Don Drummond’s report on Ontario’s finances.

The Canadian health care system is an oddity among developed countries in that the public sector is not only responsible for most of the financing of the health care system, but also has a near complete monopoly on the delivery of hospital care. In Europe, where public financing is as prevalent as in Canada, if not more so, the private for-profit sector has an extensive role to play in delivering service.

Changes in life expectancy and the way we manage our pension programs.

Health care transfers to the provinces and territories.

Op-ed published exclusively on the Montreal Economic Institute's website.

The potential of entrepreneurial initiatives in health care.

For the past fifteen years, increases in health care spending have outpaced the growth of the Canadian economy. As a result, this spending takes up an increasing share of government budgets. The share of provincial and territorial program spending taken up by health care expenditures reached 37.7% in 2010. Not all sources of increased spending should be viewed as problems, of course. New medical technologies, for instance, even if sometimes quite expensive, can provide valuable services, and perhaps reduce other costs.

Taxing junk food to prevent and fight obesity.

The promotional activities of pharmaceutical companies are regularly the target of criticism. Certain commentators imply that these businesses as a group devote too many resources to the promotion of their products, at the expense of their investments in research and development (R&D). Others maintain that these promotional activities alter the prescribing habits of doctors, which leads to a needless or even harmful rise in the consumption of drugs. Do these criticisms stand up to scrutiny?

Obesity: A new tax won't change our eating habits.