God I hope so...

If that were the case, we wouldn't have equalization---which is enshrined in the constitution, by the way. Basically the tax levels for provinces are supposed to be comparable and so are the public services, but some provinces are much poorer. Besides that, there are lots of reasons to tax at...

Taxation, aside from pro Aside from property taxes, the public finance literature generally recommends taxing income (corporate or personal) at the highest level possible to avoid "race-to-the-bottom" dynamics. Income taxes are less distortionary if they're unavoidable (i.e. by moving). Not...

That is, under a CPC government, provided the CPC does particularly well in Ontario and Quebec.

Realistically, although Peloquin has a surprising degree of gumption, I imagine progress on HFR/HSR or anything else intercity will have to be championed by the Legault and Ford or whoever their successors will be. I can imagine a world where the feds will cough up money provided the provinces...

That is to say, we clearly have been doing something right. If only Government would stop standing on Via's neck...

For what it's worth, took two Amtrak trips in the past week, and while it was pleasant to move on electrified trains at higher speeds, Via's cleanliness and customer service is clearly superior.

What about just installing a bunch of Displays and Cameras? I can't imagine this would be that expensive, although it wouldn't be particularly sightly.

Also I live in a town in BC which has among the highest per capita rates of car ownership in the country, and will never have passenger rail service again. I also have relatives that have been directly (by Ford) and indirectly (as an HVAC tech) employed in manufacturing in SWO.

Just to be clear Keith, I (speaking with my economist hat on, here), like many others are not opposed to cars per se. I am opposed to the massive subsidies that are given to them implicitly and explicitly. For instance, a lot of these subsidies are given via the legal system...

The example doesn't exist because the infrastructure doesn't exist to run it on. There's a chicken and egg problem here.

5% is the important number. Even the industry association claims it's around 800,000 jobs, which is big, to be sure ( https://www.gtai.de/resource/blob/64100/8fc3cff5774c2ec699172cd823a0ec0e/20220711_IO_Automotive_WEB.pdf), but around 11% of total manufacturing employment (7.5 million). I agree...

I think the 19% figure is for Automotive's share of Manufacturing's value added (which is about 25-30% of the German total). The differences between value added and GDP reflect tariffs and subsidies for the most part, which are not order of magnitude factors in general. I suspect the 19% figure...

The American defense department purchases a lot of American made defense products, allowing the domestic industry to acquire the economies of scale and leading edge technology that have made it a very successful export industry. This is not so different than what we're talking about with the...

Supporting manufacturing doesn't have to mean supporting automotive manufacturing. Improving our ability to retain the kinds of high value added manufacturing that other rich countries do (e.g. Germany, Japan, Switzerland) requires a lot more than just throwing money at carmakers, like improving...