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Dr. Brian Lee Crowley

About Brian Lee Crowley

Dr. Brian Lee Crowley is the current Managing Director of the MacDonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), and the first President of AIMS. He is a best-selling author, frequent commentator and columnist, and speaker. A former professor at Dalhousie University, Dr. Crowley led the formation of AIMS in the 1990s and remained President for most of the intervening years until founding MLI in 2010.

Will Nova Scotia Receive Any Benefits From Oil and Gas Development?

By | April 12th, 2002|Op-ed|

In a talk to the AGM of the NS Construction Management Bureau in 2002, Brian Lee Crowley, President of AIMS says oil and gas production may have arrived, but we are still seized with anxiety about what it all means. In particular we fear that our resource will be sold off and we will have far too little to show for it. There are two quite distinct ways of responding to this legitimate concern - competition or protection. Which one we choose will determine the scope of the benefits we will derive from the offshore in business and employment terms.

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The Mazankowski health care report: a personal view

By | February 14th, 2002|Op-ed|

Comments from AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley to the Conference Board of Canada's Leader's Roundtable on the future of healthcare in Canada.

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Evolution is dead; long live evolution

By | February 13th, 2002|Op-ed|

The effects of natural selection are doubtless more muted than at any time in human history. The efforts of humanity, and particularly Western civilization, have allowed us to shelter one another from the ravages of natural selection, through education, vaccination, sanitation, redistribution of wealth, labour laws, agricultural innovation, and a whole host of other institutions that have softened the pitiless rigours of the natural world. But that doesn't mean that nothing is changing. In this column, AIMS President, Brian Lee Crowley, demonstrates that whatever else characterizes our modern societies, change on a grand scale is a huge constant. But that change is so vast, and happening so quickly, that natural biological selection, which works over millennia, cannot possibly keep up. The natural selection that matters in the world today is not of individuals for their genetic endowment, but rather the selection of social institutions for the benefits they confer on us. The long C

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Canada First Puts Canada (and New Brunswick) Last

By | February 1st, 2002|Op-ed|

The efforts to implement a so-called "Canada First" export strategy for natural gas will seriously jeopardise the future of the natural gas industry in Atlantic Canada. This is the message that AIMS President, Brian Lee Crowley, brought to the National Energy Board during hearings in New Brunswick. According to Crowley, if such a policy had been in place ten years ago there would be no gas for us to fight about today – the Sable Offshore project never would have happened. Similarly, adopting New Brunswick's proposed changes would not only put at risk current developments like the Deep Panuke project, but the future of the industry on the East Coast as well. A policy that restrains gas exports will make large capital investments in Atlantic Canada difficult to justify especially when weighed against other areas of gas exploration worldwide.

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Health care: competition and the single payer

By | January 30th, 2002|Op-ed|

Provinces now pay over 85 per cent of the cost of increasingly costly public health care. This burden is inevitably driving governments to adopt an attitude of ever-greater neutrality between public and private suppliers of health care within our single-payer system. In this column, AIMS President, Brian Lee Crowley, explains the benefits to be gained when provincial governments act as purchasers of health care services on behalf of their citizens. Governments will soon buy health services wherever they can get the best quality and best access at the lowest price. Neither public nor private providers will get preferential treatment, and the general public will get better quality, more accessible health care because of it. Publication: CHH & MTT & VS & CH & OC, January 30, 2002

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The Mazankowski Report on Alberta health care: the AIMS connection

By | January 8th, 2002|Op-ed|

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. AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley was a member of the Council and AIMS supplied valuable background and comparative information that was fed into the Alberta process.

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Breathing new life into dead labour and dead capital in our coastal communities

By | December 6th, 2001|Op-ed|

In a keynote speech to the NB Seafood Processors Assoc. Annual Convention Moncton, 6 December 2001, AIMS' president Brian Lee Crowley shares his vision of how we can revive dead labour and dead capital, giving back to our communities a dynamism that exists today as an unrealised potential.

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Equalization’s good intentions are not enough

By | December 3rd, 2001|Op-ed|

In the November/December 2001 edition of The Taxpayer Magazine, Brian Lee Crowley, AIMS President, continues to point-out the problems with Equalization. He emphasizes that after 44 years and close to $200 billion in equalization spending, the Atlantic provinces are only barely more able to meet the needs of their citizens with their own revenue sources than they were when equalization was introduced in 1957. In addition, the incentives attached to equalization can penalize the poorer provinces for developing their economy and encourage them to settle for permanent reliance on federal transfers. The article then outlines two positive suggestions on what can be done to break this provincial “welfare trap”.

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What’s the Canadian dollar worth?

By | November 28th, 2001|Op-ed|

At a time in 2001 when the Canadian dollar sat at 63 cents, Brian Lee Crowley's gave this commentary on CBC Radio. He argues devaluation often looks like a good deal in the short run, but it almost always masks a declining standard of living. Bitter experience from around the world teaches that you cannot devalue your way to prosperity.

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Managing the Atlantica Border

By | November 2nd, 2001|Op-ed|

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.

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