On the CBC Saint John radio morning show, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley challenged the idea that Canadian price controls and patent protections are the chief reasons for "cheap drugs" on this side of the Canada-US border.
In this opinion piece in the Chronical Herald and the Times & Transcript, Dr. Michael Conlon responds to an earlier piece by AIMS' President Brian Crowley on the topic of rising tuition fees. Watch for Crowley's response in a later piece entitled - low tuition advocates need facts not fantasy.
In his fortnightly column in the Halifax Herald and the Moncton Times Transcript, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley wrote about the first ministers' agreement on health. His conclusion? "In order to shore up his weak political position in a minority parliament, Paul Martin has largely sacrificed the fiscal maneuvering room he himself won for Ottawa in the early nineties. Yet he got no commitments for reform from the premiers, and only token nods in the direction of greater accountability for results. The Prime Minister has largely destroyed his chief legacy as finance minister and got nothing to show for it other than a year or two of peace on the health front. Like Neville Chamberlain before him, Paul Martin believes that there will be peace in our time. And like Chamberlain, he is likely to be bitterly disappointed."
Are we forgoing economic opportunities because of irrational fears of hypothetical risks? Can government make risk disappear? And what are the real costs and benefits of the widespread belief that regulation can tame risk? If, like us, you think these questions are some of the most important facing Canada today, we hope you'll join us for this upcoming conference in Toronto where the use of regulation to manage risk will be explored. We have excellent international speakers joining us and we believe this event will be useful as we move forward in ongoing policy discussion with today government leaders.
Writing in the Globe and Mail about his new paper in financing city government in Canada, AIMS author and economics professor Harry Kitchen writes: Ottawa and the provinces should move away from transferring money to cities and should give them the instruments and tax room they need to become mature, responsible governments with the right incentives to serve their citizens responsibly, efficiently and fairly. Not only would this lead to a more optimal level of municipal services, it would enhance the quality of life for Canadians and improve the competitiveness of Canadian cities.
The federal government doesn't have the constitutional right to give cities new sources of revenue, nor is there any need for it to do so, says AIMS’ author Harry Kitchen in Financing City Services, the latest paper in AIMS’ Urban Futures Series. Instead, as the Daily News reports here, Kitchen argues that municipalities should learn to be more efficient and make better use of existing avenues to raise the funds they need to pay for services and upgrade their roads, bridges, sewers and other infrastructure.
In this interview with the Chronicle Herald, AIMS’ author Harry Kitchen says cities have all kinds of options for raising money short of a bailout from Ottawa. "I'm actually opposed to a federal government just transferring cash to cities," says Kitchen. He then remarks on the response of local mayoral candidates who argue many of Kitchen’s ideas do not fit the current progressive policies of municipal governments. Kitchen says existing tax rates and user fees actually hurt the lower class even more. "A lot of the income distribution issues are such that in fact they tend to benefit rich people instead of poor people when you don't ask people to pay specific fees."
Accountability for environmentalists, no federal money for cities, understanding and allowing for risk in today's economy and society, plus reflections on our common continentla home (AIMS 10th anniversary dinner!), tuition fees and subsidies make up this week's AOL.
Current demands can be met by costing accurately and taxing fairly
Statistics Canada has reported that Nova Scotia ranks last in per pupil funding, but that is not the whole story. AIMS author Charles Cirtwill says the province must balance "...what they have to spend, on what they need to do." Strategic investment is critical. Spending in specific areas - like literacy, numeracy and improved accountability and testing - deliver significantly better returns on a dollar for dollar basis than other expenditures. Nova Scotia has done this, and should see some long-term gains as a result. In fact, Statistics Canada said in this latest report that student to educator ratios had been improved and per pupil spending was not only up but that its growth has exceeded the rate of inflation (not only in Nova Scotia but in every province except Ontario - where they were already among the highest spenders on education, with little comparative success).