Frontier Centre in the Media

Speaker Argues Against Compact Cities – April 25, 2013
Participants at a housing innovation and infrastructure forum heard a defence of detached housing and against compact cities. Wendell Cox, an international public policy consultant specializing in urban policy, transport and demographics, told the audience at the forum cities that have urban containment policies push up housing prices and make them less affordable.

Borough Takes Over Sidewalk Repairs – April 11, 2013
This year, the borough decided to take the crumbling sidewalks into its own hands. On Wednesday, it declared it would be the first in the city to hand over all responsibility for sidewalk repairs to its blue-collar workers as part of a pilot project that could spread to other services. At an estimated $300,000, the expenditure is a drop in the bucket of the borough’s overall $66-million budget.

Alberta Workers Taste Reality – April 2, 2013
Wages once virtually on par with the rest of the country became higher across all public-sector categories, in some cases substantially so, according to the study by Ben Eisen and Ken Boessenkool. (The province's 36,000 teachers are paid 20 per cent higher than their typical counterparts elsewhere in the country, according to a recent Statistics Canada study.) Alberta's public- sector salaries consumed nearly 95 per cent of the increase in provincial revenues over the decade analyzed.

Rating Property Rights – April 2, 2013
The Frontier Centre has released the first Canadian Property Rights Index. The March 14th report, written by Joseph Quesnel, was fashioned along the same basis as a U.S. property rights index, rating how each of the 13 jurisdictions in Canada handled property rights.

A Taste of Reality for Alberta’s Public Sector – April 1, 2013
There are more than a few politicians in Canada delighting in what’s happening in Alberta these days. For years, provincial leaders have been driven mad by the often obscene deals that Alberta has struck with its public-sector employees, making everyone from doctors to teachers the best paid in the country. Not surprisingly, those same professions in other provinces have used these wage benchmarks as targets of their own during contract negotiations.

Canada's Supply-Managed Stranglehold – March 25, 2013
Critics of supply management have typically focused on the high cost paid by consumers. Cami's predicament demonstrates how lost export opportunities and the stifling of agricultural innovation is harming a much broader swath of the economy. Supply management is sapping economic growth, jobs and productivity, up and down the food chain, not to mention the hit on government revenues.

With Budget Crunch Coming, Should Province Spin Off ATB? – March 5, 2013
A recent study published by the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a right-leaning think-tank, asserts that potential proceeds from a sale of ATB could be as high as $3 billion. The 16-page study, prepared by Surrey, British Columbia-based financial analyst Ian Madsen, assesses ATB's value by using two different methodologies.

Health-Care Funding Promises Ignore Reality – March 4, 2013
In her "A GP for Me" plan, Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid is promising an extra $100 million for 176,000 new patients. That works out to $568 per year per new patient, which would pay for a simple GP office visit about every three weeks for an average patient, one per month for the frail, or one visit every six weeks for complex or pregnant patients.

Author and Activist Speaks Out Against Honour Killings – March 4, 2013
Aruna Papp spent the past three decades devoted to helping Southeast Asian women in Canada and serves as research associate with the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy. She is also an outspoken advocate for women from cultures that devalue females and she is most appalled at the murders of females at the hands of their fathers and brothers.

ATB Branches May Privatize to Cover Alberta's Growing Deficit – February 27, 2013
The Alberta Treasury Branch (ATB Financial) may be sold to private ownership to subsidize Alberta's growing deficit, netting an approximate $4 billion dollars in fiscal influx to cover government expenditure.

Nelson to import American Indian Movement – February 14, 2013
A Winnipeg chapter of the American Indian Movement will be formally organized on Saturday with Nelson, the former head of the Roseau River reserve, announcing Tuesday that three of 20 positions on the Grand Governing Council will be filled in a ceremony at Thunderbird House. Nelson said the Idle No More movement has engaged aboriginals.

CBRM Sinks Lower in Think-Tank Survey – February 12, 2013
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy on Monday released the sixth annual edition of its local government performance index, which the CBRM has been a part of since the index's first year in 2008.

New Report Propels Regina to Third Place – February 12, 2013
The City of Regina, by comparison, climbed nine spots over last year to tie for third with Maple Ridge, B.C., in the Frontier Centre for Public Policy's annual Local Government Performance Index released Monday.

Mr. President: For Next Energy Czar, Choose More Carefully – February 12, 2013
President Barack Obama and the Senate must not repeat the mistake of choosing another climate activist for U.S. secretary of energy. Although well-qualified in his field of physics, outgoing Secretary Dr. Steven Chu brought a dangerously naïve vision of both climate change and America’s energy future to Washington.

Dictating Their Own Fate – January 30, 2013
Figures on aboriginal population from the 2011 census are not yet available, but the 2006 census showed nearly 1.2 million Canadians -- about 4 per cent of the population -- claim to be aboriginal. Of these, fewer than a quarter (under 400,000) live on reserves.

Warming Lies: More Ratty Data – January 22, 2013
The National Climatic Data Center wrongly declared July 2012 as America‘s hottest July ever — and hasn‘t corrected itself.

The End of Detention – January 8, 2013
Disciplinary business has changed dramatically at the St. John's, N.L., independent K-12 school since September, when Greg O'Leary became principal and joined with other teachers in a new "relational culture" at the school that feeds into a new curricular approach - one that aims to make students more accountable for their actions and helps them think about how their behaviour affects themselves and others.

'Hope springs eternal' in the realm of New Year's wishes – January 8, 2013
My third wish was for our provinces to take concrete steps to get their finances under control. Yet, once again, debt and deficits grew in every province except Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Losing Sight Of The Issues – December 21, 2012
Councillors have also spent time debating and voting on matters they have no power to actually address, whether it be banning shark-fin soup, opposing the Iraq War, or ending the NHL lockout -- just this week, a Vancouver city councillor put forward a motion to write a letter to the NHL and the players' association urging them to end the standoff (it passed).

Calgarians Deserve Details on Swollen Project Prices – December 21, 2012
Whatever the process for tallying up a $1.4-billion bill, the West LRT still ranks as an insanely costly project, at $190 million per kilometre of track, or $42,000 and change per estimated daily rider according to a review done by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.