Foreign Affairs

Politics and Defence

Canada needs a bipartisan defence policy – and one that can win acceptance from the government and the opposition, writes J.L. Granatstein of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. Granatstein commends the recent agreements between the government and the Liberals on the Afghanistan resolution extending the mission by three years and calls for more of such bipartisanship in military policy. He also proposes that Members of Parliament acquire more expertise regarding the military in order to improve traffic on the intersection between politics and the military.  

http://www.cdfai.org/PDF/Politics%20and%20Defence.pdf

Economy

Province Told to Ignore Critics, Implement Tax Changes

New Brunswick's Liberal government must ignore the critics and move quickly to implement its proposed tax reforms, says Brian Lee Crowley, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. "Your efforts here have already raised the competitive hackles of your neighbours and, better still, scared them a little bit," he told a legislative committee examining the taxation overhaul.  "If implemented, they will move New Brunswick from middle of the road to the leader of the parade," he noted.  

http://www.aims.ca/inthemedia.asp?typeID=4&id=2233&fd=0&p=1

When the Smoke Clears, There'll Be Tough Talking

The main economic issue in Canada is the growing regional disparities in the national economy, argues Dr. Roger Gibbins, president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation. In a recent op-ed, Gibbins assesses the weakening Ontario economy and the rising resource prices in the West.  He contends that the odds favour structural change rather than temporary dislocation, which would result in large and growing regional disparities in the long-term. Gibbins concludes by asking how Canada should best move forward into a very uncertain global environment when different parts of its economy are moving at different speeds and directions.   http://www.cwf.ca/V2/cnt/commentaries_200807160946.php

Financial Instability and the GATS Negotiations

The subprime mortgage crisis has raised concerns in industrialized countries that regulations will have to be imposed on the financial industry, notes Ellen Gould in a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Despite the evidence that regulations in the financial industry are needed, Gould continues, governments are continually pressured to deregulate financial corporations, and one of the main reasons is the World Trade Organization’s General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). In her report, Gould analyzes the implications of GATS on the financial industry and argues that governments need to reject GATS commitments that risk locking them into deregulation.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/

Anatomy of the Credit Crisis: The Role of Faulty Risk Management Systems

Clashing models of debt funding and the risk management systems associated with them engendered the credit crisis, according to a report published by the C.D. Howe Institute. Author Frank Milne, an economist at Queen’s University and newly appointed Special Advisor to the Bank of Canada, examines the roots of the credit crisis that began in mid-2007. The paper also outlines possible policy reforms for risk management systems and their regulation. http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_269.pdf

Creating an Advantage in Global Capital Markets

Despite years of effort by federal and provincial governments, regulators, advisory panels and market participants, Canada remains saddled with a regulatory system that is too fragmented, too costly and too slow to manage change, wrote the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) in a submission to the Expert Panel on Securities Regulation. In the report, the CCCE examines Canada’s current regulatory system and argues that moving to a single regulator would have many advantages to investors and to issuers, from lower administrative and compliance costs to a more effective Canadian presence internationally.  http://www.ceocouncil.ca/publications/pdf/

Environment

Climate Change, Trade and Competitiveness

Last month, the Public Policy Forum and the Canada Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars held a conference in Ottawa on Climate Change, Trade, and Competitiveness: Risks and Opportunities in a North American Perspective.  The conference brought together 100 experts, policy-makers and business leaders to discuss the continental dynamics of climate change policies and politics in North America.  The specific focus was on the trade and competitiveness implications of current and emerging national and sub-national climate policies in Canada and the US.  The results of their findings are available in this report.

http://www.ppforum.ca/common/assets/publications/en/climate_change_ii_report.pdf

Domestic Issues

Increasing the Availability of Skilled Labor in Alberta’s Oil Sands Industry.

The recent agreement among Canada’s premiers to harmonize job credentials and certification should help improve labour mobility but much more needs to be done – particularly at the federal level – in order to help reduce labour shortages across the country, according to a new Fraser Institute report. The paper examines current provincial and federal barriers to worker mobility and finds that in many cases, government policies are restricting labour mobility and creating labour shortages, particularly in areas with high demand such as the Alberta oil sands. The report comes as oil sands projects worth more than $165 billion are either underway or in the planning stages, driving up the demand for skilled labour.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/news/6073.aspx

Health Care

Reducing Wait Times for Medical Procedures

Each spring, the Canadian Policy Research Networks holds The Taming of the Queue conference in Ottawa to exchange best practices techniques on how to reduce wait times for medical procedures. This year's conference included presentations on accomplishments since the 2004 First Ministers' Health Accord and on the challenges that remain, with special attention to the issue of improving wait times for mental health services. Participants in the conference included health care professionals, government representatives, and health policy analysts from across Canada. Their findings are presented in this report:

http://www.cprn.org/documents/50244_EN.pdf

Global Health Governance and Multi-Level Policy Coherence: Can the G8 Provide a Cure?

A new report from the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) highlights the ailing state of global health governance as evidenced by the lack of progress on the Millennium Development Goals, particularly the goals related to health. According to author Dr. Heidi Ullrich, policy coherence within the global health governance system is not evolving fast enough to ensure that trade and development issues related to public health, particularly concerning access to medicines, are effectively aligned at national, regional, and multilateral levels. The paper offers recommendations for enhancing multi-level policy coherence and for strengthening the system of global health governance.

http://www.igloo.org/cigi/download-nocache/Publications/

Science and Technology

15 Companies Bid Almost $4.3 Billion for Licences for New Wireless Services

Both consumers and businesses will be the winners in a more competitive wireless market, as Industry Canada has just announced that 282 licences have been conditionally assigned to 15 companies in the Auction of Spectrum Licences for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS) and Other Spectrum in the 2 GHz Range. It is hoped that the auction and AWS policy will create a wireless marketplace that offers more choice and better services for consumers and businesses.

http://www.ic.gc.ca/cmb/welcomeic.nsf/

Education

The Centre for International Governance Innovation’s Portal for North America

The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) has established a new resource for North American Studies programs, compiling a collection of teaching resources which are being hosted by CIGI’s Portal for North America (PNA) website. The PNA’s growing collection of teaching resources are designed for instructors to encourage greater inclusion of North American content into courses in a variety of disciplines and fields at the university level. The teaching resources have two parts: a teaching module, built around a primary text, case study or report, which enables an instructor to develop a single class with a North American dimension; and a teaching note, which highlights the main themes of the piece, offers suggestions for a teaching plan and discussion questions, and provides additional resources from the Portal for North America and externally. There are a total of 32 modules currently available to download. http://www.portalfornorthamerica.org/

Provisional Medical Licenses Are Only a Short-Term Solution

Granting provisional licenses to new primary care physicians does not lead to long-term retention of international medical graduates (IMG) in Newfoundland and Labrador, according to a new study led by Dr. Maria Mathews, associate professor of health policy/health care delivery at Memorial University’s Faculty of Medicine.  The study shows that, within one year of receiving a full medical license, most IMG leave the province. However, retention rates were no worse than for Canadian medical graduates, who are defined as fully-licensed graduates of Canadian medical schools outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. 

http://today.mun.ca/news.php?news_id=3992