THE PERCENTAGE OF ONTARIANS LIVING IN LOW-INCOME EXCEEDED THE NATIONAL AVERAGE FOR THE FIFTH STRAIGHT YEAR.

To compound the problem, food banks “with limited budgets are finding it increasingly difficult to pay the monthly hydro bill as well.”

Of course, there’s a connection between those rising expenses and people losing income. The food bank association noted that “food bank use began to skyrocket” as a result of the province bleeding manufacturing jobs, an unhappy result from the same bad Liberal policies. A study by energy economists Ross McKitrick and Elmira Aliakbari found that from 2008 to 2015, Ontario’s reckless energy policy was responsible for killing 75,000 manufacturing jobs.

Even when the Ontario government is claiming to help the poor, they are doing more harm than good. The best example is the Liberals aggressive increases to the minimum wage. A study published in 2014 by a government-sponsored think tank (which was established by Ontario’s Liberal McGuinty government in 2012), concluded that the “Canadian evidence is more in agreement that minimum wages have no effect on reducing poverty and may even exacerbate poverty slightly.”

Morley Gunderson, a labour economist at the University of Toronto and author of the study, wrote that increasing “minimum wages results in greater unemployment, and unemployment reduces total family income, pushing more families into poverty or making those who were already poor, worse off.”

When Ontario’s Liberal government announced last year that the minimum wage would be hiked from $11.40 to $15, the province’s Financial Accountability Office predicted 50,000 job losses, and its analysis labelled the minimum wage as both an inefficient and ineffective tool for reducing poverty. Other estimates were even gloomier: TD Bank predicted 80,000 to 90,000 jobs would be destroyed, while National Bank estimated 124,000 jobs would be lost.

As Ontario restaurants have already had to raise prices to deal with the minimum wage hike, another cycle promoting poverty continues. In addition to making food more expensive for poor families, the sure result of more expensive restaurant meals is that fewer meals will be sold. If fewer meals are sold, then there will be fewer restaurant workers with jobs. These are the same workers the Liberals claim to be helping with their policies. law. Alberta appears to have little economic incentive to hold back exports. However much Alberta purports to provide cover, by referring to prosperity or the maximization of returns, Bill 12’s principal purpose is to economically harm a recalcitrant province for interfering with Alberta’s ability to get its oil to port.

It also is unlikely that Alberta has authority to enact this law under Section 92A of the Constitution Act 1982. This newer section of the Constitution confers upon provinces the authority to make laws regarding the export of natural resources. Provinces are not authorized by the express terms of 92A to discriminate in “supplies exported to another part of Canada.” It would be difficult to argue Bill 12’s primary purpose is not punitive and therefore discriminatory.

There is a fair amount the Constitution can do to promote Canada’s economic union short of constitutionalizing free trade. There simply is no need for constitutional self-flagellation. Canada’s constitutional culture enables muscular provincial authority but disables power on those rare occasions when governments exceed traditional constitutional limits.