Given the large amount of discussion regarding electricity in Alberta, I thought it would be useful to look at the public policy regarding this very political issue.  As the saying goes, all politics is local, and there is nothing more local than the price and reliability of electricity. The Alberta government has stated that it […]

So you’ve ended homelessness – but can you prove it?   The notion of ending homelessness has shaped public policy and community-based responses towards greater accountability and evidence-based decision making in recent years. While great success has been achieved, actually ending homelessness is another matter altogether.  Policy makers, funders, system leaders, and practitioners alike have […]

I eagerly shared this image on social media this week, because it is so true. In the weeks that follow, I suspect we should add insurance adjusters to the club as well.  Adjusters we know have been at the evacuation camps since the beginning.  In addition, most insurance companies are assembling their larger catastrophe or […]

On April 6th, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan fulfilled the Prime Minister’s commitment to launch a public consultation process that will lead to a comprehensive review of Canada’s defence policy to be released in early 2017. People in the defence policy community are quite interested in this milestone because Canada does not review its policies in […]

The international tax world – governments, taxpayers, advisers and various influential observers including non-governmental organizations – have been engaged in a systematic review of international tax rules, practice, policy and behavior since late 2012 and, most forcefully, early 2013.[1] The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) and the G-20 nations, not all of which […]

It’s income tax season and a good time to wonder if the so-called ‘Panama Papers’ scandal will prove to be as significant as the WikiLeaks episode; the latter infamously revealed secret diplomatic cables and inner-workings of governments, while the former exposed an international network of possible tax cheats and corruption. I do believe that the […]

By: Brian Livingston A key decision is looming for the federal government in the next few weeks.  The feds have said many times that the environment and the economy both matter, and that one does not have to choose one to the exclusion of the other.  The upcoming decision as to whether to approve or […]

For decades, downtown has been the location of choice for corporate Calgary and each weekday some 345,000 Calgarians stream in and out of the core. The majority of these people are commuters on their way to work, arriving by automobile (54.4 per cent), transit (34.5 per cent), and those close enough to walk (9.4 per […]

A prominent and perhaps defining issue in the federal election was the Liberal promise to run deficits of about $10 billion for three years to invest in infrastructure and spur tepid economic growth across the nation.  The Conservative government, running on a promise of modest budget surpluses for the foreseeable future, characterized the Liberal plan […]