With long-term housing affordability continuing to be a concern in major cities across the country, New Homes and Red Tape: Residential Land-Use Regulation in Alberta’s Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is the Institute’s first ever survey of Alberta homebuilders. It compares and ranks jurisdictions across the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor (CEC) on several categories of red tape (construction approval times, density opposition, 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 Rocky View County and the City of Calgary are the most regulated municipalities in the CEC and consequently the most difficult in which to build new housing.

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.