Social wellness
Mental health issues like depression and anxiety are inextricably tied to loneliness, which is why it’s concerning that over 40% of Canadians report feeling lonely some or all of the time. Excess weight may be another interconnected factor; among obese Canadian adults, 11% report being depressed or having a mood disorder compared to only 6.9% of normal-weight adults. For those who live alone or work from home, social interactions may not be as seamlessly integrated into their schedules, which is where group weight loss classes come in. They can help target the sedentary lifestyle commonly associated with loneliness, as well as provide a sense of belonging for people who need it. Participants often arrange social gatherings before or after classes, such as sharing meals or grocery shopping, to build camaraderie and keep one another on a healthy path for weight loss.
While weight loss may manifest most noticeably in your physical appearance, the team spirit offered by group weight loss classes carries mental and social benefits that can help you keep the weight off long-term. Having supportive figures you can lean on for advice and encouragement enables you to perceive weight management in a healthier, more positive light – and not something you must go through alone.
Surfshark’s most recent Digital Quality of Life (DQL) Index ranks Canada 26th in the world by overall digital wellbeing and is outranked by the U.S. Our country has dropped by six positions since last year’s edition, falling from 20th to 26th.
The study covers 92% of the global population and indexes 117 countries by looking at five fundamental pillars of digital life – internet affordability and quality, e-infrastructure, e-security, and e-government.
Below you’ll see the key findings about Canada:
Canada’s internet affordability ranks 33rd in the world. To afford mobile internet, Canadians have to work 60 times more (4 min 57 s/month) than Israeli citizens, for whom the most affordable 1GB package costs only 5 s of work monthly. Meanwhile, fixed broadband costs Canadian citizens around 84 minutes of their precious working time each month.
The global digital divide is now deeper than ever
Globally, broadband is getting less affordable each year. Looking at countries included in last year’s index, people have to work six minutes more to afford broadband internet in 2022. In some countries, such as Ivory Coast and Uganda, people work an average of 2 weeks to earn the cheapest fixed broadband internet package. A similar trend was observed last year. With the current inflation, the pressure on low-income households that need the internet has become even heavier. Surfshark’s study also found that countries with the poorest internet connection have to work for it the longest.
Canada’s internet quality, considering internet speed, stability, and growth, ranks 23rd in the world and is 29% better than the global average.
Since last year, mobile internet speed in Canada has improved by 5% (4.7 Mbps), and fixed broadband speed has grown by 12.4% (20.7 Mbps).
Compared to the U.S., Canada’s mobile internet is 15% slower, while broadband is 9% slower.
Out of all index pillars, Canada’s weakest spot is e-security, which needs to improve by 60% to match the best-ranking country’s result (Greece’s).
Global overview: Overall, 7 out of 10 highest-scoring countries are in Europe, which has been the case for the past three years. Israel ranks 1st in DQL 2022 pushing Denmark to second place after its two-year lead. Germany ranks 3rd, and France and Sweden round up the top five of the 117 evaluated nations. Congo DR, Yemen, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Cameroon are the bottom five countries. For the Silo,Paulius Udra.
Supplemental- According to our most recent search Engine result, The world’s most expensive country for fixed-line broadband is Eritrea, with an average package price of $2,666 usd per month.
