Paying the Piper
You get what you pay for. But since tax policy is anathema to many Albertans, it seems we’d rather buy climate disaster, obesity and ill health, dead birds and damaged watersheds than pay for a [...]
Taxes
Taxes
Should Alberta Have Higher Taxes?
Greg Flanagan says YES—Eventually Why impose taxes in the first place? First and foremost, to pay for the public services we all need and enjoy. In an ideal public-finance world we’d first [...]
Salestaxphobia
Time for a sales tax?” is the whack-a-mole question of Alberta politics—one that pops up in the Legislature, in press scrums, in newspaper headlines. No matter how long it’s been since the last [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
Why She Runs
It's a half hour before dawn when Rachel Notley emerges from her hotel elevator, and I barely recognize her. She’s wearing her running clothes and a battered pair of Asics Gel running shoes. Despite having arrived in Calgary late the night before, she has a schedule to keep and she’s eager ...
Individualism Run Amok
Betsy DeVos would be thrilled to have a [school] system like yours,” says Diane Ravitch, research professor of education at New York University, about Alberta. Donald Trump’s secretary of education along with evangelicals and religious extremists in the US look to our province as the shining example of what a school ...
UCP Report Card
In 2017 I issued a mid-term report card on the environmental record of Rachel Notley’s government. Their performance on land use planning, parks establishment and climate change was exemplary. On other matters, such as carnivore conservation and land reclamation, they ducked and dodged. Overall, they earned a B+. Such a ...