In 2002 Charles Baillie, Chairman and CEO, TD Bank Financial Group challenged Canadians to think aggressively about how to exceed the U.S. standard of living within 15 years. Don Drummond, Senior Vice President & Chief Economist TD Bank Financial Group for invited Brian lee Crowley, on behalf of AIMS, to bring together nearly a decade’s reflection on how the less-developed provinces of Canada can lead the country’s push to achieve higher levels of growth and prosperity.
Prescriptions to fix the world’s problems by restricting economic growth are a prescription for the exact opposite.
At the first of four national conferences to launch a national dialogue on Canada's role and place in North America, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley was invited to talk about how continental integration is affecting Canada's regional policy. In his presentation, he spoke about how the 1989 Free Trade Agreement repudiated Sir John A. Macdonald's old National Policy and its assumption of an east-west economy defying the southward tug of the business giant on the other side of the border. Abandoning the National Policy also implied, whether Canadians realised it or not, the end of the political underpinnings of our massive transfer system for the less-developed parts of the country. As Ontario and Alberta become increasingly restive in their role as bankrollers of these transfers, the transfer recipients need to concentrate their efforts on reducing dependence, and increasing trade with the US must clearly be part of any strategy that can hope to succeed. An abridged version of this t
In his remarks at the national convention of the PC Party of Canada in Edmonton, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley addressed three questions put to him by the conference organizers: First, he explained that regional economic development organizations like ACOA don't Actually create new economic activity but simply substitute the government's preferred activities for those that would have inevitably taken place if people had been left free to take their own decisions with their own money.
Second, in a discussion of budgetary choices facing the federal government, he emphasized the wrong-headedness of holding on to labour policies designed to address systemic unemployment when the real challenge facing the country, and the world, in the 21st century is substantial labour shortages.
Finally, he offered some insights on the solutions being proposed to address the current crisis in corporate governance. Unlike those who see the solution in draconian new laws, Crowley sees the marketplace, investors and the existing criminal law rapidly meting out blame and punishment in a highly effective manner. What is needed over and above that is a moral and ethical renewal in our business and political leadership, something no law can accomplish by itself.
In an attempt to reserve any new discoveries of offshore natural gas for Canadians, New Brunswick Premier Bernard Lord wants the National Energy Board to only allow the exporting of natural gas to the US, the gas’s chief market, after Canadian needs have been assessed and met. Premier Lord feels oil companies are refusing to sell enough gas to Canadians, and as a result the economic development of some areas, such as northern New Brunswick and eastern Quebec, is being hurt. In this recent CBC Commentary, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley says “Premier Lord, it just ain’t so”. Gas companies have already made substantial supplies available locally, but are now suffering because so few people have signed up – preferring to stick to more traditional forms of fuel.
Brian Lee Crowley, President of AIMS, gave a talk at the National Healthcare Leadership Conference in Halifax on May 27, 2002. Dr. Crowley was a member of the five-person panel discussing “two-tier health care,” in Canada. Below is a quote from Dr. Crowley’s concluding remarks, if you would like to read the entire analysis that led to these conclusions on our website, please click here. In sum, much of our debate about multiple tiers is ideological, and has little to do with the quality of care delivered within the public system. We cling to a system that outlaws private spending on publicly-insured services, usually on the basis that parallel systems of care rob the public system of resources, while both objective and subjective international rankings show that multiple tiers of access are fully compatible with high quality public systems and high levels of care overall and high levels of patient satisfaction.
On May 8, 2002, the prestigious Commons Finance Committee organized a special roundtable on Equalization. AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley, was one of three nationally-recognized authorities invited to spend an afternoon with the Committee to discuss the workings of this huge but arcane programme. In his formal remarks to the MPs, Crowley argued that after nearly half a century and over $180 billion, equalization has become a major obstacle to our country's goal of closing the economic disparity gap between the developed and less-developed provinces. Citing examples such as Newfoundland's handling of Voisey's Bay and Nova Scotia's handling of potential offshore gas revenues, Crowley argues that equalization not only subsidizes poor economic policy and democratic irresponsibility in our government's, but also taxes productive economic activity in the least developed parts of the country.
AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley explains why the one thing that most dominates the regional urban landscape now is technology, and how this has tremendous effects on the future shape of cities.