Patrick Brethour
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Editorials editor @globeandmail, channeling his inner Junius
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Articles by Patrick Brethour
Diagnosing what’s wrong with Canada’s immigration system
Please log in to bookmark this story. Immigration policy indirectly shapes a lot of aspects of Canadian life: the economy, the housing market, the labour force. And in 2024, the federal government made a major policy change by cutting immigration targets. In doing so, it acknowledged that the balance they had previously struck was not quite right. So The Globe and Mail’s Editorial Board studied the issue and looked at ways Canada can improve the system and restore the balance.
Politics Briefing: Trudeau had ‘epic battle’ with former finance minister over budget spending, new book says
Ottawa’s hiring spree is beyond measure
There are charts galore in the Clerk of the Privy Council’s annual report to the prime minister on the state of the federal civil service, and much discussion about mission and morale. But nowhere in the 39-page report, which was shared publicly in late August, is there any analysis of one of the most important trends affecting the federal public service: the multiyear hiring spree that has swollen the ranks of civil servants by nearly a third since the federal Liberals came to power in 2015.
Politics Briefing: Russian aggression and climate change are changing Arctic dynamics, PM and NATO Secretary General say
How Pierre Poilievre is trying to bring complex issue of marginal effective tax rates to the fore
The intricacies of marginal effective tax rates don’t usually – or ever – take centre stage in political campaigns, but Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre is pushing that concept as part of a pitch for broad tax reform. In Twitter videos posted over the last week, Mr. Poilievre talks about the problems that result when clawbacks of income-tested government benefits pile on top of income and payroll taxes.
Why Ontario’s health care budget won’t keep pace with inflation and population growth
The woes of Ontario’s health care system this summer, with emergency rooms forced to curtail operations, are just a prequel to the cost pressures that are set to build in the province over the next two years. The provincial government is planning on a rapid deceleration in the growth of health care spending through to fiscal 2025.
Grocery stores not guilty of greed-flation, quarterly reports show
RIP, corporate greed. As inflation took off this spring, progressive critics pointed to “greed-flation,” arguing that avaricious grocery and energy companies were bilking consumers by sneakily boosting their prices beyond what was justified by their own rising costs. But the most recent quarterly reports show that profit margins at major grocers have either dipped or stayed flat – and never really moved outside of recent average levels.
The misery index returns, with more still to come
The misery index, that unhappy sum of inflation and unemployment rates, has surged to heights last seen three decades ago. Sharply higher inflation is driving that rise, for now. But the misery index – which aims to distill down to a single number the economic pain caused by rising prices and job losses – is likely to go higher still in the coming months, as the Bank of Canada’s aggressive interest-rate hikes start to weigh down the economy and push unemployment up from its historic low.
Ottawa leaves door open for provinces to cut fuel taxes
The federal Liberals are leaving the door open for the provinces to cut their fuel taxes without fear of Ottawa neutralizing that reduction with a higher federal fuel charge under carbon pricing. Previously, the Liberal government had been dropping not-so-subtle hints that provincial fuel tax cuts were a no-no. A more stringent benchmark system for federal carbon pricing comes into effect next year.
Premiers say Ottawa is shortchanging them on health care, but their complaints aren’t based on reality
Premiers are complaining, once more, that Ottawa is shortchanging them on paying for health care. In Victoria this week, the premiers reiterated their demand that the federal government increase its cash contribution to 35 per cent of health care costs from 22 per cent, a demand that comes with a $28-billion price tag. For much of the past decade, that complaint about federal parsimony hasn’t had much basis in reality.
How Shinzo Abe’s ‘three arrows’ vision revitalized a withering Japanese economy
Shinzo Abe often framed his economic vision as a policy bundle of “three arrows”: an integration of fiscal stimulus, loose money and structural reform that together would snap Japan out of its prolonged stagnation. In doing so, the former prime minister drew on the Japanese folk story of three brothers, each given an arrow. Separately, their arrows could be easily snapped; together, the arrows – and the brothers – were unbreakable.
Closing the ‘grey gap’ could provide solutions to labour shortage
Hundreds of thousands of experienced workers are on the sidelines, even as a labour shortage tightens its grip on the Canadian economy. Immigration has been touted as a solution, but that process would take months or years, even without mounting backlogs. Subsidized child care will add to the labour pool, but that expanded national system will take several years to fully roll out.
Ottawa’s stale anti-inflation plan offers nothing new to struggling Canadians
The Trudeau government recognized the growing peril that surging inflation posed to the economy and to the household budgets of Canadians. “The widespread expectation six months ago that the tide of world inflation would begin to recede this year has been frustrated,” the finance minister said. The rising cost of oil and fertilizer was a global problem. “But we have a duty as a nation to keep our own house in order,” the minister added.
Despite government’s rosy view, indexed pensions and benefits are not keeping up with inflation
The Liberals have consistently touted the inflation proofing of federal benefits as a protection against the rapidly rising cost of living, and a political defence of their economic management. Last December, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland responded to questioning on inflation by pointing to the indexation system for federal benefits.
How Canada’s regulated dairy prices have milked consumers
The cost of milk is rising at its fastest clip in years, propelled by a big annual hike in the benchmark regulated price in Canada’s supply management system. And now, dairy farmers are asking for an unusual mid-year increase that, if approved, is certain to push retail prices even higher. That may seem like a slam-dunk condemnation of Canada’s tightly regulated dairy market, with its production quotas, government-dictated prices and even a butter-storage surcharge.
The Ontario election willfully ignored the undeniable economic challenges bearing down on the province
The Ontario economy is sailing along smoothly, with the rebound from the pandemic recession well under way. Two years after the dizzying economic whirlwind of the first lockdown, the jobs market is surging, and employers are now complaining of a shortage of workers. The province’s once-enormous budget deficit has contracted sharply, and revenues are growing quickly, in part propelled by the effects of inflation. And Ontario’s economy is growing at a pace not seen in more than two decades.
Drop in Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy payments in 2020 driven by changes to program, not rebounding economy
Payments under the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy hit a peak in the summer of 2020, and then declined rapidly after tighter COVID-19 restrictions resumed in the fall and winter, data on claims show. The pattern of payments indicates that disbursements were driven more by changes in the rules of the program than the state of the pandemic and the economy.
NDP’s claim of grocery store price-gouging doesn’t check out
The federal NDP says corporate greed is driving up food prices as Big Grocery gouges consumers to swell its profits. Higher corporate taxes are the solution, Leader Jagmeet Singh says, echoing calls from left-leaning politicians in the United States. “When the price of groceries skyrocket, it’s not you who benefits,” Mr. Singh wrote in a tweet in late April, commenting on increased second-quarter profit at Metro Inc.
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