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FRASER UPDATE
A weekly digest of our latest research and commentaries
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Latest Research
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Quebec government spending reached highest level on record in 2021 at $15,562 per person
Quebec Premiers and Provincial Government Spending is a new study that finds Premier François Legault holds the record for the highest per-person spending levels in Quebec—even excluding COVID-related spending—at $14,487 (2021) and $13,705 (2020), and Legault has overseen the third-highest rate of average annual per person spending growth at 7.3 per cent.
Read More [[link removed]]
Housing policy should focus on closing the demand-supply gap, not inducing demand or stifling supply
Federal Reforms to Improve Housing Affordability is the latest installment in the Institute’s essay series on federal policy reforms. This essay documents the large and growing imbalance between housing supply and demand, and highlight’s the federal government’s influence on housing markets.
Read More [[link removed]]
Perspectives on Capitalism and Socialism Mini-Documentary [[link removed]]
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The Wall St. Journal’s Mary O’Grady explores new polling data that finds a large percentage of young people in Canada, the U.S., Australia and Britain support socialism as their preferred economic system, but what most of them define as socialism is actually more government programs, but they’re not prepared to pay for them. This video is part of a new multimedia project, The Realities of Socialism, by the Fraser Institute in Canada, the Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK, the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia and the Fund for American Studies in the U.S.
Commentary and Blog Posts
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Alberta government’s budget promises will fall flat without clear long-term plan [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Calgary Sun) by Tegan Hill
Program spending from 2023/24 to 2025/26 will be $6.4 billion higher than projected just three months ago.
Free-spending Nova Scotia budget gets failing grade [[link removed]]
by Alex Whalen
The province's net debt is projected to rise by more than $6 billion.
P.E.I. government misses opportunity to correct fiscal course [[link removed]]
by Jake Fuss and Alex Whalen
According to the budget, the province will run its second consecutive deficit in 2024/25.
Spending restraint in Ottawa could help reduce inflation [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Ottawa Sun) by Jock Finlayson
Canada’s population is expanding by more than one million per year while housing starts are stuck below 250,000.
Federal government helped spark Canada’s economic growth crisis [[link removed]]
by Jason Clemens, Grady Munro, and Milagros Palacios
Over the last nine years, Canadian living standards have not increased.
Federal government not being honest about true cost of national pharmacare [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Hill Times) by Jake Fuss and Mackenzie Moir
Support among Canadians for national pharmacare drops from 79 per cent to 40 per cent when the plan is linked to tax hikes.
More parental involvement in Alberta schools will benefit students [[link removed]]
(Appeared in True North) by Michael Zwaagstra and Paige MacPherson
Teachers should leave their personal political views at home and focus on educating students.
Canada’s struggling private sector—a tale of two cities [[link removed]]
by Jason Clemens and Joel Emes
When commercial centres have lower median employment incomes than capital cities, the private sector may be in real distress.
New Brunswick’s natural gas opportunity—separating fact from fiction [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Fredericton Daily Gleaner) by Alex Whalen
With a “moderate” level of development, the province projects $21 billion in investment over 20 years.
Learning loss piles up alongside snow while ‘e-learning’ collects dust [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Halifax Chronicle Herald) by Alex Whalen and Paige MacPherson
In math, 15-year-old students in Nova Scotia today are more than two years behind where they were in 2003.
Ontario’s housing woes—a supply-side problem [[link removed]]
by Livio Di Matteo
Last year, builders in the province built nearly 60 per cent fewer new homes per person compared to 1973.
Canadians in three provinces will spend roughly the same on debt interest as K-12 education [[link removed]]
by Grady Munro and Jake Fuss
Provincial and federal net debt has increased by $1.0 trillion from 2007/08 to 2023/24.
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