AIMS On-Line for early September 2001
Here is what's new at AIMS, Atlantic Canada's Public Policy Think Tank
The Purchaser Provider Split
Johan Hjertqvist explores the shift from public monopolies to market services. The success in Sweden of public policy experiments that have embraced the principles of competition and choice are driving a fundamental shift in opinion towards free choice, competition and diversity.
National Post lauds AIMS’ analysis of region’s woes
In taking a serious look at recent proposals for new economic development spending in Atlantic Canada the National Post turned to “Retreat from Growth” as a definitive source for why this is not the way to go. “Retreat from Growth” is AIMS’ most recent book and a finalist for the Donner Book Prize for the best public policy book of 2000. In it, author Fred McMahon notes that by the late 1960s, employment and business activity in Atlantic Canada had nearly caught up to the rest of the country, after suffering years of stagnation, only to lose that ground and more after 1972 when then prime minister Pierre Trudeau lavished transfers, economic development schemes and improved unemployment insurance benefits on the region.
Atlantic Business and AIMS equalization studies
In the August/September edition of Atlantic Business the Honourable John Crosbie, former federal minister and current AIMS Board member, profiles two recent AIMS studies on equalization. In the first part of a serial article for upcoming issues Crosbie argues there can be no question that equalization is a generous program but he looks beyond this generosity to question its effectiveness. Looking at the continuing gaps in provincial fiscal capacity he concludes equalization has failed of its basic intent. Recognizing this failure, Crosbie says we must now look at ways to fix the problem.
Spinning the Economic Story
In this piece, Daily News columnist Parker Barss Donham takes aim at the position of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies on equalization. Donham responds aggressively to the ideas put forward in two recent AIMS papers, papers that have prompted a debate in the national press on the merits of reform to the current equalization system. Arguing that equalization is achieving its intended goal of delivering reasonably comparable services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation Donham dismisses the idea that equalization has any relationship to economic development or the slow rate of growth in Atlantic Canada.
AIMS On-Line for mid August 2001
Here is what's new at AIMS, Atlantic Canada's Public Policy Think Tank