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FRASER UPDATE
A weekly digest of our latest research, commentary, and blog posts
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Latest Research
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Canada’s economic performance heading into COVID recession was weakest of last five pre-recession periods
Comparing Economic Performance in Five Pre-Recession Periods is a new study that compares numerous economic indicators relating to income growth, labour markets and business investment for the last five pre-recessionary periods: 1986-1989, 1997-2000, 2005-2008, 2011-2014, and 2016-2019. On almost all of the measures included in the analysis, the economic performance from 2016 to 2019 (the years preceding the COVID-19 recession) was the weakest.
Read More [[link removed]]

Lessons from Klein era can help Kenney repair Alberta government finances
Lessons for Fiscal Reform from the Klein Era finds that today's Alberta government can learn some key lessons from the Klein reforms of the 1990s, which helped quickly eliminate the province's budget deficit and lay the foundation for more than a decade of surpluses.
Read More [[link removed]]


Commentary and Blog Posts
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Michigan governor’s ‘Line 5’ decision will hurt millions of Canadians and Americans [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Calgary Sun) by Robert P. Murphy
Almost 5,000 workers are directly employed in processing the petroleum products Line 5 brings to Sarnia.

Empty house tax fails to meaningfully increase housing availability in Vancouver [[link removed]]
(Appeared in Business in Vancouver) by Steve Lafleur
The Agricultural Land Reserve accounts for 22 per cent of the land in Metro Vancouver.

Tax reform should play crucial role in COVID recovery [[link removed]]
by Alex Whalen and Jake Fuss
Canada has the seventh-highest top combined personal income tax rate in the OECD.

Canadians should reject Trudeau-style carbon taxes [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Toronto Sun) by Matthew Lau
The Trudeau government’s plan includes a target of $170 per tonne.

Alberta’s woes threaten Canada’s finances from coast to coast [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Edmonton Journal) by Fred McMahon
Ottawa annually pocketed $22 billion more in revenue from Alberta than it spent in the province.

Rhetoric vs. reality—the Trudeau government’s dismal record on business investment [[link removed]]
(Appeared in the Financial Post) by Jason Clemens, Milagros Palacios, and Niels Veldhuis
On the broadest measure of investment, the Trudeau government experienced an average annual decline of 0.2 per cent before the 2020 recession.


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