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Part One: AIMS Launches Health Care Reform website

Health care is the most hotly debated public policy issue in Canada. There is no doubt that, whatever results, the current debate will have a significant impact on the Atlantic region.

In an effort to allow people to explore this issue for themselves, AIMS has constructed a resource page on health care. Here you will find a direct link to AIMS major project called “Health Care’s Hidden Face: The Private Sector and its Relationship with Medicare”. By following that link you can take a direct part in our ongoing research by reading and commenting on a series of working papers related to health care.

In addition to this innovative step, AIMS has also made available on-line a wide range of material, including our Sir Antony Fisher Award winning piece “Operating in the Dark”, media reports, commentaries, public presentations, and links to other sources of information and analysis.

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Part Two: Managing the Atlantica border

The Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association invited AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley to speak at their Annual Convention recently to speak about the Institute’s concept of Atlantica and the management of the Canada-US border. He began by saying:

I am here to tell you the story of a single region, divided only by history and a common border and united by one of two possible futures. That single region is what we, at my Institute, call Atlantica, a region that embraces northern New England, northern New York State, Atlantic Canada and parts of Quebec. And while I am going to take a moment and talk with you about the past and the border that have divided us, I will take the lion’s share of my time to talk about the two alternative futures that lie before us, and the choices we must make together if we are to take the road of prosperity, growth and progress together, especially post 11 September.

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Part Three: The Premier who saved Christmas

AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley explores in this column the evolution of Christmas in a multi-cultural society. The discussion centres on the decision made in the 1980’s to call the “Christmas tree”, erected each year outside the Manitoba Legislature, a “multicultural tree”…and how Manitoba’s Premier, Gary Doer, recently reversed that decision. Dr. Crowley takes us on a historical retreat exploring the early Paganistic, Scandinavian, Christian, and German origins of Christmas and the Christmas tree, and highlights the true meaning of the season.

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Part Four: What’s the Canadian dollar worth?

Corporations, senior executives and Americans are the primary beneficiaries of our low Canadian dollar, says AIMS President, Brian Lee Crowley, in this week’s regular newspaper column. The last time that the U.S. and Canadian dollars were at par was November 1976. Today, the loonie stands at a mere 63 cents or so, and tests new lows each week. This represents a very significant decline in our standard of living, because we either have to buy less from our U.S. neighbours, or else we have to pay more for the same things. While those who can avoid these impacts do, it means that our dollar’s relentless slide over the last 25 years has harmed the poorest and most vulnerable members of our society more than anyone else.

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Part Five: Where is the gold in equalization pot?

In this column from the National Post, William Watson considers the message delivered by Nobel Laureate James Buchanan at a conference hosted by AIMS, the Montreal Economic Institute and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Held in Montreal on October 25, 2001, the conference considered whether equalization is really a helping hand or simply a welfare trap for provinces. After considering Buchanan’s fears that equalization programmes can be captured and destroyed by politics and bad design, Watson observes that, “If equalization weren’t already in place, perhaps we wouldn’t feel the need to invent it.”

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Part Six: AIMS e-mail security and anti-virus policy

We at AIMS again sincerely apologize for any technical difficulties or inconvenience to our AIMS On-line readers, which may have resulted from our unfortunate victimization by the “Goner” virus. Rest assured that the problem has since been rectified. AIMS has installed further defence mechanisms against such cyber-vandalism, including increased firewall and antivirus protection, to ensure that we have the highest standards of safety minimizing the chances that this would ever happen again. We want people to have every confidence that messages from the Institute are as free from viruses as technically possible. If you have any questions about our policy in this regard, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]
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