Year: 2010

The Traditional Census is Dying, and a Good Thing Too: Leviathan’s spyglass

America’s constitution requires it to conduct a shoe-leather census, which is why this year’s effort is going to cost it over $11 billion. The Finns, by contrast, spent about €1m ($1.2m) on their last one. That’s about $36 per head in America and 20 cents in Finland. Denmark has been keeping track of its citizens without a traditional census for decades; Sweden, Norway, Finland and Slovenia, among others, have similar systems. Germany will adopt the approach for its next count, also due in 2011.

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Winds Of Change

“In a signing ceremony Thursday for a $7-billion deal with Samsung to build wind and solar facilities, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said: ‘This means Ontario is officially the place to be for green energy manufacturing in North America.'”

Creating Proper Incentives for Canada’s Cities Through Smart Provincial Legislation: A best-practice model of local government legislation for Canada

Creating Proper Incentives for Canada’s Cities Through Smart Provincial Legislation: A best-practice model of local government legislation for Canada

Frontier senior fellow Larry Mitchell on reforming Canada’s antiquated municipal government legislation: Canadian municipal law is characterized by its prescriptive rules-based codes of compliance. These contrast starkly with other jurisdiction’s local government law.

Modern local government laws of other countries seek to facilitate best-management practice by setting outcomes rather than rules;
they construct a performance and service-delivery framework designed to effectively and efficiently meet the needs of local taxpayers and residents.

Good local government law promotes good local government.