Government Spending & Taxes

— Mar 21, 2024
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School Spending and Performance in Canada and Other High-Income Countries

School Spending and Performance in Canada and Other High-Income Countries is a new study that finds higher per-student spending levels are not associated with stronger academic achievement. In fact, among the provinces, Saskatchewan was the highest per-student spender but ranked 8th out of the 10 provinces in scores on the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Manitoba was the second highest per-student spender and recorded the lowest PISA scores nationwide. Conversely, British Columbia was the lowest spender per student in Canada and achieved the fourth-highest PISA scores.

— Mar 19, 2024
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Enhancing Economic Growth Through Federal Personal Income Tax Reform is a new study that finds the federal government can reduce the top marginal income tax rate to 29.0 per cent—where it was before the Trudeau government increased it—and completely eliminate the three middle income tax rates of 20.5 per cent, 26.0 per cent, and 29.0 per cent by reforming and simplifying the tax code and removing a host of special carve outs, credits and other tax measures.

— Mar 12, 2024
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The Cost of Business Subsidies in Canada: Updated Edition is a new study that finds Canadian governments spent $52 billion in 2022 subsidizing businesses across all provinces—including federal, provincial, and local spending.

— Feb 29, 2024
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Quebec Premiers and Provincial Government Spending

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.

— Feb 21, 2024
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British Columbia’s Current Spending Peak: Highest in History, Highest Growth in Canada finds that the B.C. government’s per-person spending in 2022/23, the latest year of available data, was nearly 20 per cent higher than in 2019/20.

— Feb 13, 2024
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A Case for Spending Restraint in Canada: How the Federal Government Can Balance the Budget

A Case for Spending Restraint: How the Federal Government Can Balance the Budget is a new study that finds the federal government could achieve a balanced budget within a couple short years with only modest spending restraint, such as slowing the growth in nominal program spending by only 4.3 per cent.

— Feb 13, 2024
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Canada’s Challenge in Meeting NATO’s Defence Spending Target

Canada’s Challenge in Meeting NATO’s Defence Spending Target is a new essay in the Institute’s series on federal reforms, which highlights how Canada is unlikely to meet the NATO spending target of two per cent of GDP without running large deficits and accumulating debt.

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