AIMS // Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

Weighing in on the renewed debate over whether Nova Scotia should deregulate gas prices, AIMS President and CEO Charles Cirtwill says regulation leads to bigger profits for gas stations, oil companies and the provincial government.

The newsletter produced each week by Canada's Embassy in Washington features AIMS' paper on spectrum licences.

A dispute brewing over natual gas distribution and costs in New Brunswick is an example of what happens when government interfers. In this article, AIMS President & CEO explains what went wrong.

As speculation mounts that Quebec Hydro is going to buy NB Power, AIMS incoming President Charles Cirtwill has a warning. He says while New Brunswick should privatize the utility, selling it to another province's crown corporation would not be good for New Brunswickers.

In 2003, automobile insurance became a "hot button" topic, threatening to bring down provincial governments in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is an issue full of emotion, but in this submission to the New Brunswick Government Select Committee on Public Automobile Insurance, AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley argues that the idea of putting car insurance into the public sector, is not be all its cracked up to be.

Insurance, particularly auto insurance, has been a “hot” issue over the past year. Emotions have been running high and that leaves people vulnerable to the latest scheme that sounds like it will solve the problem with the wave of a magic wand.

The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies estimates that across our region, consumers have paid $155 million more than if gasoline markets had remained unregulated.

In this op-ed that appeared in numerous Atlantic newspapers, AIMS' author Gordon Weil provides tips on how governments can do the energy deals even better.

AIMS' Commentary on the need to reform regulations covering the interprovincial and international transmission of electricity made the front page of the New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal.

Auto insurance today an issue laden with emotion. But, as we have seen repeatedly, emotion is never a good basis on which to reconcile complex public policy issues. This is especially true when the costs of an ill-considered and hurried decision are likely to be with us for a very long time. State-run insurance schemes cannot be invoked out of thin air. There are hundreds of millions of dollars in start-up costs. AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley looks at this highly charged issue from the Atlantic Canadian perspective.

As AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley writes in his bi-monthly newspaper column, everyone hates paying high prices for gasoline and heating oil. They hit the poor harder than everybody else; they wreak havoc with family and business budgets. Perhaps worst of all, they seem to happen without rhyme or reason, like bolts of lightning out of a clear winter sky. Quite understandably, then, these price rises provoke fear, anger and suspicion of the oil and gas companies that are their authors. But before we rush off to embrace the responses that many people propose to solve this problem, we had better be sure exactly what the problem is and what all the consequences would be of, say, letting governments fix the price of gas.

Is gas price regulation worth the millions we pay?

OECD prescription for Canada’s economic health mirrors AIMS’ work in equalization, EI, federal-provincial relations & more.

Retail price support would cost Nova Scotians

AIMS in partnership with Tech Central Station and the Toronto Insurance Conference hosted Risk: Regulation & Reality, a conference exploring the role and influence of risk in our society.

The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies presented two breakfast talks with one of the world’s foremost authorities on the impact of environmental activism - Paul Driessen.

An invitation to hear Edmonton Superintendent of Schools to speak at an AIMS event, the debate over nationalized auto insurance and Brian Lee Crowley on the future of work in Nova Scotia.

AIMS Releases first Report Card On Atlantic High Schools, Peter Fenwick on Newfoundland's Failed Welfare Reform, Atlantic Canada and the Canada - US Border of the Future, Immigrants and Atlantic Canada, AIMS before Commons Committee and AIMS' Swedish health care project garners national attention.