Top grades for Canada’s new research program
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
May 26, 2010
The $190-million is stretched over seven years, and therefore will cost Ottawa a little more than $25-million a year. That investment has already sparked millions more from private sources and provincial governments… In the United States, a program like this might not be necessary, because private universities are so well endowed, and so much private and foundation money is available to recruit the world’s best. And success feeds on success, so the top U.S. universities are automatic magnets for talent.
Tags: participation, standard of living
Posted in Education Debates | No Comments »
When the penny drops, denial over health care stops
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
Apr. 16, 2010
Health-care spending has been crowding out other programs for years, but this effect was partially masked by the infusion of federal cash… The federal cash merely prevented the system from deteriorating. It certainly did not “buy change” such that yearly spending would stop rising above the inflation rate, government revenues or spending on other programs. So provinces are being driven to raise more revenue or cut spending… Much bigger changes lie ahead.
Tags: Health
Posted in Health Debates | No Comments »
Pharmacies’ pain will be consumers’ gain if Ontario wins its drug showdown
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Apr. 13, 2010
The entire health-care sector is a maze of interest groups, businesses, unions and professional associations, each protecting turf and previous gains. Remove or reduce any previous gain, and get ready for a battle. If you doubt it, check the advertisements now running from the Ontario Medical Association portraying doctors as nice, friendly, reliable people – all to soften up the public for OMA negotiations over fees next year.
Tags: Health, pharmaceutical
Posted in Health Debates | 1 Comment »
Order out of chaos – why refugee reform makes sense
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
Mar. 31, 2010
What’s needed is a streamlined system that treats likely false claimants differently from others, and cuts down decision times for all… starting with an initial interview that is supposed to help the applicant organize his or her claim. Public servants, rather than the IRB, will then hear the case within 60 days, instead of the current system under which the file goes to the IRB for a full hearing.
Tags: immigration
Posted in Equality Debates | No Comments »
Budget reality: promises, promises on the road to fiscal hock
Monday, March 8th, 2010
Mar. 06, 2010
The single most curious aspect of North American political conservatism is that it has very seldom produced what it preached, although the yawning gap never stopped the preaching. Put another way, the incessant clamouring for smaller government, small-c conservative values, lower taxes and balanced budgets has never yet happened in any sustained way. What this ideology ought to have produced was prudence, caution, skepticism and a steely ability to say no. Instead, rather ironically, conservative-minded governments often produced fiscal messes that centrist or centre-left governments then had to clean up.
Tags: ideology
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
Budget will expose absurdity of ‘recalibration’
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Mar. 03, 2010
…minority governments are notoriously adverse to hard fiscal decisions, since opposition parties never saw a spending program they sought to cut. So it has been with the Harper government, whose years in office have featured the easy decisions of reducing taxes and raising spending way above the inflation rate. The only spending restraint the government has shown was an examination of departments looking for savings of 5 per cent – not actually to save money but to reallocate it elsewhere.
Posted in Governance Debates | No Comments »
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