The Ontario electricity system is the subject of a great deal of policy and political debate.

Sustainable Prosperity has prepared a submission brief to the House of Commons Finance Committee’s pre-budget consultation for 2012. This brief provides SP's perspective on the 2012 federal budget, based on SP's analysis of the measures and policies contained in the 2011 federal budget.

Sustainable Prosperity welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Québec Government's Cap-and-Trade Consultation, and commends Québec for its commitment to public engagement and consultation on an issue of critical importance to its economic and environmental prosperity.

The distributional impacts of climate policy have been examined at the regional and economic (competitiveness of different sectors) levels. This background paper is focused on the impacts at the household level.

A background report by Kaija Belfry Munroe (Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia) publishes the findings of a two-year study into business preferences for climate change instruments in Canada. Surprisingly, the study found that the business community in Canada is in favour of a price on carbon.

Sustainable Prosperity welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) 2010 discussion paper on Revenue Options, and commends the GNWT for its commitment to engagement and consultation on a possible carbon tax – an issue of critical importance to the territory’s economic, environmental, and social future.

The British Columbia government has been conducting a consultation on its proposed renewable energy feed-in-tariff regulation. In response, Sustainable Prosperity (SP) submitted the following analysis to the government on September 29th, 2010.

The objective of this paper is to lay out a framework for evaluating public investments in a transition to a low-carbon economy and low-carbon energy system.

A discussion document exploring why Canada needs to invest public resources in low carbon to compete globally, and how it can pay to do so.

SP Research Network members Tracy Snoddon and Randall Wigle (Wilfrid Laurier University) author SP-sponsored paper on Carbon Pricing in Canada.

Electricity pricing in Canada fails to fully reflect costs – and a price on carbon will only address part of the problem. As a result, investments in generation and transmission are not optimal, consumption choices are distorted and environmental outcomes are much worse than necessary.

With Canadian governments poised to move forward on climate change laws in the near future, SP has released a list of the key principles needed for effective carbon pricing – whether through a carbon tax or cap and trade.

Two different types of carbon pricing are emerging in Canada: carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems. Where the two might exist in the same jurisdiction, the implications have not been closely considered. In this report, economist Robert Joshi seeks to anticipate some of the issues a "hybrid" approach might present.

Broadening the federal excise tax to reflect environmental costs would result in substantial new revenues to the federal government that could be used to reduce inefficient taxes in the economy.