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Part One: New AIMS Paper; “Public Health, State Secret”

This is AIMS’ most recent report on the state of Canada’s health care system. The study demonstrates that politicians and senior health officials simply don’t know where or why medicare is failing because they still lack the proper tools to evaluate the quality or timeliness of the care Canadians receive. More to the point, the authors demonstrate why, under the current system, it is not in the government’s interests to know what is really happening in health care.

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Part Two: The Mazankowski Report on Alberta health care: the AIMS connection

On 8 January 2002 the report of the Alberta Premier’s Advisory Council on Health was released. Chaired by former Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski, the Council’s groundbreaking report has generated a tremendous amount of discussion across the country and the political spectrum. Within 48 hours of the release of the report, over 40,000 copies of the Report had been downloaded from the government website. Within days of its release, the government of Alberta had to print a second run of the report as they were running out of hard copies.

AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley was a member of the Council, in recognition of the innovative public policy work done by AIMS in the health care policy field. Two AIMS projects proved to be particularly helpful to the Advisory Council in its deliberations. The new AIMS research report, Public Health, State Secret, more fully explores many of the themes and arguments that are presented in the Alberta report. Health Care’s Hidden Face, an ongoing interactive research initiative of AIMS, supplied valuable background and comparative information that was fed into the Alberta process.

The Mazankowski Report is available at www.premiersadvisory.com
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Part Three: The Battle over the Newfoundland Fishery

In this piece, Peter Fenwick, AIMS’ voice on the Newfoundland scene, highlights the anti-business stance of the Newfoundland and Labrador government in its dealings with Fisheries Products International. The company has developed plans to invest millions in new technology to create a high quality, highly professional fishery with plants that operate year-round. All agree that a modernized fishery is in the best interests of Newfoundland; the problem arises because a modern fishery requires a smaller workforce and, despite job growth in the province, job losses are a sensitive issue in Newfoundland. Moving to protect current constituents from harm, the government is acting in a manner that, Fenwick argues, amounts to “nationalization without compensation” and will threaten, not protect, the very jobs the government is trying to preserve.

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Part Four: AIMS in NB on dead labour and dead capital

Keynote speaker in Moncton at the Annual Meeting of the New Brunswick Seafood Producers Association, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley spoke about how “we have created conditions in which a great deal of labour and a great deal of capital exist in our communities — and especially our coastal communities, — but they exist as a dead force, unable to exert itself for its own betterment or for the improvement of the region. And I’m going also to share with you my vision of how we can revive this dead labour and dead capital, giving back to our communities a dynamism that exists today as an unrealised potential.”

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Part Five: AIMS in 2000-2001

Over the course of its fiscal year 2000-2001 just ended, AIMS continued to put Atlantic Canada on the national public policy map, carrying out important public policy work vital to our region’s and our country’s growth, prosperity and development.

In the past year, premiers and ministers consulted AIMS about a wide range of issues, including evaluation of school performance, the impact of the events of 11 September, the future of the Port of Halifax, natural resources and equalization, to name just a few subjects.

The federal ministers of Industry and Finance demonstrated great interest in AIMS papers on equalization; this resulted in an invitation to AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley to meet Hon. Paul Martin. The Premier of Nova Scotia rose in the provincial legislature to table AIMS’ report by Dr. Campbell Watkins on the offshore royalty regimes in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and the Nova Scotia government’s just released energy strategy adopts many of the ideas advanced by AIMS in the energy field, including introducing competition in electricity, market-based pricing for resources, and a Heritage Fund for at least some of the province’s offshore gas revenues.

This success would not be possible without strong support from the community. The wonderful tradition of leaders in business and academe stepping forward to actively support AIMS is continued this year as many new faces join our Board. These additions will add to the knowledge, experience and commitment to clear, reasoned public policy debate that our Board already possesses – making AIMS that much stronger for 2001-2202.

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