Business
Disney faces losing control of its kingdom with Florida bill

By Mike Schneider in Orlando
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Disney’s government in Florida has been the envy of any private business, with its unprecedented powers in deciding what to build and how to build it at the Walt Disney World Resort, issuing bonds and holding the ability to build its own nuclear plant if it wanted.
Those days are numbered as a new bill released this week puts the entertainment giant’s district firmly in the control of Florida’s governor and legislative leaders in what some see as punishment for Disney’s opposition to the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” lawchampioned by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled Legislature.
“Disney won’t like it because they’re not in control,” said Richard Foglesong, professor emeritus at Rollins College, who wrote a definitive account of Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement Districtin his book, “Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando.”
With that loss of control comes an uncertainty about how Disney’s revamped government and Walt Disney World, which it governs, will work together — whether the left hand always will be in sync with the right hand as it has been with the company overseeing both entities.
The uniqueness of Disney’ government, where building inspectors examine black box structures holding thrill rides instead of office buildings, also complicates matters. The district essentially runs a midsize city. On any given day, as many as 350,000 people are on Disney World’s 27,000 acres (11,000 hectares) as theme park visitors, overnight hotel guests or employees. The 55-year-old district has to manage the traffic, dispose of the waste and control the plentiful mosquitoes.
“What kind of control is preferable? Control by a private business or corporation, or control by appointed officials, appointed by governor of the state?” Foglesong said. “Will they have the expertise to be able to make the new district work as efficiently as the old district works?”
The bill prohibits anybody who has worked or had a contract with a theme park or entertainment complex in the past three years, or their relatives, from serving on the revamped district’s board of supervisors, a prohibition that some experts say eliminates people with expertise in the field.
The bill’s sponsor, Florida Rep. Fred Hawkins, a Republican from St. Cloud, defended the exclusion Tuesday.
“This was a provision I requested,” Hawkins said. “We want to try to avoid any conflicts of interest of the new board members.”
Under the bill’s proposals, Florida’s governor appoints the five-member board of supervisors to the renamed Central Florida Tourism Oversight District instead of Disney. Limits would be placed on the district’s autonomy by making it subject to oversight and regulation by state agencies, and it would be unable to adopt any codes that conflict with state regulations. The district also would no longer have the ability, if it wanted, to own and operate an airport, stadium, convention center or nuclear power plant.
DeSantis started gunning for Disney’s private government last year when the entertainment giant publicly opposed what critics call the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bars instruction on sexual orientation, gender identity and other lessons deemed not age-appropriate in kindergarten through third grade. Republican critics of the Disney district also argued it has given the company an unfair advantage over rivals in issuing bonds and financing expansion.
The Legislature passed a bill last year to dissolve the Disney government by June 2023.
Lawmakers are meeting this week for a special session to complete the state takeover of the district and approve other key conservative priorities of the governor on immigration and voter fraud. A Senate committee approved separate bills Tuesday to expand the governor’s migrant relocation program and allow the statewide prosecutor to bring election crime charges.
Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani, a Democrat from Orlando, calledthe Disney bill on Monday a “power grab” by DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate who has emerged as a fierce opponent of what he describes as “woke” policies on race, gender and public health. Such positions endear him to the GOP’s conservative base but threaten to alienate independents and moderate voters in both parties who are influential in presidential politics.
The changes proposed in the legislation were welcomed by at least one group of Reedy Creek employees — firefighters who have clashed in the past with district leaders. Tim Stromsnes, a spokesperson for Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters Local 2117, said all the current board cares about is “bonds and low-interest loans for building Disney infrastructure, and zero about treating its employees fairly.”
“We think they are going to be more receptive to first responders,” Stomsnes said Tuesday of the proposed new board. “They’re calling the governor a fascist for doing this … but he is actually fixing a fascist, Disney-owned government.”
To the relief of taxpayers in neighboring Orange and Osceola counties, the district won’t be dissolved, a prospect that had raised fears that the counties would have to absorb the district’s responsibilities and raise property taxes significantly. The Reedy Creek Improvement District has more than $1 billion in bond debt.
In a statement, Orange County said officials were monitoring the bill.
The new bill appears to address some key questions raised by last year’s legislation, primarily preserving the district’s ability to raise revenue and service outstanding debt, said Michael Rinaldi, head of local government ratings for Fitch Ratings.
Foglesong expects a legal challenge should the bill pass. Disney didn’t respond to an inquiry asking about any potential lawsuits.
“Disney works under a number of different models and jurisdictions around the world, and regardless of the outcome, we remain committed to providing the highest quality experience for the millions of guests who visit each year,” Jeff Vahle, president of Walt Disney World Resort, said in a statement.
Disney could make an argument that their rights as a private business are being undermined, Foglesong said.
“It will have political appeal, the arguments they make, in a Republican state for a potential presidential candidate,” Foglesong said. “It will be like, legally, ‘How can you do this to us?’ and politically, ‘How can you do this to a corporation that has done so much for the state of Florida?'”
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Associated Press writer Anthony Izaguirre in Tallahassee, Florida contributed to this report.
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Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at @MikeSchneiderAP
Business
It Took Trump To Get Canada Serious About Free Trade With Itself

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Lee Harding
Trump’s protectionism has jolted Canada into finally beginning to tear down interprovincial trade barriers
The threat of Donald Trump’s tariffs and the potential collapse of North American free trade have prompted Canada to look inward. With international trade under pressure, the country is—at last—taking meaningful steps to improve trade within its borders.
Canada’s Constitution gives provinces control over many key economic levers. While Ottawa manages international trade, the provinces regulate licensing, certification and procurement rules. These fragmented regulations have long acted as internal trade barriers, forcing companies and professionals to navigate duplicate approval processes when operating across provincial lines.
These restrictions increase costs, delay projects and limit job opportunities for businesses and workers. For consumers, they mean higher prices and fewer choices. Economists estimate that these barriers hold back up to $200 billion of Canada’s economy annually, roughly eight per cent of the country’s GDP.
Ironically, it wasn’t until after Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement that it began to address domestic trade restrictions. In 1994, the first ministers signed the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT), committing to equal treatment of bidders on provincial and municipal contracts. Subsequent regional agreements, such as Alberta and British Columbia’s Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement in 2007, and the New West Partnership that followed, expanded cooperation to include broader credential recognition and enforceable dispute resolution.
In 2017, the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) replaced the AIT to streamline trade among provinces and territories. While more ambitious in scope, the CFTA’s effectiveness has been limited by a patchwork of exemptions and slow implementation.
Now, however, Trump’s protectionism has reignited momentum to fix the problem. In recent months, provincial and territorial labour market ministers met with their federal counterpart to strengthen the CFTA. Their goal: to remove longstanding barriers and unlock the full potential of Canada’s internal market.
According to a March 5 CFTA press release, five governments have agreed to eliminate 40 exemptions they previously claimed for themselves. A June 1 deadline has been set to produce an action plan for nationwide mutual recognition of professional credentials. Ministers are also working on the mutual recognition of consumer goods, excluding food, so that if a product is approved for sale in one province, it can be sold anywhere in Canada without added red tape.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has signalled that his province won’t wait for consensus. Ontario is dropping all its CFTA exemptions, allowing medical professionals to begin practising while awaiting registration with provincial regulators.
Ontario has partnered with Nova Scotia and New Brunswick to implement mutual recognition of goods, services and registered workers. These provinces have also enabled direct-to-consumer alcohol sales, letting individuals purchase alcohol directly from producers for personal consumption.
A joint CFTA statement says other provinces intend to follow suit, except Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador.
These developments are long overdue. Confederation happened more than 150 years ago, and prohibition ended more than a century ago, yet Canadians still face barriers when trying to buy a bottle of wine from another province or find work across a provincial line.
Perhaps now, Canada will finally become the economic union it was always meant to be. Few would thank Donald Trump, but without his tariffs, this renewed urgency to break down internal trade barriers might never have emerged.
Lee Harding is a research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.
2025 Federal Election
Carney’s budget is worse than Trudeau’s

Liberal Leader Mark Carney is planning to borrow more money than former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
That’s an odd plan for a former banker because the federal government is already spending more on debt interest payments than it spends on health-care transfers to the provinces.
Let’s take a deeper look at Carney’s plan.
Carney says that his government would “spend less, invest more.”
At first glance, that might sound better than the previous decade of massive deficits and increasing debt, but does that sound like a real change?
Because if you open a thesaurus, you’ll find that “spend” and “invest” are synonyms, they mean the same thing.
And Carney’s platform shows it. Carney plans to increase government spending by $130 billion. He plans to increase the federal debt by $225 billion over the next four years. That’s about $100 billion more than Trudeau was planning borrow over the same period, according to the most recent Fall Economic Statement.
Carney is planning to waste $5.6 billion more on debt interest charges than Trudeau. Interest charges already cost taxpayers more than $1 billion per week.
The platform claims that Carney will run a budget surplus in 2028, but that’s nonsense. Because once you include the $48 billion of spending in Carney’s “capital” budget, the tiny surplus disappears, and taxpayers are stuck with more debt.
And that’s despite planning to take even more money from Canadians in years ahead. Carney’s platform shows that his carbon tariff, another carbon tax on Canadians, will cost taxpayers $500 million.
The bottom line is that government spending, no matter what pile it is put into, is just government spending. And when the government spends too much, that means it must borrow more money, and taxpayers have to pay the interest payments on that irresponsible borrowing.
Canadians don’t even believe that Carney can follow through on his watered-down plan. A majority of Canadians are skeptical that Carney will balance the operational budget in three years, according to Leger polling.
All Carney’s plan means for Canadians is more borrowing and higher debt. And taxpayers can’t afford anymore debt.
When the Liberals were first elected the debt was $616 billion. It’s projected to reach almost $1.3 trillion by the end of the year, that means the debt has more than doubled in the last decade.
Every single Canadian’s individual share of the federal debt averages about $30,000.
Interest charges on the debt are costing taxpayers $53.7 billion this year. That’s more than the government takes in GST from Canadians. That means every time you go to the grocery store, fill up your car with gas, or buy almost anything else, all that federal sales tax you pay isn’t being used for anything but paying for the government’s poor financial decisions.
Creative accounting is not the solution to get the government’s fiscal house in order. It’s spending cuts. And Carney even says this.
“The federal government has been spending too much,” said Carney. He then went on to acknowledge the huge spending growth of the government over the last decade and the ballooning of the federal bureaucracy. A serious plan to balance the budget and pay down debt includes cutting spending and slashing bureaucracy.
But the Conservatives aren’t off the hook here either. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he will balance the budget “as soon as possible,” but hasn’t told taxpayers when that is.
More debt today means higher taxes tomorrow. That’s because every dollar borrowed by the federal government must be paid back plus interest. Any party that says it wants to make life more affordable also needs a plan to start paying back the debt.
Taxpayers need a government that will commit to balancing the budget for real and start paying back debt, not one that is continuing to pile on debt and waste billions on interest charges.
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