Jock Finlayson
Federal 2022 budget shortchanges productivity improvements
The most important sentence in the 2022 federal budget appears on page 26. It references a recent study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showing that Canada will...
B.C.’s weak economic plan negating economy’s strong rebound
The BC NDP government’s 2022 Budget, tabled last month following the release of its economic plan, provides a basis for assessing how Premier John Horgan and his colleagues intend to move the...
2022 budget for B.C. needs to be grounded in sound fiscal policy
The BC NDP government’s 2022 budget will be tabled in the third week of February, which happens to coincide with the two-year anniversary of the beginning of the pandemic that continues to roil the...
B.C.’s worsening labour shortage another consequence of COVID
To some degree the seemingly endless pandemic has contributed to now widespread labour shortages and hiring challenges. It prompted some people to advance retirement plans. It led others to leave...
Pandemic, inflation, labour are key challenges for B.C.’s economy
As we approach the two-year mark of the global pandemic, several developments look likely to influence what 2022 has in store for British Columbia’s economy. The most important is the course of the...
Base B.C.’s new economic plan on fiscal realities, not PR buzzwords
Last summer, the BC NDP government retained Mariana Mazzucato, a celebrity academic who is a professor at University College London (UCL), “to advise on the future of the economy as B.C. develops a...
B.C.’s biggest export industry hit hard by NDP’s old-growth plan
The BC NDP government’s recent announcement that it intends to defer logging in 2.6 million hectares of old-growth forest has sent shock waves through the industry. It is also causing perturbations...
WorkSafeBC overhaul could have huge employer cost implications
WorkSafeBC is a complex organization that plays an important role in today’s economy. According to its website, WorksafeBC is: … a provincial agency dedicated to promoting safe and healthy workplaces...
Canada’s debt load a burden on the country’s financial well-being
An unnecessary election call followed by a dispiriting campaign hasn’t created a favourable environment in which to consider the longer-term issues that will impinge on Canada’s economic prospects....
Demographics, worker supply complicate labour shortage puzzle
As economies across most of the developed world reopen after struggling through seemingly endless months of COVID-19, the revival in labour demand has taken many employers and policymakers by...