Canada-U.S.
Relations
Getting Canada on President Obama’s
Agenda
As biggest trading partner and
energy supplier of the U.S., as well as one of its closest
fighting allies in Afghanistan, no country is more susceptible to
policy changes in the U.S. nor has a higher stake in seeking
to influence American choices than Canada, write
Alexander
Moens and Derrick Schroeter of the Fraser
Institute.
The authors recommend that the Canadian Prime Minister meet early with the new
American president and put in maximum effort to build personal relationship of
mutual trust and respect. They explain how this can be done in a new
article.
http://www.fraserinstitute.org/Commerce.Web/product_files/GettingCanadaonPresidentObamasAgenda.pdf
Blueprint for Canada-U.S. Engagement
under a New Administration
In a recent symposium at
Carlton University, a group of Canadian and American
experts presented a series of policy papers addressing themes that will be
critical to Canada-U.S. engagement. These included the border, defence
cooperation, the Arctic, the energy-environment nexus,
competitiveness, institutional linkages, the fallout from the financial crisis,
the Americas, and engagement with the
United
States and other key allies. It was hoped
that through the discussions at the conference a strategy document on effective
Canadian engagement of the next U.S. Administration could be fashioned. All of
the papers can be viewed online: http://www.carleton.ca/ctpl/conferences/ConferencePapers.htm
A summary of the papers and the
conference can be viewed here:
http://www.carleton.ca/ctpl/conferences/documents/NARP-Dec8thConference-Overview.pdf
Initiating an Investigation of the Border’s Performance
The Border Policy Research Institute’s latest Policy Brief proposes metrics for characterizing the performance of the Canada – U.S. border. In addition to traditional “hard” metrics, such as the ratio of traffic load to inspection booths, the Institute suggests “soft” metrics are necessary, such as the existence and the effectiveness of regional cross-border cooperative forums. http://www.wwu.edu/bpri/files/2008_Nov_Border_Brief.pdf
Economy
Minimum Wages: Operating with a
Blunt Instrument
Minimum wage legislation perpetuates
poverty and eliminates job opportunities. This the sobering finding in the first
of a four part of a new Atlantic
Institute for Market Studies’ series by the Morley Gunderson, the CIBC Chair
on Youth Employment at the University of
Toronto and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. http://www.aims.ca/library/LabourSeries1.pdf
The
Forgotten Fundamentals
Ottawa has at its disposal several
effective social programs that can play an important part in an economic
stimulus package to combat the recession. Boosting three geared-to-income
programs – the Canada Child Tax Benefit, refundable GST credit and Working
Income Tax Benefit – would put additional money into the hands of lower-income
households who are most likely to spend it immediately; while employment
insurance, which now serves only four in ten unemployed Canadians, must be
restored and strengthened. These are the suggestions culled from the results of
a new report by the Caledon Institute of
Social Policy. http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/727ENG%2Epdf
Remind Me Again How Gas Regulation
Is "Working"?
Gas
price regulation costs money and Canadians are the ones paying, concludes a
report commissioned by the Nova
Scotia
government. Yet, when the government announced it will continue gas price
regulation, Bobby O'Keefe of Atlantic Institute for Market
Studies
had to ask why.
http://www.aims.ca/inthemedia.asp?typeID=4&id=2386&fd=0&p=1
Causes and Implications of Changing
Competitiveness in Western
Canada’s Key
Markets
Rulf Mirus and Chris Ryan of the Canada West Foundation identify markets
where western Canadian exporters have the most to lose from the failure of the
WTO’s Doha Round and the resulting trend towards more bilateral trade
agreements. Using a methodology developed specifically to this end, they claim
that China,
Indonesia and
India emerge as the highest priority
candidates for free trade and investment agreements from a western Canadian
perspective. http://www.cwf.ca/V2/files/GFG4.pdf
Firm Turnover
and Productivity Growth in the Retail Trade Sector
In a new
study for Statistics Canada,
John Baldwin and Wulong
Gu of the Micro-economic Analysis Division focus on the dynamics of productivity
growth in the service sector by examining retail trade industries in Canada
from 1984 to 1998. Data were derived by linking two
administrative databases, the Longitudinal Employment Analysis Program and the
Corporate Tax Statistical Universal File. http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11f0027m/11f0027m2008053-eng.pdf
La Démarche: Revitalizing
Neighbourhoods in Trois-Rivières
La Démarche is neighbourhood
revitalization initiative and now a member of the Vibrant Communities network.
It was established in 2001 by a community economic development corporation to
improve the quality of life in selected Trois-Rivières
neighbourhoods. A number of authors
from the Caledon Institute
of Social Policy lay out the framework for change upon which La Démarche
participants are building their efforts. http://www.caledoninst.org/Publications/PDF/729ENG%2Epdf
The State of
the Asia-Pacific Region
A recent paper reports the results
of a new survey
of leaders in the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum economies on the
outlook for the coming year. The survey was conducted by the Asia Pacific Foundation of
Canada in
cooperation with the Asian Development
Bank Office of Regional Economic Integration. http://www.asiapacific.ca/files/Analysis/2008/SOTRsurvey.pdf
Foreign
Affairs
The Intersection
of Human Rights and Government Budgets
Budgets
profoundly impact the attainment of human rights, concludes a new report
released on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. The essay’s conclusion flows from dozens of case
studies from around the world today with the Canadian launch of the 2008 edition
of the annual international Social Watch report. The report was an initiative
undertaken by the Canadian Feminist
Alliance for International Action, the Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives and the North-South
Institute.
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/~ASSETS/DOCUMENT/National_Office_Pubs/2008/Social_Watch_Canada2008.pdf
Education
Standardized Testing Pays Off for
New Brunswick Schools
Parents
and students in New
Brunswick
have a new tool to help improve public education, writes Bobby O’Keefe of the Atlantic Institute for Market
Studies.
The province is now releasing a report card of school by school results on how
students do in provincial tests; and, while this is a necessary first step, the
next is to push for local control and choice so that the school community can
use the information to improve student achievement, O'Keefe
argues.
http://www.aims.ca/inthemedia.asp?typeID=4&id=2385&fd=0&p=1
Science and
Technology
Alzheimer’s Drug May Stop the Spread
of Aggressive Brain Cancers
A new joint study from the
University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services has discovered a way
to help stop aggressive brain tumours from spreading by using an existing drug
that is being tested for Alzheimer’s patients. The work identified a “switch”
that enables brain cancer cells to journey outwards from a primary tumour. The
findings are published in the scientific journal Public Library of Science Biology.
http://biology.plosjournals.org/archive/1545-7885/6/11/pdf/10.1371_journal.pbio.0060289-L.pdf
No Pulp Fiction: Engineers See Major
Paper Mill Savings with New Rotor Technology
A partnership between
University of British
Columbia, the Canadian government and the
pulp and paper industry has resulted in the development of three high efficiency
pulp screen rotors that produce high quality paper while reducing almost half
the energy required. http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2008/08dec04/pulpfiction.html
Cactus Oil Could
Smooth
Way to Fossil Fuel-Free
Future
A University of Alberta research team has
received $360,000 to explore how a plant from the
Arizona desert can provide a sustainable,
non-petrochemical source of common industrial oils. Randall Weselake, a
professor and Canada Research Chair in the Department of Agricultural, Food and
Nutritional Science at the University of Alberta, will experiment with seeds from
lesquerella, a succulent cactus-like plant, to develop industrial oilseed crops
in Canada. http://www.expressnews.ualberta.ca/article.cfm?id=9814
Canadian
Studies
More Northern
Exposure
The University of Washington recently
became a member of the University of the Arctic—just the second institution (along
with Dartmouth College) below the
49th parallel to do so. The University of the Arctic (UArctic) has no physical campus. Rather, it
is a network of institutions across the circumpolar north with shared interests.
Those interests range from global warming to Inuit self-government to the
natural resources of the Arctic.
http://www.artsci.washington.edu/newsletter/autumn08/WhatsNews.asp#Arctic
Public
Opinion
Looking For Leadership: Canadian
Attitudes toward Intellectual Property
Although research shows that a
strong foundation of respect for intellectual property already exists among
Canadians, this respect may be eroded over time if present conditions persist,
suggests the results of a new report by Environics Research. Currently,
Canadians operate in a virtual vacuum of regulation or even social standards
when it comes to the use and abuse of intellectual property. As a result,
significant proportions of the Canadian public report having acquired creative
goods illegally; the number is even higher among youth. http://erg.environics.net/media_room/default.asp?aID=690
