Economy

Assessing Canada’s Ability to Compete for Foreign Direct Investment

The Centre for the Study of Living Standards has recently published a report evaluating Canada’s performance in attracting foreign direct investment inflows. The study reviews the literature on the benefits of FDI, analyses global and Canadian trends in FDI, identifies various factors affecting the inflow of FDI, and details how Canada ranks relative to other major OECD countries on the most influential factors. It also identifies a number of areas where Canada can potentially improve its attractiveness to FDI, including possible changes to FDI regulation, a more competitive tax regime, better infrastructure, and certain improvements in the human capital area.

http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2008-4.pdf

Albertans Enjoy Highest Levels of Economic Freedom in Canada

Alberta has the highest level of economic freedom in Canada, and the second highest level in North America, trailing only Delaware and tied with Texas, according to a new study from the Fraser Institute. However, the report also found that the rest of Canada badly trails Alberta. Ontario, which has the second highest economic freedom ranking in Canada, is 51st overall in North America, trailing every U.S. state except West Virginia. The peer-reviewed study, Economic Freedom of North America: 2008 Annual Report, measures the impact of economic freedom on the level of economic activity and the growth of economic activity in the 10 Canadian provinces and 50 U.S. states by creating an index utilizing 10 components based on size of government, taxation, and labour market freedom.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/news/5732.aspx

Corporate Social Responsibility Emerging as a Governance Issue for Boards

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is directly linked to a firm’s future and needs to be elevated to the board level as a governance issue, according to a new Conference Board of Canada report. The survey introduces a “CSR Governance Road Map” to help boards integrate social and environmental issues as part of their oversight, strategic direction and reporting. The report is the first such look into Canadian boardrooms to determine the role boards play, or ought to play, to influence a firm’s social and environmental performance.

http://www.conferenceboard.ca/press/2008/csr.asp

Energy

The Canadian Nuclear Industry: Contributions to the Canadian Economy

With a rising demand for energy and the prominence of global warming, the world is taking a new look at nuclear energy. To shed light on this industry, the Canadian Nuclear Association has published a report prepared by the Canadian Energy Research Institute that examines and updates the history the history of nuclear research and development (R&D) and nuclear power generation in Canada. The report discusses the implications for the national economy of further domestic nuclear industry development and of the export of Canadian nuclear products and technology to the rest of the world. http://cna.ca/english/pdf/Studies/CERI/CNAEconomicReport08.pdf

Environment

The Ethanol Trap: Why Policies to Promote Ethanol as Fuel Need Rethinking

With growing pressure to curb the rise in greenhouse gas emissions, Canada, like many Western countries, has chosen to promote and subsidize the development of ethanol as a fuel additive to gasoline. A recent study from the C.D. Howe Institute examines the policy’s goals and calculates the policy’s costs to government and consumers. It argues that federal and provincial governments should reconsider this policy thrust and redirect government funds for environmental policy to more promising measures.

http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_268.pdf

Schulich Engineer Teams Up with Environment Canada to Improve Severe Weather Warnings in Alberta

Dr. Susan Skone from the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary is part of a team of experts who have joined forces for a massive project called the Understanding Severe Thunderstorms and Alberta Boundary Layers Experiment (UNSTABLE). For two weeks in July, scientists from Environment Canada, universities and the private sector will use aircraft, weather balloons and mobile labs to collect weather data in the foothills. The ultimate goal is to understand how severe weather develops and to improve the accuracy and timeliness of summertime weather watches and warnings in Alberta.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/july2008/Stormchasers

Domestic Issues

Policy Options Celebrates Québec City's 400th Anniversary

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the founding of Québec City, Québec Premier Jean Charest provided an interview for the Institute for Research on Public Policy’s monthly publication Policy Options. Mr. Charest spoke on a wide-range of topics including the importance of Québec City and the French language and culture in Canada and North America, Québec-Canada-France relations, federal-provincial relations, the functioning of the federation, and his relationship with Prime Minister Harper.

Click here to read the interview:

http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/jul08/charest.pdf

Click here to see the rest of the articles in Policy Options:

http://www.irpp.org/po/index.htm

Albertans Catalysts for Democratic Change Federally, not Provincially

In a recent op-ed, Dr. Roger Gibbins, president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation, writes that Alberta has traditionally been a catalyst for democratic reform in Canada, but that the debates and discussions that are essential to developing the best possible governance tools within the province have recently slowed down or died out.  “We have been complacent when complacency is always a mistake in a very turbulent world,” Gibbins notes. “We have not acted to ensure that we have the most robust, accountable and effective democratic institutions possible. Although we know that governance matters, that public policy matters, we have not stepped up to ensure that we have the right forms of governance for moving forward.”  In his article, Gibbins calls for increased public attention and interest in provincial democratic reform.

http://www.cwf.ca/V2/cnt/commentaries_200806261111.php

Health Care

The Availability of Nurses for Mixed Practice

Demographic change is putting a heavy strain on Québec’s public health care system, says Julie Frappier of the Montreal Economic Institute, and this is particularly illustrated in a greater need for nursing staff. Frappier conducted an investigation among nurses to see if the labour supply is really being used to full capacity and whether some nurses would be willing to work extra hours in private practice. Among her findings was the fact that many nurses are opting to practise their profession with employment agencies and in the private sector.

http://www.iedm.org/uploaded/pdf/juin2008_en.pdf

Au français: http://www.iedm.org/uploaded/pdf/juin2008_fr.pdf

Canada-U.S. Relations

Canada-US Relations in an Age of Superstitions

Last month, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies (AIMS) president Brian Lee Crowley addressed the World Affairs Council of Maine about the relationship between trade, freedom and prosperity. His commentary explored the unique economic and trade relationship that Canada and the U.S. are in the midst of creating in North America, often in spite of themselves, and the challenges of managing this new creation successfully. Moreover, he explained how trade, the freedom on which it is premised, and the prosperity it can create, could affect the northeast corner of North America known as Atlantica. http://www.aims.ca/library/Superstitions.pdf

Education

Passion for Volunteering

The latest issue of University Affairs features an article on overseas volunteer work that documents the on-going stories of several university faculty and staff members who perform their volunteer work around the world. One such volunteer is Dr. Dean Sandham, who spent five weeks performing volunteer medical work in an air raid shelter on Kandahar Airfield Base in Afghanistan. Since coming back, Dr. Sandham, who is also the dean of the University of Manitoba’s medical school, has spoken about how the experience heightened his appreciation of being Canadian: “It reinforced how fortunate we are having a stable society and stable civilian government.”  http://www.universityaffairs.ca/issues/2008/june-july/passion_volunteering_01.html

Click here to see the rest of the articles in the June-July 2008 issue of University Affairs:

http://www.universityaffairs.ca/issues/2008/june-july/index.html

Improving Education on Reserves: A First Nations Education Authority Act

The 1996 Census found that approximately 60% of First Nation on-reserve residents aged 20 to 24 had not completed high school. A decade later, the 2006 Census results are unchanged, with the same percentage lacking a high school diploma. A new paper from the Caledon Institute recommends a new legal framework similar to the school consolidation movement that swept rural Canada many years ago to remedy this persistent issue.

http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/684ENG%2Epdf