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Op-ed

The Crisis in Corporate Governance

By | August 29th, 2002|Op-ed|

Finally, he offered some insights on the solutions being proposed to address the current crisis in corporate governance. Unlike those who see the solution in draconian new laws, Crowley sees the marketplace, investors and the existing criminal law rapidly meting out blame and punishment in a highly effective manner. What is needed over and above that is a moral and ethical renewal in our business and political leadership, something no law can accomplish by itself.

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Regional Development

By | August 29th, 2002|Op-ed|

In his remarks at the national convention of the PC Party of Canada in Edmonton, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley addressed three questions put to him by the conference organizers: First, he explained that regional economic development organizations like ACOA don't Actually create new economic activity but simply substitute the government's preferred activities for those that would have inevitably taken place if people had been left free to take their own decisions with their own money.

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Budgetary Choices

By | August 29th, 2002|Op-ed|

Second, in a discussion of budgetary choices facing the federal government, he emphasized the wrong-headedness of holding on to labour policies designed to address systemic unemployment when the real challenge facing the country, and the world, in the 21st century is substantial labour shortages.

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Offshore at ‘critical’ stage

By | July 21st, 2002|Op-ed|

Concerns about dry wells and rising political risk were voiced during the Atlantic Gas Symposium in Halifax last week. So far, EnCana, formerly PanCanadian, has drilled three dry holes offshore. In an interview published in the Halifax Sunday Herald, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley argues that while three dry holes won't likely spur the industry to leave, it will be important to have good news soon. At around $70-million per hole, it is expensive to drill here, as opposed to Alberta and other oil and gas palys competing for exploration dollars. Even while questions surrounding long-term natural gas supplies in the offshore exist, an even more menacing threat may be New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord’s “Canada First” Policy. “It’s making companies nervous” said Dr Crowley, backed by representatives from the oil & gas industry, and could hurt the future of offshore activity in our region. Publication: CHH, July 21, 2002

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Nationalism and Natural Gas don’t mix – AIMS on CBC

By | July 17th, 2002|Op-ed|

In an attempt to reserve any new discoveries of offshore natural gas for Canadians, New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord wants the National Energy Board to only allow the exporting of natural gas to the US, the gas’s chief market, after Canadian needs have been assessed and met. Premier Lord feels oil companies are refusing to sell enough gas to Canadians, and as a result the economic development of some areas, such as northern New Brunswick and eastern Quebec, is being hurt. In this recent CBC Commentary, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley says “Premier Lord, it just ain’t so”. Gas companies have already made substantial supplies available locally, but are now suffering because so few people have signed up – preferring to stick to more traditional forms of fuel.

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NF gasoline price regulation no boon for consumers

By | June 28th, 2002|Op-ed|

According to former AIMS Director of Communications, Peter Fenwick, the gasoline price regulation scheme now before the Newfoundland House of Assembly is far worse than the disease it is supposed to cure. Here is an extract from his article: "Given the historic opposition of the government to imposing gas regulation it is clear that this is a smoke screen designed to curry political favour, and to obscure the role taxes play in keeping oil prices high. The legislation is designed to reduce criticism rather than oil prices. When [Minister] Matthews introduced the bill he said 'So, on the basis of the lack of confidence... by the people of the Province, and on the basis of the... representations that all of us have had from the general public,... it is appropriate to bring in a petroleum products regulatory regime...'" "Nowhere does he say that it is a good idea."

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Waiting for Voisey’s Bay: Six Years Was Too Long

By | May 30th, 2002|Op-ed|

After six long hard years of negotiation a deal has been struck that will see the nickel ore deposits at Voisey's Bay begin to be mined. In looking at the deal, Peter Fenwick, AIMS' voice on Newfoundland & Labrador, asks why a similar deal was not concluded a long time ago. Most of the terms included in the final deal have been on the table for some time and the public has given a rousing endorsement to the terms reached between Inco, the provincial government and the Innu and Inuit people. Gauging the damage done to the Newfoundland mining industry by these negotiations is difficult. What exploration programs were cancelled, and what promising finds not developed, is impossible to say.

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Canada could follow Britain’s example on improving Health Care – Learn from Sweden

By | May 30th, 2002|Op-ed|

Health care is becoming more and more of a political issue in Britain. Long waiting lists, poor response and low standards have led to rising popular discontent. The Government is now taking radical steps to transform the National Health System (NHS). Just as in Sweden, “more money” has for many years been counted on as the recipe for putting things right. But the Blair administration has gradually come to see that pouring new millions into a malfunctioning system only serves to perpetuate the problems. And so now the NHS is to be reformed, from monopoly and bureaucracy to decentralisation and a consumer focus. In this piece, Johan Hjertqvist, AIMS’ commentator on Swedish health care reform, discusses how New Labour has derived most of the inspiration for its reform from the Stockholm County Council. He concludes that the efforts of Britain’s Labour Party offer a glimpse of what can be achieved when you move past ideology and focus on the more practical question of what actually works.

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Newfoundland’s Curious Attitude to Private Property

By | May 29th, 2002|Op-ed|

Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto argues, most recently in his award-winning book "The Mystery of Capital", that the world's poor often possess considerable capital which could be used to generate wealth, income and employment. Unfortunately, because that wealth is tied up in things like self-built houses to which no formal title exists, it cannot be used as collateral and no bank will lend against it. It is, in de Soto's words, "dead capital", capital whose value has been destroyed by the absence of clear, simple and defensible property rights. In this Commentary, former AIMS Director of Communications, Peter Fenwick, applies these insights to Newfoundland and its perennial problems of economic underdevelopment. He writes: "Although Newfoundland is far from a third world country when it comes to property rights, long held attitudes towards the commons have severely stunted any attempt to use the natural wealth of the province as the grubstake to build prosperity."

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Private financing, private delivery. Two tier health care?

By | May 27th, 2002|Op-ed|

Brian Lee Crowley, President of AIMS, gave a talk at the National Healthcare Leadership Conference in Halifax on May 27, 2002. Dr. Crowley was a member of the five-person panel discussing “two-tier health care,” in Canada. Below is a quote from Dr. Crowley’s concluding remarks, if you would like to read the entire analysis that led to these conclusions on our website, please click here. In sum, much of our debate about multiple tiers is ideological, and has little to do with the quality of care delivered within the public system. We cling to a system that outlaws private spending on publicly-insured services, usually on the basis that parallel systems of care rob the public system of resources, while both objective and subjective international rankings show that multiple tiers of access are fully compatible with high quality public systems and high levels of care overall and high levels of patient satisfaction.

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