In an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail, Toronto-based analyst John Koopman analyses the impact on Canadian unity and the economy of 25 years of unbalanced tax and spending policy. He draws on AIMS' work to examine the impact of these policies on Atlantic Canada.
In his bi-monthly newspaper column, AIMS president Brian Lee Crowley asks why doesn't the Nova Scotia government speak up on Ottawa's proposed EI reforms before it is too late? Publication: CHH, August 2, 2000.
AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley examines the questions that no one is asked about the Prime Minister's July 2000 announcement of $700-million in spending in the Atlantic region. Here's an extract: "What exactly is the problem that Ottawa is trying to fix? By making this announcement, Ottawa drives home yet again, both inside and outside the region, the message that we're a "have-not" region. Unless we get a handout from taxpayers in other parts of the country, we're going nowhere and, worst of all, that we're failures at the high-tech game. But none of these things is true."
In his monthly column in The Globe and Mail, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley analyses the recent announcement by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien of a new $700-million federal programme for Atlantic Canada. Publication: G&M, July 2, 2000.
AIMS study recommends welfare and tax reforms on eve of new National Child Benefit payment by Ottawa
In this paper, author Ken Boessenkool argues an increase in total cash payments to welfare families appears to satisfy the objective of reducing child poverty but the approach is shortsighted. Instead, provinces should heed the theory and evidence showing that poverty reduction over all but the shortest of time horizons is better achieved by easing the transition from welfare to work.
No one can be opposed to more co-operation among the Atlantic provinces, so the recent announcement by the four premiers of the creation of a Council of Atlantic Premiers is welcome news. In this column in The Globe and Mail, however, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley writes that while the premiers may have created a good vehicle, they are still trying to go in the wrong direction with it. The answer to the region's problems does not lie in yet more federal money, which is what they spent most of their time asking for. Been there, done that - and it doesn't work.
In his regular newspaper column, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley argues that NS Premier John Hamm's government is approaching a critical juncture. Fixing the province's finances is, by any measure, the government's most pressing problem. But the Premier and his ministers cannot seem to fix on a strategy that will allow them to do so, while maintaining public support. Experience from other countries shows, though, that fixing the deficit can be politically popular, if the sacrifices are shared by everyone, and the government doesn't cave in to special interests. Time, however, is rapidly running out. Publication: CHH, April 26, 2000.
A First Step, but with a Short Stride Nova Scotia's First Conservative Budget Still a High Wire Act
On the eve of the Nova Scotia provincial budget, the Halifax Herald invited AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley to make the case why the province needs to balance its budget and reduce spending. Publication: CHH, April 10, 2000.