By David Clinton

Shaping Government Spending Choices to Reflect Taxpayer Preferences

Technically, the word “democracy” means “rule of the people”. But we all know that the ability to throw the bums out every few years is a poor substitute for “rule”. And as I’ve already demonstrated, the last set of bums you sent to Ottawa are 19 times more likely than not to simply vote along party lines. So who they are as individuals barely even matters.

This story isn’t new, and it hasn’t even got a decent villain. But it is about a universal weakness inherent in all modern, nation-scale democracies. After all, complex societies governed by hundreds of thousands of public servants who are responsible for spending trillions of dollars can’t realistically account for millions of individual voices. How could you even meaningfully process so many opinions?

Hang on. It’s 2025. These days, meaningfully processing lots of data is what we do. And the challenge of reliably collecting and administrating those opinions is trivial. I’m not suggesting we descend into some hellish form of governance by opinion poll. But I do wonder why we haven’t tried something that’s far more focused, measured, and verifiable: directed revenue spending.

Self-directed income tax payments? Crazy, no? Except that we’ve been doing it in Ontario for at least 60 years. We (sometimes) get to choose which of five school boards – English public, French public, English separate (Catholic), French separate (Catholic), or Protestant separate (Penetanguishene only) – will receive the education portion of our property tax.

Here’s how it could work. A set amount – perhaps 20 percent of the total federal tax you owe – would be considered discretionary. The T1 tax form could include the names of, say, ten spending programs next to numeric boxes. You would enter the percentage of the total discretionary portion of your income tax that you’d like directed to each program with the total of all ten boxes adding up to 100.

The specific programs made available might change from one year to the next. Some might appear only once every few years. That way, the departments responsible for executing the programs wouldn’t have to deal with unpredictable funding. But what’s more important, governments would have ongoing insights into what their constituents actually wanted them to be doing. If they disagreed, a government could up their game and do a better job explaining their preferences. Or it could just give up and follow the will of their taxpayers.

Since there would only be a limited number of pre-set options available, you wouldn’t have to worry about crackpot suggestions (“Nuke Amurika!”) or even reasoned and well-meaning protest campaigns (“Nuke Ottawa!”) taking over. And since everyone who files a tax form has to participate, you won’t have to worry about a small number of squeaky wheels dominating the public discourse.

Why would any governing party go along with such a plan? Well, they almost certainly won’t if that’s any comfort. Nevertheless, in theory at least, they could gain significant political legitimacy were their program preferences to receive overwhelming public support. And if politicians and civil servants truly believed they toil in the service of the people of Canada, they should be curious about what the people of Canada actually want.

What could go wrong?

Well the complexity involved with adding a new layer of constraints to spending planning can’t be lightly dismissed. And there’s always the risk that activists could learn to game the system by shaping mass movements through manipulative online messaging. The fact that wealthy taxpayers will have a disproportionate impact on spending also shouldn’t be ignored. Although, having said that, I’m not convinced that the voices of high-end taxpayers are less valuable than those of the paid lobbyists and PMO influencers who currently get all the attention.

Those are serious considerations. I’m decidedly less concerned about some other possible objections:

• The risk that taxpayers might demonstrate a preference for short term fixes or glamour projects over important long term wonkish needs (like debt servicing) rings hollow. Couldn’t those words just as easily describe the way many government departments already behave?
• Couldn’t taxpayer choices be influenced by dangerous misinformation campaigns? Allowing for the fact the words “misinformation campaign” make me nervous, that’s certainly possible. But I’m aware of no research demonstrating that, as a class, politicians and civil servants are somehow less susceptible to such influences.
• Won’t such a program allow governments to deflect responsibility for their actions? Hah! I spit in your face in rueful disdain! When was the last time any government official actually took responsibility (or even lost a job) over stupid decisions?
• Won’t restricting access to a large segment of funds make it harder to respond to time-sensitive emergencies? There are already plenty of political and policy-based constraints on emergency spending choices. There’s no reason this program couldn’t be structured intelligently enough to prevent appropriate responses to a genuine emergency.

This idea has no more chance of being applied as some of the crazy zero-tax ideas from my previous post. But things certainly aren’t perfect right now, and throwing some fresh ideas into the mix can’t hurt.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Maureen McCall

With U.S. tariffs looming, Premiers push for border security, pipelines, and interprovincial trade reform

After more than eight years of federal policies that have challenged the oil and gas industry, imagining Canadian energy policy in a post-Trudeau era is no easy task.

However, recent meetings addressing the threat of United States tariffs may offer hope for revisiting energy policies through provincial collaboration.

The January 2025 Council of the Federation meetings, attended by all 13 provincial and territorial premiers, produced several key value propositions.

• After spending a week in Washington, D.C., meeting with Donald Trump and his administration, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith highlighted the provinces’ resource strengths.
• British Columbia can leverage germanium—a critical mineral essential in defence applications that China will no longer export to the U.S.
• Saskatchewan’s uranium supply offers an alternative to reliance on Kazakhstan and Russia.
• Canadian provinces can provide resources that align with U.S. energy goals.

Any provincial initiatives must also address U.S. priorities, including tighter border security and increased defence spending.

To meet U.S. energy security needs, Canada must remove policy barriers hindering development. Policies like the Clean Energy Regulations (CER), the emissions cap, and the net-zero vehicle mandate (starting January 2026) are significant challenges. Provinces must collaborate to amend or remove these policies, ensuring they do not survive the next federal election. Alberta and Saskatchewan have already opposed the CER, and the proposed emissions cap remains under review.

The federal government acknowledges that these policies must be re-evaluated to avoid obstructing shared energy goals, including:

• carbon pollution pricing
• methane regulations
• clean fuel standards
• carbon capture incentives
• emissions reduction funding
• clean growth programs
• best-in-class guidelines for new oil and gas projects under federal review.

The U.S.’s energy deficit—20 million barrels consumed daily versus 13 million produced—creates an opportunity for Canada. Achieving this requires dismantling interprovincial trade barriers and developing infrastructure projects from coast to coast. The Council meetings have initiated such collaboration, with ongoing bilateral discussions expected. Infrastructure projects like pipelines to the East and West coasts would enable Canada to supply the U.S. and other global markets, reducing reliance on hostile regimes.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey stated: “I see energy as Canada’s queen in the game of chess. We don’t need to expose our queen this early. The opposition needs to know that the queen exists, but they don’t need to know what we’re going to do with the queen.”

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have rejected measures that would affect Canada’s energy exports to the U.S.

“When you look at the pipeline system, how oil is actually transported into the U.S. and back into Canada,” Moe said, “it would be very difficult, and I think impossible operationally to even consider.” Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew emphasized the importance of national unity, stating that energy decisions must not fracture the country. Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned that tariffs could cost Ontario 500,000 jobs, while P.E.I. Premier Dennis King noted that tariffs could cost 25 per cent of P.E.I.’s GDP and 14,000 jobs—a catastrophic loss for the province.

The Council meetings highlighted three key priorities:

• Demonstrate Canada’s commitment to border security and meet its two per cent GDP NATO target.
• Build oil and gas pipelines east and west to diversify markets and remove interprovincial trade barriers, enabling a stronger national economy.
• Secure provincial consent before imposing export tariffs or restrictions that could harm individual provinces.

This emerging consensus underscores that Canada’s energy future depends on proactive, constructive diplomacy with U.S. lawmakers, supported by a unified provincial front and practical energy policies that benefit both nations.

Maureen McCall is an energy business analyst and Fellow at the Frontier Center for Public Policy. She writes on energy issues for EnergyNow and the BOE Report. She has 20 years of experience as a business analyst for national and international energy companies in Canada.