Risk: Regulation & Reality
AIMS in partnership with Tech Central Station and the Toronto Insurance Conference hosted Risk: Regulation & Reality, a conference exploring the role and influence of risk in our society.
Ecology, economy and justice
The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies presented two breakfast talks with one of the world’s foremost authorities on the impact of environmental activism - Paul Driessen.
Environmental activists stoke anxieties, oppose solutions; AIMS in the CB Post
Many Cape Breton residents, anxious to solve their long-festering tar ponds problem, are frustrated by the latest delays. They can take a measure of comfort from knowing they aren't alone in facing activists who stoke public anxieties, fault every proposed solution, yet offer no workable alternatives, ensuring that problems and health risks remain. In this piece to the CB Post, AIMS speaker Paul Driessen says it is time to demand solutions, not just continued carping that prevents progress in Nova Scotia and elsewhere in developed nations and the Third World.
Challenges ahead for Membertou Inc.’s business based model of aboriginal self-government
Membertou, a small Cape Breton Mi'kmaq community, is widely considered a leader when it comes to advancing itself in the mainstream economy. AIMS’ author Dr. Jacquelyn Thayer Scott, explains in this interview with the CB Post, however, that its future successes will depend on how it resolves a number of significant challenges – with succession and cultural protection as the two biggest concerns. "Deep suspicions remain about the 'corporate model' (for economic development) and among older band members the notion lingers that business development is a bad thing," says Scott.
Property rights work for the seabed too: AIMS at Submerged Lands Management conference
At the 23rd Annual International Submerged Lands Management Conference in Halifax, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley was asked to present the arguments for a shift from traditional public ownership/trustee arrangements to a regime of mixed public and private property for the management of the seabed.
Risk, Regulation and Reality – Special event in Toronto
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.
Tuition fees: Let those who benefit, pay (NS)
In his fortnightly column, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley observes that the beginning of the academic year is marked, yet again, with both much self-congratulatory rhetoric about the inestimable value of university education to society, and much hand-wringing about rising tuition fees. Both attitudes are hugely overblown. Enrolments are up, not down, despite tuition fee rises. Moreover, low tuition fees are a socially regressive policy. The average taxpayer does not have a university degree, and certainly has a lower income than the average university grad. By getting a university degree, students capture for themselves a large private benefit – much larger than that generated for the taxpayer. There’s little evidence that higher fees restrict access, and lots of evidence that the value of the education more than compensates students for the cost. To find out the argument behind these conclusions, and see data from Nova Scotia, click on this link.
Tuition fees: Let those who benefit, pay (NB)
To find out the argument behind these conclusions, and see data from New Brunswick, click on this link.
AIMS tells Post governments hold key to offshore’s survival
The persistence of an onerous costly regulatory and tax regime combined with poor exploration results to date in the Atlantic offshore make further exploration a hard sell to industry executives who can drill in basins around the world. Yet more exploration is vital to producing a viable, long-term industry. Oil and gas is the greatest opportunity Atlantic Canada has known in a generation, but if its current loss of momentum reaches the tipping point, it may take another generation to come back. Yet the same governments that claim to want nothing more than to help Atlantic Canada escape from under-development cannot seem to find the will simply to get out of the way. Read this article to find out more about what governments need to do to lift the regulatory roadblocks to a more robust offshore.
CBC Commentary: AIMS on auto plant subsidies
The Ontario and Federal governments are proposing to give hundreds of millions of dollars to Ford Canada to encourage that firm to build a new car plant in southern Ontario. But do these subsidies produce real value for consumers and taxpayers, or do they enrich companies, their managers and their employees at everyone else's expense? At the invitation of CBC Radio, AIMS President Brian Lee Crowley argues, in this national Commentary piece, that these special deals lower our standard of living and distort the economy, while the main benefit goes to American consumers.