Who was Barbara Mitchell?
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Human Freedom Index

Human Freedom Index: A Global Measurement of Personal, Civil, and Economic Freedom compares the level of human freedom in 152 countries using 76 indicators in areas that include freedom of speech, religion, individual economic choice, and women’s freedoms. It finds that Canada ranks sixth in the world while the United States ranks 20th.

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Safety in the Transportation of Oil and Gas

Utilizing newly compiled data from Canada’s Transportation Safety Board (TSB) and Transport Canada, Safety in the Transportation of Oil and Gas: Pipelines or Rail? finds that the rate of occurrences (incidents or accidents) per million barrels of oil transported is more than 4.5 times higher for rail than it is for pipelines for the period 2003-2013.

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Lessons for Ontario and Canada from Forced Retirement Saving Mandates in Australia

Lessons for Ontario and Canada from Forced Retirement Saving Mandates in Australia examines the options available to the Ontario government for designing its mandatory provincial pension program.  Specifically, it notes that Australia’s system of forced individual retirement saving accounts — which more closely resemble Canada’s RRSP’s — could serve as a model instead of the Canada Pension Plan.

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Income Inequality Measurement Sensitivities measures income inequality in Canada over the past three decades revealing how different definitions of income and households influence results. Specifically, it finds that contrary to the chorus of media headlines, Canada has only seen modest increases in income inequality among families since the 1980s.

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Economic Freedom, Individual Perceptions of Life Control and Life Satisfaction

Economic Freedom, Individual Perceptions of Life Control, and Life Satisfaction explores the positive relationship between a country’s level of economic freedom and its population’s level of life satisfaction (or happiness). It finds that living in an economically free country actually plays a greater role in one’s life satisfaction than does income, age, employment or even a country’s political system.

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In light of recent calls for an expanded Canada Pension Plan and a provincial pension plan in Ontario, Compulsory Government Pensions vs. Private Savings: The Effect of Previous Expansion to the Canada Pension Plan spotlights some of the unintended hazards of an increase in forced retirement savings.  Specifically, the study finds that past increases in mandatory CPP contributions were followed by a decrease in private voluntary savings among Canadian households.

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New Homes and Red Tape: Residential Land-Use Regulation in BC’s Lower Mainland

Amid increasing concerns about housing affordability in the Lower Mainland, New Homes and Red Tape: Residential Land-Use Regulation in BC’s Lower Mainland is the Fraser Institute’s first ever survey of Metro Vancouver homebuilders. It compares and ranks jurisdictions across the region on several categories of red tape (construction approval times, timeline uncertainty, regulatory costs and fees, rezoning prevalence and the effect council and community groups have on development) based on the experiences and opinions of industry professionals. The survey — which is part of a broader effort to understand the effects of land-use regulation on Canadian housing supply — finds that the District of North Vancouver and the City of Vancouver are the most regulated municipalities in the Lower Mainland and consequently the most difficult in which to build new housing.

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