The Last Page

Learning From The Failures of Past Pharmacare Efforts

Over the past 60 years, there have been many attempts to expand and reform the Canadian healthcare system to include pharmaceutical drugs. In that time, changes have definitely been made at the provincial level to diminish the exorbitant costs of patented drugs. Many individuals remain without coverage and the cost of prescription drugs have increased sharply these past few years. This is no longer an issue of whether the federal government should do something or not. It needs to act since the current system is unsustainable.

How the Ontario Government could find significant savings with larger class sizes

If the government proposes to increase class size in our education system, it is important that MPs and citizens have access to a range of information including financial information, so that decisions are taken with as many facts on the table as possible. The purpose of this note is focus on potential fiscal savings. It is one factor among many that must be considered by our decision makers and those responsible for holding the government to account. As the Government of Ontario aims to change its fiscal trajectory, we may also wish to remind ourselves that Healthcare, Education, and Community Services account for nearly 70% of government spending. In this regard, it is hard to avoid touching the “Big 3” in any effort to significantly reduce the size of the deficit. The policy choices the government must make to restore fiscal balance in Ontario are tough political decisions.

Fiscal Policy: A Tale of Two Decades

In this note we provide an analysis of Canada’s actual and expected fiscal performance in two decades: 2014-15 to 2023-24 under the Liberal government (assuming it gets re-elected in October 2019) and 2005-6 to 2014-15 under the Conservative government.  We will explore whether governments during those two periods designed their fiscal policies to address fundamental economic challenges facing the country or were driven by electoral politics and short-term economic developments.

Federal Deficit and Public Debt in Canada: Are We Aware of the Implications for the Medium-Term Outlook?

The 2018 Fall Economic Statement by the Federal Government projects budget deficits and continued increase in the public debt for the next five years. The question of public debt has always been the subject of much discussion, especially during the election year. In this brief, we assess the potential implications of rising public debt for Canada’s medium-term outlook.