The 2004 Ontario budget has proven to be a watershed event. After months of floating policy trial balloons, the government has finally committed to a four-year fiscal plan. This Alert assesses the new fiscal plan in the light of the prior Progressive Conservative government's two terms in office, also initially devoted to deficit reduction but with a greater emphasis on tax cuts.

This paper raises several issues that have the cumulative effect of suggesting that in the long term, the prohibition on marijuana cannot be sustained with the present technology of production and enforcement. To anyone with even a passing acquaintance with modern history, it is apparent that we are reliving the experience of alcohol prohibition of the early years of the last century.

The Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools: 2004 Edition collects a variety of relevant, objective indicators of school performance into one, easily accessible public document.