AIMS // Atlantic Institute for Market Studies

AIMS releases 2nd Annual Nova Scotia Municipal Performance Report.

AIMS Policy Analyst Jamie Newman says the 2nd Annual Nova Scotia Municipal Performance Report should be used to show citizens where their tax money is being spent so that they may hold government to account.

AIMS' 2nd Annual Nova Scotia Municipal Performance Report is discussed.

Results of AIMS' 2nd Annual Nova Scotia Municipal Performance Report are discussed. Stellarton finished top overall, while Pictou received mention for having the lowest cost for transportation services and Trenton was considered the most effective in governance and finance.

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AIMS Municipal Performance Report for New Brunswick has generated debate in Saint John. This editorial in the Telegraph Journal In this article Saint John encourages city councillors to use the report to improve the city's fiscal health.

Saint John residents agree with the AIMS New Brunswick Municipal Performance Report and feel council needs to do something to improve their city. Residents think council should look to smaller municipalities for suggestions as they seem to have performed much better.

Learn how efficient and effective New Brunswick municipalities are at providing services at a reasonable cost to residents.

AIMS first annual performance report grades municipalities in Nova Scotia on how efficiently and effectively they provide service to residents.

Nova Scotia municipal performance neither great nor terrible

At the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Capital Cities Organization in Fredericton on September 14, 2002, Dr. Michael J. MacDonald, AIMS’ Senior Fellow, was invited to present the keynote address on the future of Canada's cities. The debate on the role of Canada's cities within the federation and on ways to fund future investment in infrastructure and services is a major issue as Parliament begins a new session in the Autumn of this year. Trapped in a Victorian political structure that ignores the dynamic role of Canada's cities in the national and global economies, these urban municipalities now account for more than 80% of Canada's population. Yet recent public policy has ignored this fact and governments for the most part are focused not on these growth centres but on communities in crisis.

AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley explains why the one thing that most dominates the regional urban landscape now is technology, and how this has tremendous effects on the future shape of cities.

Recent successes see local District Education Councils (DECs) having real impact on decision-making, but AIMS President and CEO Charles Cirtwill says DECs haven't yet lived up to their intent to move to a more localized decision-making model.

AIMS President and CEO Charles Cirtwill is interviewed about his thoughts regarding how descisions have been made regarding the prevention of school closures, and his take on backroom allegations made by southernshorenow.ca as a result of a freedom of information request.

This interview in the Telegraph Journal with AIMS President and CEO Charles Cirtwill discusses the current and future fiscal health of New Brunswick.

Just as central planners devastated Eastern Europe before being tossed out, so too the old central planning model of urban development can do us a lot of harm before people finally come around to see that it is incompatible with the direction our society and economy are headed. Consider that the current fashion in urban planning is towards high density housing and increased urban transit, yet lower density living and travel by car are things that people want, because they reflect a higher standard of living and more personal freedom. In his regular newspaper column, AIMS President Brian Crowley, explains why only a land-use philosophy that supports this natural desire for a higher standard of living will have any hope of creating the conditions in which cities such as ours will thrive, because these are conditions that are in fact attractive to people. Publication: CHH, October 23, 2002

In this piece from the Globe and Mail, AIMS Senior Fellow Michael MacDonald, analyses the state of Canada's cities in a primarily rural-dominated, bureaucratic environment and emphasizes the current lack of effective national urban strategy. Dr. MacDonald stresses that cities and city governments are not synonymous, and that therefore many urban problems are susceptible to non-governmental solutions.

New Senior Fellow Urban Policy

BC Citizens' group gives groundbreaking AIMS book to all local MLAs

AIMS and internationally recognised urban development expert Wendell Cox spoke in front of an audience of Atlantic Canadians concerned about urban development issues.

Urban visionary and Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist on making city government more efficient and less costly for taxpayers

AIMS’ 2nd Annual Nova Scotia Municipal Report Card is released. A proposal by AIMS President and CEO Charles Cirtwill for Prince Edward Island to uphold its confederation promises- and expand Provincial free trade with the West. Why small provinces and states like Maine need big business- and soon. AIMS Director of Research Don McIver suggests that Federal government goodwill initiatives may very well have acted in the opposite in retrospect to 1867. Perry Newman, AIMS Board member and President of Atlantica Group LLC recalls the tale of the brave Terry Fox in-lieu of his mother, Betty Fox’s passing. Based on a convocation speech delivered to Kingsview Academy in Halifax, AIMS President and CEO Charles Cirtwill offers some words of wisdom about the future of our society

Energy issues, election fall-out, and opinion piece dominate this issue.

An invitation to lunch with urban visionary Mayor John Norquist of Milwaukee, lessons from the west coast's experience with property rights in the fishery and Brian Lee Crowley on how Employment Insurance causes unemployment.

AIMS’ High School Report Card continues to shake up education world, ACOA Watch ignites high-level debate, AIMS Welcomes Patrick Luciani as Senior Fellow on Urban Policy and Canada and the USA – The Narcissism of Small Differences.