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2021 Election Issues: Economy

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Election Issues - Economy
Open Letter to Canadians
 
August 28, 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Red Deer – Mountain View, AB
 
For over 18 months, governments across our country have paid Canadians to stay home in an effort to reduce the strain on the healthcare system. This is neither beneficial for our health or our economy.
 
Recently, the Liberal government launched their “Just Transition” consultation process. The purpose of this consultation is to take into account “the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs in accordance with nationally defined development priorities”.
 
Given that the Biden administration recently called on OPEC nations to increase oil production in an effort to reduce gasoline prices in the United States, why is the Liberal government moving forward with their plan to windup our oil & gas industry?
 
Canada is the world leader in delivering ethically and environmentally sourced oil & gas. Expanding our pipeline networks would enable Canada to attract better market prices for our goods while reducing emissions in foreign countries through the delivery of liquid natural gas as a replacement for coal.
 
Suggestions for addressing the underlying issue:
 
  1. Immediately repeal Bill C-48 (tanker ban) and Bill C-69 (no more pipelines).
  2. Radically decentralize the responsibilities of the federal government to the areas of national security, federal courts and a scaled back RCMP service.
  3. With the provinces now responsible for collecting their own taxes instead of relying on equalization payments, Canada Health Transfers and Canada Social Transfers, competition will immediately be ramped up.
  4. Provincial completion will lead to reductions in red tape and taxes. Provinces who were traditionally reliant on federal transfers will now advocate for pipelines and other major infrastructure projects in an effort to bolster their local economies.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jared Pilon
Libertarian Party Candidate for Red Deer – Mountain View, AB

I have recently made the decision to seek nomination as a candidate in the federal electoral district of Red Deer - Mountain View. As a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA), I directly see the negative impacts of government policy on business owners and most notably, their families. This has never been more evident than in 2020. Through a common sense focus and a passion for bringing people together on common ground, I will work to help bring prosperity to the riding of Red Deer – Mountain View and Canada. I am hoping to be able to share my election campaign with your viewers/readers. Feel free to touch base with me at the email listed below or at jaredpilon.com. Thanks.

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The 15-Minute City: An extraordinarily bad idea

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Randal O’Toole

” the average resident of the New York urban area—the closest thing to a 15-minute city in the U.S. or Canada—can reach at least 21 times as many jobs in a 20-minute auto drive as in a 20-minute walk. The same will be true of other economic opportunities.  “

The latest urban planning fad to sweep across Canada is the 15-minute city, which proposes to redesign cities so that all urban residents live within an easy, 15-minute walk of schools, retailers, restaurants, entertainment, and other essentials of modern life. This is supposed to simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions while it increases our quality of life.

Some think it is a conspiracy. Others insist it is not. Conspiracy or not, the only way to have true 15-minute cities would be to drastically change Canadian lifestyles.

Fifteen-minute cities mean a lot more people living in multifamily housing and fewer in single-family housing. It means most food shopping would be done in high-priced, limited-selection grocery stores. There is no way that Costcos or even large supermarkets can fit into 15-minute cities; to survive, these stores need a lot more customers than could live within a 15-minute walk from their front doors.

Most of the benefits claimed for 15-minute cities are wrong. Proponents claim they would be more affordable, but high-density, multi-story housing costs two to five times as much, per square foot, as single-family homes. Packing people into four- and five-story apartment buildings would require cutting average dwelling sizes at least in half to make them anywhere close to affordable.

Proponents also claim 15-minute cities would save energy and reduce greenhouse gases and other pollutants. But let’s be honest: people aren’t going to give up their cars or stop going to Costco.

Admittedly, the U.S. Department of Energy says that people living in high-density cities do drive a little less than people in low-density areas. But it also says that there is a lot more congestion in high-density cities. Since cars use more energy in slower traffic, high-density cities use more energy (and therefore emit more greenhouse gases) per capita than low-density areas.

Proponents also claim that 15-minute cities will be more equitable. Yet, before about 1890, most Canadian cities were 15-minute cities. Most people in these cities lived in crushing poverty and there were huge disparities between the rich and the poor, with only a small middle-class in between.

What changed these cities was the mass-produced automobile. The Model T Ford democratized mobility, allowing more people to escape the dense cities to find better housing, better jobs, access to lower-cost consumer goods, and a wider range of social and recreation opportunities.

The University of Minnesota Accessibility Observatory calculates that the average resident of the New York urban area—the closest thing to a 15-minute city in the U.S. or Canada—can reach at least 21 times as many jobs in a 20-minute auto drive as in a 20-minute walk. The same will be true of other economic opportunities. Eliminating the automobile, which is the goal of the 15-minute city, would eliminate those economic benefits.

We had this same debate 50-some years ago when urban skies were polluted with carbon monoxide, smog, and other toxic automobile emissions. Some people advocated policies that would force people to drive less. Others advocated new technologies that would reduce the air pollution coming from autos and trucks.

Today, total automotive air pollution has been reduced by about 90 percent. All this improvement came from cleaner cars: new cars today pollute only about 1 percent as much as cars made in 1970. None of this improvement came from anti-automobile policies, as Canadians drive far more miles today than they did 50 years ago.

If anything, policies aimed at reducing driving made pollution worse as one of those policies was to increase traffic congestion to get people out of their cars. Yet, as noted above, cars actually pollute more in congested traffic.

Anti-automobile policies today, including 15-minute cities, spending billions on rail transit lines that carry only a small percentage of urban travel, and converting general street lanes into exclusive bike lanes, are going to have the same effect.

People who care about the planet should demand policies that actually work and not ones that are based on urban planning fantasies and fads. Instead of attempting to drastically change Canadian lifestyles, that means making cars that are cleaner and more fuel-efficient so that the driving we do has a lower environmental impact. The 15-minute city may not be a conspiracy, but it is still an extraordinarily bad idea.

Randal O’Toole is a transportation policy analyst and author of Building 21 st Century Transit Systems for Canadian Cities, an upcoming report published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

Watch Randal on Leaders on the Frontier here.

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Business

Balanced budget within reach—if Ottawa restrains spending

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From the Fraser Institute

By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro

This level of debt-financed spending has contributed to an estimated $941.9 billion increase in gross federal debt from 2014/15 to 2023/24. In other words, partly due to its spending habits, nearly one in every two dollars of debt currently held by the federal government has been accumulated under Prime Minister Trudeau.

The Trudeau government will table its next budget on April 16. Federal finances have deteriorated in recent years due to the Trudeau government’s string of budget deficits, and high spending has led to a significant amount of debt accumulation, which imposes costs on current and future generations. Yet if the government presents a plan in Budget 2024 to rein in spending growth, it could balance the budget in two years.

Far from its promise to balance the budget by 2019, the Trudeau government has instead run nine consecutive deficits during its time in office. And it doesn’t intend to stop, with annual deficits exceeding $18 billion planned for the next five years.

The root cause of these deficits is the government’s inability to restrain spending. Since 2014/15, annual program spending (total spending minus debt interest) has increased $193.6 billion—or 75.5 per cent. If we control for population growth and inflation, this represents an extra $2,330 per person.

This level of debt-financed spending has contributed to an estimated $941.9 billion increase in gross federal debt from 2014/15 to 2023/24. In other words, partly due to its spending habits, nearly one in every two dollars of debt currently held by the federal government has been accumulated under Prime Minister Trudeau. Debt accumulation will only continue barring a change in course, as the federal government is expected to add another $476.9 billion in gross debt over the next five years.

Simply put, the Trudeau government’s approach towards federal finances has been characterized by high spending, large deficits and significant debt accumulation.

This approach to fiscal policy is concerning. Growing government debt leads to higher debt interest costs, all else equal, which eat up taxpayer dollars that could otherwise have provided services or tax relief for Canadians. And these costs are not trivial. For example, in 2023/24 the federal government is expected to spend more to service its debt ($46.5 billion) than on child-care benefits ($31.2 billion).

Accumulating debt today also increases the tax burden on future generations of Canadians—who are ultimately responsible for paying off this debt. Research suggests this effect could be disproportionate, with future generations needing to pay back a dollar borrowed today with more than one dollar in future taxes.

Although the Trudeau government promises more of the same for the coming years, this need not be the case. Instead, a recent study shows the federal government could balance the budget in two years if it slows spending growth starting in 2024/25. The following figures highlight this approach. The first chart below displays currently planned federal program spending from 2023/24 to 2026/27, compared with the spending path that will balance the budget, while the second chart shows the resulting budgetary balances.

Figure 1

Figure 2

As shown by the first chart, to balance the budget by 2026/27 the federal government must limit annual spending growth to 0.3 per cent for two years. As a result, annual nominal program spending would rise from $469.4 billion in 2024/25 to $472.3 billion in 2026/27. For comparison, the Trudeau government currently plans to increase annual spending up to $499.4 billion during that same period.

Should the government implement this level of spending restraint, the federal deficit would shrink to $21.8 billion in 2025/26 (as opposed to $38.3 billion), and the budget would be balanced by 2026/27 (as opposed to a $27.1 billion deficit). All told, by slowing spending growth to balance the budget, the federal government would avoid accumulating significant debt. Moreover, this also sets the government up to return to budget surpluses in the following years, which could be used to start chipping away at the mountain of federal debt already on the books.

Rather than continue its current approach to fiscal policy, and risk needing to employ more drastic cuts in the future, the Trudeau government should implement modest spending restraint now and balance the budget.

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