aims

AIMS looks at how incentives influence doctors and patients

Profits and the Hospital Sector and Canadian Health Care Insurance

Canada has its flaws, and from within it can often seem that our governments are too insulated and unaccountable. But that’s not how others, less lucky than we are, see it. At this year’s Diplomatic Forum (An event organized each year by the Department of Foreign Affairs to bring together the majority of ambassadors posted to Ottawa and take them to a provincial capital outside central Canada.) ambassador after ambassador stood up to express their admiration for Canadian governmental accountability. What sparked these accolades was a debate between Stephane Dion, federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, and two local commentators, historian Brian Cuthbertson and AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley. In his regular column Crowley remarks on the two things about this session that struck the ambassadors forcefully. The first was that, in the vast majority of the world, ministers cannot be called to account for what they do with power.

When the crab fishery resumes next April, the Northern Peninsula town of St. Anthony plans to impose a tariff on shellfish landed in their harbour and shipped out to other Newfoundland centres. It is the latest in a series of attempts by the province to shield workers from having to compete with the rest of the world on a level playing field. While individual provinces have tried to bar workers and other companies from competing in their internal market, we now have a town attempting to secure work for its citizens by levying a tariff on fish that is shipped out of town. Peter Fenwick, AIMS’ voice on Newfoundland and Labrador, explains in this commentary why, in the end, this protectionist approach impoverishes the entire rural sector of the province and prevents capital formation that could be used to expand the economic base of rural Newfoundland.

Rags to Riches How "The Regions" can lead Canada's productivity growth, Dr. Michael MacDonald on how the New Cape Breton starts at home, AIMS at Acadia University on the meaning of sustainable development and Brian Lee Crowley on proportional representation.

In taking a critical look at patronage and its negative economic impacts, the Globe and Mail turned to a study released earlier this month by the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. The study assailed equalization transfers, employment insurance and "the activist economic development policy" that have been the mainstays of Canada's "regional development tool kit." All one has to do is examine what's happened since 1995, when federal budget cuts began taking their toll on transfers, and Atlantic Canadians began screaming that the cuts would destroy their economy. The exact opposite has occurred. Despite slower population growth or none at all, job creation has hit new highs for four years running, and significantly outstripped the gain in Canada as a whole. Read the full editorial to see why patronage is an awfully inefficient and ineffective development tool that tends to direct money where it could be most politically beneficial rather than economically productive.

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

AIMS’ response to the TD Forum on Canada’s Standard of Living

An AIMS luncheon with Stephen Harper, Breaking the Glass Wall, Brian Lee Crowley on what continental integration means for Canada's "regional policy", Dr. Michael J. MacDonald on the future of Canada's cities and AIMS Chairman Gerald Pond discusses new business model in Atlantic Progress.

Recently electoral reform, including proportional representation (PR), is back on the national agenda. The BC government has just commissioned a thoughtful former provincial Liberal leader, Gordon Gibson, to look at major changes to the way elections are run in that province. Earlier this week former NDP leader Ed Broadbent teamed up with IRPP President Hugh Segal to make the case for PR in a Globe op-ed. Replying to that article, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley argues that the fans of PR have misunderstood what elections are really for, and therefore mistake the strengths of our current electoral system for flaws. Noting that he used to be a supporter of PR, and was a co-author of Quebec’s 1970s Green Paper on the topic, Crowley says that he now doubts that it would be an improvement to our democracy. An edited version of this piece appeared in the pages of the Globe and Mail on Friday, October 4, 2002. Publication: G& M, October 4, 2002