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Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau

Financial Post

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Matthew Lau: When government pays for things, their cost usually goes up, not down

Lowering Canadians' costs is all the rage this budget season. Except that government providing more things doesn't actually do that You can save this...

wednesday 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Memo to Trudeau, Loblaw and other grocers are already fiercely competing

International grocery chains don't come here, because prices are already 'good' You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if...

19.04.2024 7

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Liberal hike to job-killing capital gains tax is inexcusable

It serves to make Canada's tax system more equally punitive You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account....

18.04.2024 7

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: California state auditor itemizes government failure on homelessness

Divided responsibilities and many layers of administration explain why the problem has grown as much as public spending to address it You can save...

16.04.2024 8

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Child care wait lists signal failure, not success

Ottawa concedes its national daycare plan means more parents are queuing for care. That always happens when governments take over markets You can save...

11.04.2024 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Manitoba NDP's ban on 'scab labour' would be good for unions, but bad for workers

The new rules would benefit politically powerful middle-class unionized workers by oppressing those at the bottom You can save this article by...

10.04.2024 7

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Ottawa’s hostile takeover has put child care in dire straits

With the revenue constraints Ottawa's new regime imposes, it's hard to keep up the high quality standards many daycares have established You can save...

09.04.2024 7

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Tory competition policy needs to channel Milton Friedman

Fiddling with the number of competitors often reduces competition. The best way to increase consumer choice is with complete free trade You can save...

02.04.2024 7

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: April 1 minimum wage hikes will do no favours for workers

Raise the price of something, Economics 101 teaches, and people buy less of it. That's no exception when the something is people's labour You can save...

27.03.2024 8

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Justin Trudeau lauds market economics and other unlikely tales

It's more likely that Don Cherry will become emperor of Japan than the Liberals will stop 'heavy-handed' picking of winners and losers Justin...

19.03.2024 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: The Milton Friedman app isn't bad. Reading Friedman is much better

AI does a surprisingly good job in some roles but for good economic analysis, it's best to study the great thinkers in the original Artificial...

12.03.2024 5

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Rapid public-sector growth means flat living standards for us

The Trudeau government’s aggressive regulatory initiatives and tax-and-spend agenda have severely harmed Canada’s investment climate Canada’s...

06.03.2024 40

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

LAU: Ford government’s tuition freeze doubles down on failed policies

The government should reduce spending on universities and colleges Ontario’s university sector is in crisis. Subscribe now to read the latest news...

01.03.2024 6

Toronto Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Ford government’s tuition freeze doubles down on failed policies

The government should reduce spending on universities and colleges Ontario’s university sector is in crisis. Subscribe now to read the latest news...

29.02.2024 9

Winnipeg Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Ford government’s tuition freeze doubles down on failed policies

29.02.2024 5

Ottawa Sun

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Failing national daycare is Liberals’ fault, not anyone else’s

Ottawa's new $10-a-day daycare is causing shortages everywhere, not just in the Conservative provinces the federal Liberals want to blame As the...

21.02.2024 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Jonathan Tavares the latest victim of Canada's self-defeating tax regime

High taxes already discourage athletes, doctors and entrepreneurs from choosing Canada — and now, CRA wants another $8M from Leafs captain Many...

13.02.2024 10

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Don't tax grocers, shut government food ministries

Surtaxes on grocery chain profits won't lower food prices. But shutting agriculture ministries would save money and improve efficiency Many Canadians...

13.02.2024 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: If foreign grocers do come to Canada, will Ottawa persecute them too?

Trudeau’s industrial policy an embarrassing spectacle The Trudeau government’s industrial policy is such an embarrassing spectacle it is...

06.02.2024 7

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

LAU: Chow eyes police budget cuts while crime rises

Olivia Chow just delivered her first budget as Toronto’s mayor, to be voted on by city council on Feb. 14, but it’s clear her priorities aren’t...

05.02.2024 6

Toronto Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Chow eyes police budget cuts while crime rises

Olivia Chow just delivered her first budget as Toronto’s mayor, to be voted on by city council on Feb. 14, but it’s clear her priorities aren’t...

05.02.2024 10

Winnipeg Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Chow eyes police budget cuts while crime rises

05.02.2024 8

Ottawa Sun

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Alberta daycares brace for losses as Trudeau deal kicks in

Average child-care operator expected to see earnings halve under Liberals' $10-per-day program — a natural outcome of central planning Prime...

03.02.2024 10

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Canadians are overtaxed and underserved

What's left of your annual bonus after tax and what does it get you? A colleague lamented last week, on receiving his annual bonus, that he saw only...

31.01.2024 6

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: What CEOs earn is shareholders’ business and nobody else’s

Where there are more higher-paid CEOs in Canada, average wages are higher. So much for evil capitalism Every January, the Canadian Centre for Policy...

23.01.2024 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau cranks up spending but Canadians are worse off

“If spending money like water was the answer to our country’s problems,” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1980, less than two years...

18.01.2024 6

Edmonton Sun

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Higher education would benefit from lower subsidies

Ontario universities get big subsidies and have had their tuition frozen for years. The government should end that According to Steve Orsini,...

17.01.2024 6

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau cranks up spending but Canadians are worse off

“If spending money like water was the answer to our country’s problems,” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1980, less than two years...

17.01.2024 10

Toronto Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau cranks up spending but Canadians are worse off

“If spending money like water was the answer to our country’s problems,” Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in 1980, less than two years...

17.01.2024 5

Winnipeg Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau cranks up spending but Canadians are worse off

17.01.2024 3

Ottawa Sun

Matthew Lau

Trudeau government consistently spends beyond high spending targets

As budget season approaches, one thing is clear. If the Trudeau government is notable for planning astonishingly high levels of spending, it’s...

15.01.2024 6

BIV

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: The Alberta government's disastrous child-care takeover

New agreement is saddling province’s child-care entrepreneurs with heavy administrative costs and severe revenue cuts The government takeover of...

12.01.2024 10

National Post

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau-Smith child-care system squeezing private operators

The Trudeau government’s vision for national $10-per-day child care, which is openly hostile to the private for-profit sector, remains a calamity...

11.01.2024 7

Edmonton Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau-Smith child-care system squeezing private operators

The Trudeau government’s vision for national $10-per-day child care, which is openly hostile to the private for-profit sector, remains a calamity...

10.01.2024 10

Winnipeg Sun

Matthew Lau

LAU: Trudeau-Smith child-care system squeezing private operators

10.01.2024 9

Calgary Sun

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Budget advice for the Trudeau Liberals: Cut spending!

Ottawa's survey on how to spur economic growth wants you to check off its boutique problems. Better to answer with 'none of the above' The federal...

10.01.2024 30

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Steven Guilbeault, 'policy-maker of the year,' is killing economic growth

Environment minister shackling economy with new rules for clean fuels and electricity and caps on oil and gas emissions The Ottawa-based...

04.01.2024 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Liberal government failures going from bad to worse

From foreign policy to child care to ideological renaming to math and literacy scoresm there's lots of room for improvement in 2024 We are all...

02.01.2024 9

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Hockey's GOAT was Gretzky. Economics' was Friedman

You could say Milton Friedman benefitted from his era, but life isn’t fair and neither is the GOAT competition Tyler Cowen has written a book on the...

20.12.2023 8

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Trudeau's dental plan subsidizes those who don't brush their teeth

The Liberal transformation into the NDP is near complete Justin Trudeau’s transformation of the Liberals into the NDP continues apace, and I’m not...

19.12.2023 8

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: This Christmas music is worth listening to

Anything by a choir is fine but songs like Winter Wonderland that don't even mention Christmas should be shunned Christmas music now fills the air. As...

13.12.2023 4

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: The case for tax hikes to redistribute income is much weaker than many think

Tax enthusiasts forget that real-world taxpayers react by minimizing their taxes owing Government redistribution of income is fashionable in many...

08.12.2023 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Government-run daycare isn't delivering. Is anyone surprised?

Ottawa’s takeover of childcare and its push to destroy private businesses continues to be a major disaster for Canadians The federal government’s...

06.12.2023 8

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Liberal scab ban will only line union pockets, at everyone else's expense

Unions line their own pockets while wasting tax dollars, reducing employment and productivity Governments never need help coming up with nefarious...

30.11.2023 8

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: The Liberals have redefined 'restraint' and 'investment'

Freeland and Trudeau say they practiced fiscal virtues but they're speaking a different language than the rest of us Ahead of last week’s Fall...

29.11.2023 5

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Here’s a laugh: Ottawa claiming it supports entrepreneurship

Ottawa subsidizes entrepreneurship but only when performed by demographic groups it thinks deserve support Last week, Justin Trudeau put out a...

21.11.2023 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Trudeau Liberals economic update will make the bad even uglier

The government has spent and regulated the country into ruin In the federal government’s 2023 fall economic statement, to be presented by Chrystia...

20.11.2023 9

National Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: In progressive heaven, everything is tax-financed and union-produced

Feminist Ottawa hits private day care twice, subsidizing competitors and pushing up costs, which hits many female operators hard The federal...

15.11.2023 10

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Reduce racism with more capitalism, less government

Discriminating against people is an extra cost for businesses, which hurts their competitive position in the marketplace Government anti-racism...

08.11.2023 7

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

Matthew Lau: Where is the evidence that Canada is systemically racist?

White men earn less income than four of 11 visible minorities, white women less than seven of 11. It's hard to see discrimination in that The idea...

03.11.2023 7

Financial Post

Matthew Lau

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