Halifax and Bangor reach agreement on Customs pre-clearance
In accordance with a 2001 US-Canada treaty, Halifax International Airport submitted an application to the U.S. government to allow travelers who originate in Nova Scotia to pre-clear U.S. Customs in Halifax instead of being required to do so in a U.S. airport. The community of Bangor has consistently opposed that application, until now. In this piece to the Bangor Daily News, Joseph M. Baldacci, a Bangor attorney, and chair of the Bangor Mayor’s Special Committee on Halifax-Pre-Clearance, discusses the importance of the agreement just reached that sees Bangor abandon its’ opposition to Halifax’s application, and what that agreement means for our two communities.
AIMS OnLine, 24 November 2004
Celebrating AIMS' first ten years headlines this week's AOL. Along with the words of praise from this party comes our usual wide range of issues including: U.S.-Canada relations, offshore revenue, flu vaccines, drug re-importation, surgical waiting time, municipal service improvements and yet more new positions at AIMS as we continue to grow.
Who Can Handle the Volume: Ports of Halifax and New York/New Jersey are Joined at the Hip
This article in The New York Times illustrates how the ports of Halifax and New York/New Jersey are actually complementary. Each can provide what the other can't, which is a significant opportunity for Atlantica.
Organization & Opportunities
AIMS’ Urban Futures initiative is exploring how municipalities of all sizes can become more efficient and provide better service. Using the Greater Saint John region of New Brunswick as an illustration, this paper reflects on how small and medium size municipalities can improve the quality of services for residents and value for money for taxpayers. The municipalities in the Saint John region have made considerable progress toward increasing the level of competitive local government services delivery but they could do more says AIMS’ latest Urban Futures paper. Dr. Robert Bish, author of “Organization and Opportunities: local government services production in Greater Saint John” says that, “…the key is competition, which, through smarter thinking and more careful management, leads to higher productivity.”
Payment is Powerful
Canada is facing difficulties recruiting medical graduates to practice family medicine, and the range of services offered by the current supply of general practitioners (GPs) is shrinking. Poor working conditions, a consequence of existing remuneration systems, are contributing to the dwindling supply of comprehensive primary care services, and the current system of remuneration creates inefficiencies in the delivery of primary health care. This paper explores various ways to improve primary care practice and increase GPs’ practice revenue without resorting to additional public funding.
Resource Revenues – what to do with them once you have them
Now that it looks like Nova Scotia and Nefoundland and Labrador will win the latest federal-provincial debate about natural resource revenues, it is important to remember that an even more important question remains to be settled. What you do with the money once you've got it? Natural resource revenues are not reliable revenues nor are they akin to "normal" government revenues like sales or income taxes. As one time payments based on the fluctuating value of assets that are being permanently liquidated they should not be used to fund current demands that turn into long term commitments. Read this piece to see why and how one time windfalls, as natural resorce revenues inarguably are, need to be invested not wasted. Slightly different versions of this column appeared in both the Chronicle Herald and the Times and Transcript.