Our neighbors to the north are having problems with the global scourge known as corporate welfare. Mark Milke, a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, writes that studies showing the benefits of “industrial policy” (read: corporate welfare) are often not peer-reviewed and offer faulty analysis. His 2009 report also found that Canada has spent over $200 billion in corporate subsidies in a 14-year period. That’s a lot of maple syrup:
Canadians who don’t regularly track how governments spend money might be surprised to find how myths crop up about government expenditures. Exhibit A is a new report that claims Canada needs even more “industrial policy,” academic lingo for subsidies to business, and this as if governments had not already long practised such policy, and at a considerable cost to taxpayers.