Associate Researchers

Mark Milke

Senior Fellow

Mark Milke, Ph.D. is a political scientist, policy analyst, author and columnist with six books and dozens of studies. His newest book is The Victim Cult: How the culture of blame hurts everyone and wrecks civilizations. His work has been published by policy institutes in Canada, the United States and Europe. Mark’s policy work has touched on everything from taxes, civil rights, and private property to airline competition, insurance, aboriginal policy, government monopolies and the folly of corporate welfare. In 2018 and 2019, he was the principal policy advisor to then Alberta opposition leader Jason Kenney, and lead “architect” of the 2019 platform for the United Conservative party.

Mark’s columns appear in the Globe and Mail, National Post, Maclean’s, Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun and Winnipeg Free Press, among others. He has a Ph.D. in International Relations and Political Philosophy from University of Calgary. Mark is President of the Sir Winston Churchill Society of Calgary, the past-president of Civitas—a Society for Ideas, a past chairman of the editorial board of Canada’s Journal of Ideas C2C Journal, and a past lecturer in Political Science at the University of Calgary.

November 14, 2019

MEI – Interprovincial trade: Alberta in first place, Quebec in last – Mark Milke

November 14, 2019 | 18 min. 10 sec. | Danielle Smith Show (Global Radio) Interview with Mark Milke, independent policy analyst, about […]

November 14, 2019

4-minute read

Tear down these walls! Canada could finally become the free-trading dynamo envisioned in 1867

The best way for liberalization to happen is for a province or territory to act unilaterally to end its own barriers.

November 14, 2019

4-minute read

Internal Trade Provincial Leadership Index

While Canada continues to negotiate free trade agreements with numerous countries, the provinces maintain obstacles to trade within our own borders. The MEI and the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) have listed them from best to worst in a ranking of Canadian provinces and territories by their openness to internal trade.

June 13, 2018

14-minute read

The Carbon Market: Chasing Away Jobs and Capital without Reducing GHGs

A carbon market, like a carbon tax, aims to modify behaviours in order to reduce GHG emissions by setting a price for them. Although such mechanisms are regularly mentioned in the news, their economic consequences are less often discussed, to say nothing of their effectiveness. Does imposing a price on carbon always reduce emissions, or does it instead displace them, along with the accompanying economic activity? In the two scenarios examined here, the effect on GHG emissions would be negligible, but the economic impact would be significant.

April 30, 2018

4-minute read

Ontario is learning the wrong lessons from Quebec

Ontario is tending more and more toward the Quebec model.

April 24, 2018

5-minute read

Finances publiques : l’Ontario ressemble de plus en plus au Québec

Quebec’s public finances versus Ontario’s.

April 24, 2018

6-minute read

Ontario vs. Quebec: Whose Public Finances Are Worse?

For decades, Quebec has been known for its rotten public finances: recurrent deficits, lots of spending, and high taxes. But the provincial budgets tabled this spring by the governments of both Quebec and Ontario suggest that the latter province is now competing for the top prize in terms of financial recklessness.

June 25, 2017

4-minute read

Electric-vehicle subsidies

Programs aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by subsidizing electric cars.

June 22, 2017

14-minute read

Are Electric Vehicle Subsidies Efficient?

Ontario and Quebec have set ambitious targets aimed at reducing greenhouse gases (GHGs), respectively 37% and 37.5% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels. The transportation sector is crucial for achieving these ambitious targets, since it represents over a third of the emissions of each province. These have therefore decided to implement, among other things, subsidies to electric vehicles. But is this injection of public funds the best use of our money?

June 22, 2017

5-minute read

Le gaspillage des subventions aux voitures électriques

Programs aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by subsidizing electric cars.

December 10, 2016

4-minute read

Hidden costs of capping Albertans’ power bills

The potential impact of various proposed energy policies on consumers and taxpayers in Alberta.

August 11, 2016

7-minute read

Viewpoint – Is Ontario the New Quebec?

For decades, Quebec’s economy and the state of its public finances have been judged in comparison with Ontario. Catching up with its neighbour was a worthwhile goal, promoted by many. Over the past few years, the differences between the two most populous provinces have indeed been reduced. However, while the picture has improved somewhat in Quebec, including recent fiscal prudence on the part of the government, this narrowing of the gap does not so much reflect Quebec’s good performance as it does Ontario’s gradual decline.

August 11, 2016

6-minute read

L’Ontario adopte les mauvaises habitudes du Québec

Ontario is following the Quebec model with increasingly high levels of spending, taxation and indebtedness.

August 11, 2016

4-minute read

More debt and poorer for it: Ontario is the new Quebec

Ontario is following the Quebec model with increasingly high levels of spending, taxation and indebtedness.

May 7, 2016

4-minute read

Albertans in for a shock over power plans

The potential impact of various proposed energy policies on consumers and taxpayers in Alberta.

March 3, 2016

13-minute read

Green Energy Subsidies: Is Alberta Jumping on the Bandwagon?

In recent years, Canadian provinces have adopted various “green” energy policies that have had a discernable impact on their energy markets. Carbon levies and constraints on using certain energy sources to generate electricity are now commonplace, and their use seems to be spreading. Until recently, Alberta had avoided such policy tools. In addition, much electricity in Alberta is generated, transmitted, and sold by private market actors, and thus political interference in the market has mostly been avoided.

March 3, 2016

4-minute read

Get ready Albertans, you’re about to pay a steep bill to kill coal

The potential impact of various proposed energy policies on consumers and taxpayers in Alberta.

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Mark Milke

Senior Fellow

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