Canada-U.S. Relations

Joint Canada-U.S. Approach on Climate Change Policy Needed

A joint Canada-U.S. approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is needed to minimize the negative impact on Canada’s competitiveness, says a study released by the C.D. Howe Institute.  Authors Chris Bataille, Benjamin Dachis and Nic Rivers note there is a growing consensus that if serious action is to be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, a price must be applied to emissions through a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax. The authors look at a number of scenarios of how Canada’s climate policy might coexist with the rest of the world, how certain sectors are likely to be affected by carbon pricing and what governments can do about it. http://www.cdhowe.org/pdf/commentary_280.pdf

 

A Struggle to Maintain Shared Lives and Cultures in Post-9/11 North America

Post 9/11, federal, state, and local governments in the U.S. have embarked on ambitious efforts to strengthen national security, and this has occasioned a profound thickening of the borders.  Sara Singleton of the Border Policy Research Institute focuses upon the special problems that recent changes in border policy pose to American Indian Tribes and Canadian First Nations. She evaluates arguments for and against the creation of special border protocols for native peoples.  http://www.wwu.edu/bpri/files/2009_Jan_WP_No_4.pdf

 

How Will Obama Change the Americas?

In this month’s FOCALPoint, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas compiles a series of articles discussing what kind of transformation Canadians, Caribbeans, and Latin Americans can expect from President Barack Obama. Articles examine the apparent loosening of U.S.-Cuba relations, as well as the recent challenges to Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution, while others lobby for the creation of a comprehensive social development agenda, a rebuilding of a coalition in the region to defend and sustain democratic gains and for Canada to strengthen its own Americas policy. http://www.focal.ca/publications/focalpoint/index_e.asp

 

 

Foreign Policy

Crise de croissance ou crise de maturité?

L’année 2009 pourrait bien être l’année des bilans de la première décennie du XXIème siècle.  Alexandra Novosseloff du Centre d’Études des politiques étrangères et de sécurité questionne des limites, des responsabilités et des moyens du maintien de la paix de l’ONU afin de résoudre les crises qui sont portées à son ordre du jour.  Même que l’ONU soit critiquée de manière constante pour ne pas parvenir à réellement protéger les populations civiles, écrit-elle, il faut que les opérations de maintien de paix se départissent de leur image souvent négative de lenteur, d’inefficacité et d’enlisement. http://www.cepes.uqam.ca/

 

Widening Transatlantic Partnerships

Canada’s contributions to the 1994 Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperative Initiative effectively extended NATO partnership frameworks to Egypt, Israel, Mauritania, Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia, writes Brandon Deuville for the Canadian International Council. From a historical perspective, he argues that Canada’s multilateralism-oriented foreign and defence policies have helped increase the stability and security of the Mediterranean region and the wider Middle East. http://www.canadianinternationalcouncil.org/

 

 

Economy

Policy Options: Economic Crisis

The latest issue of the Institute for Research on Public Policy’s flagship publication, Policy Options, is devoted to the economic crisis.  It features articles on Canadian public opinion, the state of the Canadian economy, lessons from the Depression, booms and busts in western Canada, and the political and financial causes of the current crisis.  http://www.irpp.org/po/index.htm / http://www.irpp.org/fr/po/index.htm

 

The Labour Market Trajectories of IT Workers

Governments are being challenged to reconcile two key pressures: the demand for flexibility in the functioning of labour markets, and the simultaneous demand for income security among citizens, especially those vulnerable to unemployment and under-employment.  Critical to meeting this challenge is the increasing need for multiple job transitions and lifelong learning.  Martin Cooke and Kerry Platman of the Canadian Policy Research Networks use case study data collected in Canada and the United Kingdom of employees of small- and mid-sized information technology firms to assess their capacity to respond to rapid technological changes as well as changing economic and market conditions.

http://www.cprn.org/documents/50995_EN.pdf

 

Is Gas Price Regulation Worth It?

As of February 1st, 2009, Atlantic Canadians have paid more than $155-million extra for gasoline because of price regulation in their provinces, approximates Bobby O’Keefe of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies.  He explains how that figure is reached and why it's actually a conservative estimate.   http://www.aims.ca/library/WhatsMissing.pdf

 

Privatization of Hydro-Quebec

By privatizing Hydro-Québec, Quebecers would get $10 billion more out of it per year through improved productivity, higher electricity rates and an end to costly subsidy programs for aluminum smelters, according to Claude Garcia in this Montreal Economic Institute publication.  He argues that this privatization would reap many benefits for Quebecers insofar as it will also be accompanied by a reform of the Régie de l’énergie’s role, and it would allow Quebecers to choose their electricity provider, as the new private company would be required to pay substantial annual royalties to the government. http://www.iedm.org/uploaded/pdf/cahier0209_en.pdf

En français: http://www.iedm.org/uploaded/pdf/cahier0209_fr.pdf

 

Business Taxation in Western Canada

Kenneth J. McKenzie of the Canada West Foundation examines the implications of taxes that impose on business capital, and therefore impinge upon investment decisions. MacKenzie concludes that Canada as a whole, and the western provinces in particular, do not have a particularly competitive business tax regime internationally. McKenzie’s paper is part of the Canada West Foundation’s Going for the Gold Research Paper Series, which examines a key issue related to improving western Canada’s ability to compete and win in the global economy over the long-term. http://www.cwf.ca/V2/cnt/publication_200901211438.php

 

Avoidable Health Care Costs

British Columbia’s government PharmaCare policy requiring patients with acid-related diseases to use the cheapest brand name drugs has cost the provincial treasury more money and likely adversely affected the health of patients, concludes a new study from the Fraser Institute. The government claimed the policy, known as Therapeutic Substitution, is intended to reduce drug spending with minimal impact on patients; however, the study’s evidence indicates that the policy actually generated up to over $43 million in avoidable health spending.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/newsandevents/commentaries/6458.aspx

 

 

Public Policy

Feed People First

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives calls on Canada’s federal and provincial governments to end subsidies to the biofuel industry.  Edward R. Boyle assesses ethanol and biofuels subsidies as bad public policy because most biofuels increase, rather than reduce, greenhouse gas emissions once all the energy impacts are taken into account. He maintains that they are a waste of public money, and have been a major factor in the reduction of global food supplies and resulting food price increases.

http://www.policyalternatives.ca/~ASSETS/DOCUMENT/Saskatchewan_Pubs/2009/Biofuels_and_Global_Food_Shortages.pdf

 

Health Care Access for Immigrants and Refugees

The number of people with either undocumented or precarious status is growing in Canada. Clinicians working in primary care with migrants and refugees are increasingly worried about the associated morbidity. François Crépaud of the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales summarizes findings from a pilot study with health professionals in the Montreal area and suggests that the uninsured population predicament is a national problem.

http://www.cerium.ca/IMG/pdf/09-02_Rousseau_Volume_99-4_290-92.pdf

 

 

Science and Technology

University of Toronto Researcher Unearths Largest Snake Ever

A team of researchers led by Jason Head, from the University of Toronto at Mississauga has discovered the fossilised remains belonging to the world's largest snake. Titanoboa weighed 1,140 kg (2,500lbs), measured 13m (42ft) long - about the length of a bus - and lived in the rainforest of north-east Colombia 58-60 million years ago. Head and his team used a known mathematical relationship between the size of vertebrae and the length of the body in living snakes to estimate the size of the ancient animal. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7868588.stm

 

Keeping Computers Cool

Got a sluggish laptop that overheats? In a few years, laptop users may be able to manipulate files faster and longer without frying their legs, thanks to a metallic foam technology developed by the National Research Council. It is believed that through this new technology large computer companies can add more high-speed processors to their current line of products.

http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/highlights/2009/0902meta_e.html