AIMS On-Line for mid-October 2000
Here is a brief overview of just some of AIMS' activities and publications for the first two weeks of October 2000
Here is a brief overview of just some of AIMS' activities and publications for the first two weeks of October 2000
Nova Scotia Premier John Hamm has a solution to his health-care crisis — take tens of millions of dollars from Newfoundland's transfer payments and give it to Nova Scotia. A fine strategy for Nova Scotia, but something that Newfoundland Health Minister Roger Grimes might find a tad unacceptable, says Peter Fenwick in his new Telegram column.
According to a Dalhousie study Nova Scotia's health indicators are worse than those of many other provinces. That, says Dr. Hamm, means Nova Scotia should get more - up to 15 per cent more - in health-care funding from Ottawa to close the "health gap" with the rest of the country. Yet the real disease is poor management of the health-care dollars we're already spending, a fact that comes through clearly when you compare the provinces' health-care performance more carefully than the premier has done.
Former Maine International Trade Center Director Perry Newman and AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley have been discussing ways to improve trade and other links across the international border.
The Canadian aquaculture industry is trapped in a fog of confusion and needs a true champion to pilot the farms of the future onto the world stage. The conference at Brudenell River Resort sponsored by The Canadian Aquaculture Institute and AIMS brought together producers, scientists and policy-makers who were told that while phenomenal growth exists in Canada, opportunities and investment are going elsewhere because of the impediments facing domestic expansion.
Employment Insurance was initially established to support employees when they lost permanent jobs,but it has expanded to meet a myriad of ends. Increasingly it has become a system for supporting seasonal workers between highly seasonal jobs.At one point in the early 1970s workers could receive unemployment benefits after working eight to ten weeks. These benefits would then last for the rest of the year.As long as workers could get a few months work each year they could draw benefits year after year.The whole work/UI cycle was called the 10-42 syndrome.Closely identified with Atlantic Canada,it created a negative stereotype that has clung to the region ever since.
Like Gulliver pinned down by those frightened Lilliputians, the phenomenal growth potential of Canadian aquaculture is being hog-tied because of government and financial policies that are suffocating development. That was the message delivered on the opening day of How to Farm the Sea, an international conference co-sponsored by AIMS and The Canadian Aquaculture Institute.
AIMS brings together leading national and international experts to clarify both the strengths and weaknesses of aquaculture, and to lay down the basis for a sensible public policy framework to govern the industry.
The 1996 changes to the Employment Insurance system were supposed to encourage seasonal workers to work more and draw less from the EI fund. For fishermen, at least, that hasn't happened. Instead of discouraging people from becoming seasonal fishermen, the system has increased the number of fishermen over the two years since the reforms were implemented. Prior to 1996, fishermen needed to work for at least 12 weeks and had to earn a minimum amount to qualify for unemployment insurance. But in 1996 the basis changed from weeks worked to sales alone. Net sales of as little as $2,500 worth of fish were enough to qualify a fisherman for a half year of benefits In total the easy availability of fisheries EI benefits contributed to many more people entering the fishery than were bought out during the moratorium. Communications Director Peter Fenwick argues that the time limit must be restored if a disaster is to be averted Publication: NP, September 28, 2000
“These and other issues, must be thrashed out in an open and transparent way within the current regulatory framework if Canada is to avoid the demagogic fear-mongering Europe has been wallowing in for years. The objective must be to give intelligent consumers enough balanced information to allow them, not the government, to make basic choices.