Economy
The Audacity of Trade
It is more incontestable than ever
that North American prosperity depends on smooth and uninterrupted exchanges
across the border, explains Brian Crowley of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.
Crowley observes that people in all three
North American countries are raising concerns about the legitimacy of free
trade; however, he contends that the fundamental argument that free trade is a
moral force and a force for good is still quite compelling. http://www.aims.ca/library/AudacityOfTrade.pdf
A Celtic Tiger is Caged: Lessons for
Western
Canada
For the better part of this decade,
Ireland has been held up as the shining
example of how to harness the forces of globalization; however, the recent
global economic downturn has dampened
Ireland’s economic forecasts. In a commentary for the Canada West Foundation,
Lethbridge
Herald argues that
Ireland’s economy will quickly rise again
and offers an ideal exemplar to Western
Canada. Herald explains that
Ireland’s investments in education,
strategic targeting of foreign investment, and calculated tax cuts to spur
growth, are all part of its recipe for success.
http://www.cwf.ca/V2/cnt/commentaries_200811060906.php
Labour Force
Survey
A new Statistics Canada publication
illustrates changes in employment rate since 2008. According to the
data, since the beginning of 2008, employment has increased
1.2% (+203,000), with gains in both full and part time. Following a large gain the month
before, employment was little changed in October as an increase in full-time
work was mostly offset by losses in part time.
http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/081107/d081107.pdf
Measuring Entrepreneurship:
Canada’s
Provinces
Trail
U.S. States on Key
Indicators
The Fraser Institute’s Keith Godin and
Neils Veldhuis summarize the results of a recent study aimed at measuring and
comparing entrepreneurship across jurisdictions in
Canada and the
U.S. The authors rank each Canadian province
on numerous aspects of entrepreneurship in a comparative context with their
American counterparts.
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/Commerce.Web/product_files/MeasuringEntrepreneurship.pdf
Domestic
Politics
Restructuring the Canadian Senate through
Elections
Whether or not
Canada should hold elections for its
Senate seats is a complicated issue, say Bruce Hicks and André Blais of the Institute for Research in Public
Policy. In a new study, the authors examine other countries’ experiences
with appointed and elected upper chambers and at the various electoral systems
that have been discussed as possibilities for the Canadian Senate. They claim
that evidence shows that elected second chambers are more likely to exercise the
full range of their powers. In other words, they argue, the very act of electing
the chamber would have a transformative effect on its legitimacy and
powers. http://www.irpp.org/choices/archive/vol14no15.pdf
Uniting the Left: Prospects for a
Liberal-NDP Merger
In an
article for the Institute for Research in Public
Policy, columnist Robin Sears explores the prospects
for uniting the Canadian political left. Sears notes that the three
national political parties to the left of the Conservatives — the Liberals, the
NDP and now the Greens – all essentially fishing in the same pool of voters. He
argues that while their competitive histories and personalities might argue
against a unity movement, common sense and the prospect of winning an election
as a united left might ultimately win the day. Yet, a new generation of leaders
will need to decide if Canadian liberalism and social democracy can ever be one
political party, he concludes. http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/nov08/sears.pdf
Public
Policy
Bold
Solutions for Tackling Poverty in
Waterloo
Region
Between 1997 and 2000, a Millennium
project known as Opportunities 2000 gave the Waterloo Region community
partners the chance to try out a new way of tackling poverty – a
comprehensive approach based on the power of combined thought and action.
This initiative was assisted by the McConnell Family Foundation and the
Caledon Institute of Social
Policy. In a new paper from the
Caledon Institute, participants share their experiences in community
collaboration and consider the plans they have made for the next three
years. http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/721ENG%2Epdf
Ontarians Waiting for Leadership on
Poverty Reduction
In a year where global markets
are rattling entire nations and
Ontario has slipped into have-not status,
Ontarians are dealing with their own financial worry and looking to their
governments for leadership, says Trish Hennessy of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
(CCPA). The CCPA employed Environics
Research to conduct a national poll last month and a new CCPA report
represents the responses provided by Ontarians. It tells a story of economic
worry and of resolve, Hennessey says, as Ontarians say now is the time for
governments to make us proud and take clear steps to reduce poverty in our
provinces. http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2008/Ontario_Poverty_Poll.pdf
Energy /
Environment
Integrating Climate Change into
Invasive Species Risk Assessment and Management
The Policy Research Initiative (PRI) held a
one-day workshop earlier this year, which examined how climate change
considerations factor into work on invasive species within the federal
government, particularly in terms of risk assessment and risk management. A new
paper from PRI considers the findings of the conference and offers a number of
innovative next steps.
http://policyresearch.gc.ca/doclib/WR_SD_InvasiveSpecies_200811_e.pdf
Foreign
Affairs
Building an Enhanced Nexus
Program
In August 2008,
Ottawa signed on to the APEC Business
Travel Card plan, a frequent traveller program aimed at enhancing business
mobility and economic integration in the Asia Pacific region. The best way
forward to implement this system, says a new report from the Asia Pacific Foundation, is
to piggy back on the existing Nexus system for
U.S. cross-border travel. In so doing,
this will promote national security, business mobility and border facilitation
simultaneously; however, the mechanics are far from simple, the paper explains.
http://www.asiapacific.ca/files/Bulletins/bulletin298.pdf
Science and
Technology
New Ways to Mend a Broken Bone – Try
Glue
A long
hospital stay and difficulty getting around are common after breaking a bone,
however, a Canadian research team is using a kind of super glue that will help
patients with broken backs get out of the hospital quickly and return to an
active lifestyle. With the support of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research,
Dr. Gamal Baroud of the University of
Sherbrooke and his research team are improving how surgeons work with this
super glue during a procedure called vertebroplasty. “Once done, up to 90% of
patients can walk pain free. They can leave the surgical table pain free,”
Baroud says. So instead of days or weeks in the hosptial, patients can leave
after only a few hours.
http://www.innovationcanada.ca/en/articles/how-to-mend-a-broken-bone-try-glue
Enabling
Local Level Policy Creativity
A new Canadian Policy Research Networks
paper examines the importance of enabling
policy creativity at the local level. Author Neil Bradford proposes to mobilize
a national community innovation system to support and engage the
voluntary/non-profit sector and policy advocates in partnering with governments
to introduce innovative programs and polices to meet local needs and strengthen
communities. He explains that the system would address five key policy
challenges: social inclusion, environmental sustainability, cultural diversity,
public health and economic development. http://www.cprn.org/documents/50766_EN.pdf
Chicken Little Eats Crow: How the
Critics Got it Wrong about Spectrum Auctions
In a paper from the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies,
Ian Munro reviews the controversy over the auctioning of wireless licences and
concludes the naysayers were wrong. Munro says these auctions have actually
resulted in hundreds of licences being placed in the hands of service providers
quickly, efficiently, fairly, and transparently. Yet, Munro suggests that
improvements can still be made, and, to achieve this, he offers five
recommendations. http://www.aims.ca/library/ChickenLittleEatsCrow.pdf
Education
Paving the Way to a Better Malaria
Cure
Researchers at the National Research Council of Canada’s Plant
Biotechnology Institute (NRC-PBI) in
Saskatoon are unravelling the mystery of how
a common plant called Artemisia annua, produces the compound artemisinin
that can destroy Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. Dr.
Patrick Covello, a senior researcher at NRC-PBI, explains that if he can understand
exactly how Artemisia annua makes artemisinin, the compound could be
produced more cheaply. And that's good news for the developing world, he says,
as the disease kills more than a million people there each
year.
http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/highlights/2008/0811malaria_e.html
