Hockey players are not the most sophisticated breed of human animal out there, but among the lot Shane Doan is one of the classier ones. So it is a bit much to hear Doan being called out on the legislative mat – in the House of Commons of all places – for being Team Canada’s captain, all over some passing […]
Read moreIt truly boggles the mind how people can contemplate flying to Iceland in order to board a boat to watch global warming happen in Greenland. So this is capitalism’s response to climate change. Sigh. A holiday at the end of the Earth: tourists paying to see global warming in action By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor Published:Â 03 May 2007 Bored […]
Read morePrivate equity has raised more concerns on the other side of the Atlantic than in North America. Andrew Jackson made some comments on the topic on RPE a month ago. Whether David Dodge has been dropping in on RPE is not clear (we will FOI his browsing history), but at any rate, it is welcome for him to weigh in […]
Read moreI have to say I have a soft spot for Margaret Wente. Sure, she is a conservative who sounds off frequently on issues that she really has no business writing about. But, boy. is she a good writer and she has a knack of connecting with the same deeply embedded conservative populism that Harper likes to mine. Today I was […]
Read moreI used to be skeptical of fixed election dates, as an American intrusion into our Canadian parliamentary ways. But having them in BC (introduced in 2001, with the last election mandated for May 2005 and the next for May 2009), I like them. It means that the opposition parties can prepare for an election in advance rather than waiting on […]
Read moreA new edited volume, Whose Canada?: Continental Integration, Fortress North America, and the Corporate Agenda, by Ricardo Grinspun and Yasmine Shamsie, has just come out, featuring many of your favourite left-wing writers. The full book is out from McGill-Queen’s University Press, and can also be purchased through the CCPA. The table of contents can be viewed here. The synopsis follows: […]
Read moreSays Lawrence Martin in his Globe column: In the 1970s, the activists, their views vindicated on Vietnam, were in the vanguard. In this decade, the activists, their views vindicated on Iraq, not to mention global warming, have no such standing.Speak out back then and you were cool. Speak out today and some fount of wisdom with a Fox News mentality […]
Read moreThe Harper government enacts yet another policy from the CCPA. Ross Klein, social work professor turned cruise industry watcher at Memorial University deserves a big round of applause for his efforts to shine a light on this problem. A cynic might comment that this is just an easy reform that beefs up Harper’s green credentials prior to the next election. […]
Read moreIs this mischief on the part of the Globe’s editors or a simple mistake? The way I read the headline below is literally: that Harper’s newest climate change plan would “cut emissions 18 per cent by 2010”. Sounds good, right? The Tories must have seen the light and, while they would still miss the Kyoto targets, are aiming for a […]
Read moreThis is a fascinating story arising out of BC’s newfound religion on climate change. It seems to me that the devil is in the details when it comes to carbon trading. A hard cap must be set and must be enforced with strong penalties. Allocating emission rights based on past performance is problematic, as it rewards those who are the […]
Read moreThe first cut at 2006 GDP data for the provinces is out today from Statscan. What blew me away was Alberta, with real GDP growth of 6.8%. That is not a typo, so let me repeat, 6.8%, as in, Chinese style growth, and more than double the national average of 2.7%. And I thought the past two years were blistering […]
Read moreThis was referred to by Ezra Klein at the very bottom of the last post, and it deserves its own. Abstract and the concluding “discussion” section are pasted below: A systematic review of studies comparing health outcomes in Canada and the United States Gordon H. Guyatt, P.J. Devereaux, Joel Lexchin, Samuel B. Stone, Armine Yalnizyan, David Himmelstein, Steffie Woolhandler, […]
Read moreIn the American Prospect, Ezra Klein compares five countries’ health care systems (hat tip to Mark Thoma). in spite of his general defence of Canada, there are a few areas where I think he gets it wrong and I have added in some comments in those places. The Health of Nations Here’s how Canada, France, Britain, Germany, and our own […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot summarizes the case for a world parliament, drawing on a new campaign being launched this week. I’ve always thought this to be a far-sighted and much-needed, if politically impossible, idea. Dare to dream, I suppose. Perhaps by the time I die the world will have something like a truly global parliament. (And if they could have those levitating […]
Read moreThe annual G8 meetings often result in a group hug (aka the “summit declaration). Much of the time, when the goals are laudable, they fail to achieve the desired result, as Sachs comments below on the MDGs, or they misrepresent what they are doing in the first place (remember the 2000 release that “ended” third world debt?). The Millennium Development […]
Read moreThis article from The Tyee reviews the history of the CWB and recent attacks by the Harper government: Harper’s Hit on Grain Farmers: Tories will aid US firms by gutting Canadian Wheat Board By Albert Horner and David Orchard TheTyee.ca For a year the Harper government has been threatening to destroy the power of the Canadian Wheat Board (CWB). Agriculture […]
Read moreA lovely counterpoint to last week in Canadian politics on greenhouse gas emission reductions, Kyoto and Minister Baird: Norway Plans to Go ‘Carbon Neutral’ April 20, 2007 — Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday proposed to make Norway the first “carbon neutral” state by 2050 and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 30 percent by 2020. “We are committed […]
Read moreLike many people, I admire the entrepreneur. Risk-taking, hard-working, value-adding, employment-creating – such are the virtues of entrepreneurs. I wish our schools taught people more about how to be entrepreneurial, as opposed to “business” degrees that teach people to be middle-managers in big corporations. We too often are lectured about the need to impose supply-side remedies to boost entrepreneurship – […]
Read moreThe framing of the Kyoto Accord by the Harper government, that is. I suppose this is progress for Harper, who had essentially dismissed climate change a year ago, but as the polls moved he has had to follow. I’m not as pessimistic about the economic fall-out if we are creative in developing just transition strategies for affected workers and are […]
Read moreA report by Felix Salmon from the front lines of Columbia University on some issues arising out of the Stern review. I’d love to see a transcript of this session. Stern, Sachs, and Stiglitz on the Economics of Climate Change … I managed to ask Stern the question I’ve been wanting to ask him for a couple months now … […]
Read moreThe Globe and Mail deserves full credit for continuing to publish stories on environmental toxins. After being in circulation for decades, many chemicals are now (slowly) being put to the test, and some may even be taken out of circulation some time in the next decade. A first step being taken by the feds is labelling of what is in […]
Read moreTwo Canadian macro articles diverted me from my best laid plans today. Side by side, the two make for some interesting observations on the state of the Canadian economy, as well as some fodder for thinking about what drives investment. The first, a Statscan piece by Phillip Cross, is a demand-led investment story, with most attention on the resource sector, […]
Read moreStatistics Canada’s economic review of 2006 contains an interesting passage about consumer responses to higher gas prices. One would expect that as gas prices rise, drivers would consume somewhat less gas in the short run (gas demand is inelastic, so the reduction may be small), and to change their behaviour over the long-run by purchasing more fuel efficient vehicles. This […]
Read moreSupply-side economics (and its trickle-down theory) is a zombie, intellectually dead but continuing to roam the halls of the public debate. Witness the 2001 BC elections and the mantra “tax cuts pay for themselves”, a free-lunch argument that we can have tax cuts and not have to pay a price in terms of cutting social programs (note: as of 2007, […]
Read moreGeorge Monbiot takes us behind the curtain of the IPCC report-making process, and who is really pressuring whom to censor what: The Real Climate Censorship Posted April 10, 2007 It’s happening, it’s systematic, and it is precisely the opposite story to the one the papers are telling. By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian, 10th April 2007. The drafting of […]
Read moreOver at Economist’s View, Mark Thoma got a snowball rolling (trickling?) downhill by citing a revisionist article by Bruce Bartlett on the history and legacy of supply-side economics. He then put forward a lengthy and useful theoretical response, after which all kinds of interesting commentary followed. I have taken this updated post for a summary, which includes the original oped […]
Read moreThis missive below from the Conrad Black trial must be really embarrassing for Black. Reading about this horrible trip and his feelings of inadequacy next to young honeymooners, I feel kind of sorry for the guy … OK, it’s gone now. What is amazing about the doomed flight is that Conrad could have had it all – and kept the […]
Read moreOver at MaxSpeak, the state of housing and whether or not it is a bubble is reviewed: THE GREAT HOUSING BUBBLE FLAP Probably most who read this blog accept that there was a bubble in the US housing market, and that it has come to an end. Some regulars here, notably the notable Dean Baker, were early out the door […]
Read moreA report from the front lines of the battle over early learning and child care in the United Kingdom, which appears to be in a similar space as Canada – supported by academic and policy elites, but with too little action on the political side to overcome the great inertia of the existing patchwork system. Taking great care We should […]
Read moreTwo recent reports from the Globe below point to the failures of our regulatory system. The first is on bisphenol A, an endocrine disrupter, and the second on trans fats. The challenge is a regulatory approach that insists on bullet-proof evidence of harm – which can take decades to accumulate – before action is taken to remove a chemical from […]
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