Year: 2004

Eco-imperialism Won’t Save the Environment

Mr. Driessen calls this “eco-imperialism,” an effective term that appeals to the disdain for the domination of vulnerable or weak societies by the more powerful. This resonates with rural Canadians, especially those engaged in the fur trade and commercial forestry, some of whom are the chief victims of this sort of arrogance.

Can Quebeckers still afford their economic development model?

The solution may lie, as it did 40 years ago, with Hydro-Québec. Mr. Fortin advocates steady increases in domestic electricity prices to spur conservation at home and free up energy surpluses for the lucrative export market. For former Liberal minister Claude Castonguay, Quebec Inc.’s eminence grise, the future might lie in Hydro-Québec’s partial privatization. The $20-billion to $25-billion the government could pocket by selling a third of the utility would seriously alleviate Quebec’s debt burden.

Choice will be healthy for the NHS

We are, as a nation, spending a great deal more to get a small improvement in the service, because there are too few incentives to guarantee value for money. Sound familiar? The resistance to consumer choice in healthcare rests on the argument that only the informed and the assertive would benefit. But in a system that permits choice, there is an incentive for more and more people to become informed and assertive (and even those who don’t, benefit from the power of those who do).

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Pork Barrel Protectionism Report

Policy paper 24 explores why recent hog tariffs imposed by the United States are about protectionism and explains why Canada should aggressively pursue the case under free trade rules, and work to eliminate the possibility of such nuisance actions in all export commodities.