Control-freak capital
Media commentator, businessman and policy analyst Brian Flemming is one of the country’s leading voices on the future of government regulation in the age of the new economy, the Internet, globalization and consumer empowerment. In an series of commentary, Mr. Flemming agreed to share with AIMS his reflections on the future of regulation.
We Could Have it All
Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm has said he want to see Nova Scotia become a "have" province within ten years. But a crucial building block of the necessary economic growth is repairing the province's finances. According to AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley , the recent report of the Fiscal Management Task Force reviewing the province's program spending does not give Premier Hamm the blueprint he needs to reach his goal. Click here to read "We could have it all", originally published in the Halifax Daily News on 12 February 2000.
Mary Mckay, an MPA student studying under Prof. Paul Brown at Dalhousie University, has some sage advice for the Nova Scotia government
Learn from the example of cities such as Indianapolis and Charlotte, North Carolina, as well as the Department of National Defence in Ottawa. In all these cases, administrators demanded that in-house providers of public services give a true and transparent account of the cost of providing their service. That allowed rigorous cost-comparisons between public and private providers, and ensured that the most efficient, whether public or private, served the public, while saving the taxpayer a bundle.
Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm has said he want to see Nova Scotia become a “have” province within ten years
But a crucial building block of the necessary economic growth is repairing the province's finances. According to AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley , the recent report of the Fiscal Management Task Force reviewing the province's program spending does not give Premier Hamm the blueprint he needs to reach his goal. Click here to read "We could have it all"
Jobs Flourish When Businesses Earn Big Profits
Calgary Herald columnist and Editorial Board member Danielle Smith has written a column about AIMS' new book Road to Growth. Click here to read "Jobs flourish when businesses earn big profits", which first appeared in the Herald on February 8, 2000.
Five Easy Pieces: AIMS Solves the Deficit Puzzle
So you think that it’s hard to cut $500-million from the spending of the province of Nova Scotia? That the government’s huge annual deficit can only be eliminated by painful cuts to vital public services, or by putting hundreds of public employees on the unemployment line, or by jacking up taxes? Think again. In fact it is relatively easy to eliminate that $500-million deficit within three years, thus bringing the budget into balance. And it can be done without cutting a single public service that Nova Scotians regard as essential to their well-being, without raising a single tax or imposing any new health care charges, and without firing one single employee of the public sector or forcing anyone to take unpopular unpaid leave. Moreover, certain classes of underpaid civil servants will get raises and, at the end of the three years, there will be room for tax cuts or debt reduction.