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Canada has just enacted legislation to give the broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), authority to regulate online streaming platforms, both domestic and international. This legislation, known as Bill C-11 as it passed through an extensive parliamentary review process, was highly controversial. The bill empowers the CRTC to review and possibly amend the definition of “Canadian content.” It will also require that streaming services contribute financially to the production of Canadian content and will impose “discoverability” requirements on digital streaming platforms (like YouTube, Spotify, Netflix and others) to ensure that Canadian content is promoted. The CRTC will have broad leeway to issue and enforce regulations to achieve these ends. The U.S. high-tech and streaming industry does not like this legislation and has used various tactics to oppose it. Among these are arguments that C-11 violates commitments that Canada made to the United States in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), the replacement for NAFTA, and that implementation of C-11 will result in U.S. trade retaliation. This paper analyzes the arguments to this effect put forth by the U.S. tech industry’s trade association, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), and refutes them, particularly the argument that Canada will need to invoke CUSMA Article 32.6 (the cultural exception clause) to justify its actions. At the same time, the paper cautions that the CRTC needs to be careful with respect to imposing a requirement on foreign streamers to contribute to Canadian production if at the same time it denies them the ability to acquire and exploit the production they have helped finance when no such limitation is imposed on equivalent Canadian streaming services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses “Regulatory Alignment for Multi-Modal Infrastructure Corridors” in the context of the Canadian Northern Corridor Concept (CNC). In particular, the paper reviews whether there are any existing models “for regulatory oversight and approval for multi-modal corridors and the subsequent placement of infrastructure within” that might be appropriate in developing the CNC. The paper concludes that existing models do not include certain of the elements of the CNC Concept as it has evolved to date, nor could any of the models be applied within the framework of Canada’s jurisdictional realities that would govern the CNC. The paper identifies several questions that need to be addressed in order to advance the CNC Concept to a more fully-formed proposal, which would form the basis for further examination of the need for regulatory oversight and approval and the form that such oversight and approval might take. The paper also suggests a forum that might oversee this further work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is well known as an export-based economy, particularly with respect to its agricultural and agri-food industries. Since the signing of the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement (CUSTA) in 1989, the federal government has negotiated trade agreements with more than 40 international partners, providing Canadian firms with access to a multitude of foreign markets while also giving consumers at home a greater set of choices in the market for a great number of goods and services. Progress on more liberalized internal trade within the federation has not, however, kept pace with accomplishments on the international trade front. Despite the implementation of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) in 1995 and the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) in 2017 (along with several smaller but significant interprovincial agreements), a number of significant barriers remain to internal trade in goods and services in Canada. The focus of this paper is upon barriers that prevent the movement of goods and services among provinces, referred to as interprovincial trade barriers. There are a number of different types of these barriers; one such type is tariffs (which function similar to a sales tax) upon goods and services themselves. While tariffs are a major topic of study in international trade, they do not form a focus of this paper, which will instead focus on non-tariff barriers or NTBs. One such category of barriers to internal trade includes natural barriers such as lakes, rivers, mountain ranges and the simple distance between potential trading partners. A second type is called prohibitive barriers, which make illegal the movement of certain types of goods or services among provinces; perhaps the most wellknown of these pertains to the prohibition of the movement of alcohol or tobacco between provinces. Technical and regulatory/administrative barriers also exist, and pertain to provincial differences in requirements within specific sectors, licensing requirements, etc. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) has noted that differences in trucking regulations as well as inconsistent regulation of provincially and federally inspected meat-processing facilities are of particular concern in the agricultural and agri-food industries (CFA 2021). These barriers are costly to the Canadian economy, limiting its growth, output, efficiency and productivity. Estimates by Alvarez et al. (2019) suggest that Canadian GDP would increase by between one and four per cent if trade in goods alone were completely liberalized. This is approximately $92 billion per year, an amount that, if realized, could lead to significant job creation, increased streams of taxation revenue for government, enhanced economic growth and improved productivity. Economists have long cited the efficient and welfare-maximizing outcomes associated with unfettered markets, and removal of interprovincial trade barriers would provide significant gains for the Canadian economy. Several important drivers have led to the current situation where barriers to interprovincial trade constrict the freer flow of goods and services in Canada. One of them is federalism itself, where the duty of provincial governments is to act in the best interest of constituents, even if it means overall gains to Canada as a whole are not being realized. Related to this is a second driver, which is the balancing act that courts must strike in Canada when interpreting both federal and provincial legislation in areas where both levels of government can be argued to have jurisdiction. A third driver is the potential for stakeholders to act to prevent liberalization of trade if it is in their best interest to do so. Regulators and gatekeepers, industry associations and even governments can have vested financial or personal interest in the status quo, and be hesitant to change it even if they recognize that change would have the potential to provide greater economic benefits to others. A final driver that has led to the current system is the sheer amount of time, effort and expertise that would be required to update the current system. There are at least three plausible options for reducing interprovincial barriers to trade in Canada. The first would be to encourage courts to interpret relevant legislation in a way that would aid the freer flow of products and services internally. For example, section 121 of the Constitution Act seems to clearly require the free movement of goods among provinces, but the Supreme Court of Canada has, out of respect for provinces' rights, deferred to the notion of federalism and consistently interpreted legislation in a way that permits provinces to put limits on trade. Should the Court interpret 121 in a more constructionist way, interprovincial trade would increase. A second option is for provinces to independently negotiate more open markets in Canada. The New West Partnership Trade Agreement (NWPTA) among the four Western provinces has been successful, as have other regional agreements, at opening markets and generating economic benefits. A third option is to use the CFTA's mechanisms and resources at the federal and provincial levels to remove barriers on an industry-by-industry basis. Given the sheer number of firms and industries, it is more cumbersome to negotiate large-scale, national or multi-provincial agreements than smaller scale, industry-specific ones. There are costs and benefits associated with each of these options. Requiring courts to revise how they interpret law is beyond the power of the federal and provincial governments. Striking new trade partnerships is a time-consuming process, with no assurance of success. Negotiating improvements in specific subsectors and industries is achievable, but provides only incremental gains. From a benefits perspective, there is much to be gained: the estimated economic benefits from the freer flow of goods and services are considerable, although it is likely that those with a vested interest will see some of their current benefits transferred to others as a result of removing trade barriers. Overall, it seems obvious that previous work to liberalize trade has been fruitful, and a combination of the options proposed is likely to be worth the effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how the power wielded by regional incumbents has impacted subnational innovation agendas. Our findings suggest that the design of mission-oriented innovation policies should be more attentive to regional innovation policies and their relationship to how innovation may serve to bolster incumbents and not undermine them. We use a case-study of innovation in fossil fuels. Recently, innovation policy literature has explored innovation policy and global climate as a major topic. On the one hand, carbon lock-in has been used to explain why there has been such difficulty in reducing carbon emissions, in many cases, despite an increasing emphasis of mission-innovation policies. On the other hand, mission-innovation policies are believed to be a key to the development of disruptive innovations that could break this carbon intensive path dependency. Although the two literatures explore the same problem, there could be more integration. While carbon lock-in is being considered in the mission-innovation literature, it nevertheless has been largely overlooked at the mission-setting stage. On the other hand, the lock-in literature has tended to overlook the findings of mission-oriented innovation literature in offering solutions, which suggests that there is a more productive role for mission-oriented innovations in breaking free of previous constraints to serve in the low-carbon energy transition. To make our case, we argue it is important to distinguish among the various impacts disruptive innovations have on the market shares of incumbents'. We propose the following three schema: new market, market rewarding and market destroying. By variegating the potential impact of innovations, we suggest that mission-oriented innovation polices may be designed to only support certain types of innovations that do not directly undermine the market share of incumbents. Using a detailed case study of the Province of Alberta, Canada, we then explore the role of the province's mission-oriented policy in the development of technology to produce the Canadian oil sands. The case study illustrates how incumbents influenced the establishment and direction of the mission's goal. Shifts in incumbency opposition toward the province's mission-oriented innovation policy coincided with the changing impact of the innovation from being market destroying to market rewarding. We suggest that future research should be more attentive to the role of incumbents in influencing mission-oriented innovation policy and the importance of their influence at the mission-setting stage. Furthermore, we suggest that to meet the grand challenge of addressing climate change through mission-oriented innovation policies, these policies must be designed to break free of these institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure corridors are among the most complicated transactions in Canada. Establishing a pre-determined corridor and completing linear infrastructure projects within it requires transactions related to property rights, infrastructure planning, design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance, securing public support or social licence, and because of the long overdue recognition of Indigenous rights and title, informed support from affected Indigenous communities. This paper uses a comparative systems analysis to identify specific transaction costs in four areas -- historic, infrastructure development process, fiscal and economic systems. We argue these transaction costs can be significantly reduced by systematically implementing Indigenous fiscal, infrastructure and lands jurisdictions because this will permanently ensure that Indigenous communities and people are able to receive similar fiscal and economic benefits generated from infrastructure corridor projects as those enjoyed by other Canadians and other governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of School of Public Policy Publications is the property of University of Calgary, School of Public Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Canadian government is now openly discussing the possibility of making cyberweapons part of its official national defence strategy. The new development was revealed in a recent government white paper, entitled "Strong, Secure, and Engaged" (SSE), which outlined defence policy across a wide range of activities. Specifically, the paper discusses working toward a "more assertive posture in the cyber domain by hardening our defences, and by conducting active cyber operations against potential adversaries in the context of governmentauthorized military missions" with an explicit commitment to developing cyberattack capabilities. This direction not only opens up new possibilities for Canadian defence, it could also represent significant new risks. Without good answers to the difficult questions this new direction could raise, the country could be headed down a very precarious path. Cyberweapons do offer unique benefits. Since they tend to be far less costly to deploy than kinetic weapons - such as missiles, bombs and guns - they can level the playing field between richer, stronger states and weaker, poorer ones. Larger states may even be at further disadvantage by relying on larger, more sophisticated computer systems that could become a liability if successfully attacked. However, to date, countries have been reluctant to deploy cyberweapons in lieu of kinetic weapons. Furthermore, in those cases where cyberweapons appear to have been used by state actors, no state has accepted responsibility for using them. The Stuxnet virus used to cripple Iran's nuclear research equipment is a prime example: Israel and the U.S. remain the primary suspects, but both deny involvement. Cyberweapons also possess risks of unintended consequences that can make the unintended consequences of kinetic weapons seem trivial. Notably, cyberweapons have a much greater potential to impact targets that were not intended by the attacker. For instance, when a virus-like computer weapon is unleashed on the Internet to exploit vulnerabilities in certain system software in a target country, there is a real possibility that the virus could also infect and damage computer systems inside the attacker's own country that use the same software, or even infect the software of allies who use the software. It is also possible that the weapon could have unintended consequences within the target country, by infecting other systems that were never meant to be targeted and causing more collateral damage than expected. Launching a cyberweapon to disable an enemy's supply-chain computer systems and accidentally infecting its nuclear systems, setting off a nuclear incident, is a terrifying scenario. It might even rise to the level of a war crime. It is worth noting, however, that there are no international treaties governing the use of cyberweapons. If Canada engages in cyberwarfare without one, there will be no formal limits on what actions are acceptable and what actions are not. Indeed there are many discussions that still must be had within Canada and beyond to mitigate the risk of pursuing cyberweapons. The mere act of announcing someday that we are developing cyberweaponry (which, to be clear, Canada has not done) will already carry risk, suddenly making Canada suspect in future unattributed attacks, and perhaps enticing other countries to disguise their attacks by routing them through Canada. It is unclear even whether a prime minister or Parliament will be qualified to safely declare cyberwarfare, given its technical complexity. These are just some of the debates we need to have before Canada decides to embark on developing cyberwarfare capabilities. Now is a good time for those debates to start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many countries reacted by relaxing environmental rules and Canada was no exception. Environmental regulators across Canada changed rules in unprecedented efforts to balance public health, economic wellbeing and protection of the environment. This briefing paper takes stock of and discusses these actions. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many countries reacted by relaxing environmental rules and Canada was no exception. Environmental regulators across Canada changed rules in unprecedented efforts to balance public health, economic wellbeing and protection of the environment. This briefing paper takes stock of and discusses these actions. Only 41 of the 61 government notices included a specific COVID-related rationale for the rule changes and the explanations lacked detail. Reasons included accommodating regulated entities' need to observe public health requirements (88), financial relief for industry (38), responding to government capacity constraints (14) and accommodating public observance of health restrictions (3). More than a third of the changes were indefinite, with no set end date. In these cases especially it is critical that government agencies be held accountable for reinstating lost protections in a timely manner. Overall, environmental regulators across Canada responded in similar ways to the pandemic. Some agencies, however, took extraordinary actions. Alberta, for example, was the only jurisdiction to completely suspend reporting requirements and did so across multiple sectors. In Ontario, the provincial government indefinitely suspended parts of the province's Environmental Bill of Rights, allowing other regulations to be approved with reduced oversight and public consultation. Newfoundland and Labrador was alone in permanently amending environmental assessment timelines. British Columbia, on the other hand, was the sole jurisdiction to change a rule to address constraints faced by the public, suspending public appeal filing deadlines to support public participation in project decisions. As the virus is brought under control, government should move swiftly to restore suspended environmental protections. Agencies must now be held to account for ensuring, at minimum, a timely return to the status quo. Where regulators are practicing enforcement discretion, fair and transparent enforcement decision-making is critical. Further, agencies have the opportunity to learn and adapt as a result of this experience, leading to smarter, more resilient environmental regulation in Canada. An important question warranting further inquiry, especially, is whether regulator actions were justifiable, ex post. What were the environmental, social and economic costs and benefits of these rule changes? The comprehensive database of rule changes presented in this paper could aid such future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived constraints on getting Canadian commodities to global markets have generated renewed interest in a cross-country infrastructure corridor, a concept that was initially conceived several decades ago. Consideration of the corridor concept exists in a broader context of fast-evolving jurisprudence in relation to the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The Canadian legal landscape pertaining to those rights has evolved significantly in the years since the northern corridor concept was conceived, particularly with respect to Crown consultation obligations. Crown obligations in relation to the proposed corridor would be significant with respect to the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples. A cross-Canada corridor would, by its linear nature, directly and indirectly affect many diverse Indigenous communities that are situated in non-treaty, modern treaty and historical treaty contexts across the country. For example, the assessment and approval process for the Northern Gateway project involved more than 80 Indigenous communities and territories in Alberta and British Columbia, and the now-cancelled Energy East project would have crossed the traditional territory of 180 Indigenous communities on its route from Alberta to the Maritimes. Similarly, the review and approval process for the Trans Mountain Expansion project (TMX) involved at least 120 Indigenous communities along its route from the Edmonton area to Vancouver. In today's legal context, the Crown (i.e., federal or provincial governments, or both) must consult, and in some situations accommodate, Indigenous communities in situations where the Crown has actual or constructive knowledge of the existence or potential existence of Aboriginal rights or title and contemplates conduct that might adversely affect those rights or title, such as approval of major infrastructure projects. Pursuit of the corridor project, to the extent that it involves Crown action that may adversely affect established or asserted Aboriginal rights or title, would trigger the Crown's duty to consult, as would review and approval of specific infrastructure projects that may eventually fall within the corridor. The duty to consult doctrine emerged from the 2004 landmark cases of Haida and Taku, and courts have been engaged in an exercise of clarifying the nature and contours of the legal landscape in the years since. A primary focus of this research paper is on "meaningful consultation," a notion that is central in judicial decisions on the duty to consult in relation to major projects. Significant clarity now exists in the case law with respect to the duty to consult, including what constitutes meaningful consultation. As the Federal Court of Appeal recently stated in Coldwater First Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), the "case law is replete with indicia" of what constitutes meaningful consultation. In practical terms, meaningful consultation includes, for example, the Crown consulting in good faith, the existence of two-way dialogue, the opportunity to participate in the process and to make submissions, open-mindedness by the Crown about accommodation of Indigenous rights, demonstrable integration of Indigenous communities' concerns, substantive responses to information requests (including translation in some contexts), participation funding, and a view to accommodation of conflicting interests. However, as stated in Haida and the many duty to consult cases since, consultation obligations are highly context-dependent, driven by the nature of the proposed activity (e.g., a pipeline, a hydro dam, a road, regulatory or licensing regime changes, etc.), the potential impacts that such activities would have on a specific Indigenous community, and the nature of the asserted or existing rights of that Indigenous community. Thus, Crown consultation duties would vary widely along the corridor route. Consultation and accommodation that may satisfy the Crown's obligations in one context may not be sufficient elsewhere. For example, while consultation obligations in a modern treaty context would largely flow from relatively clear and explicit treaty provisions, such duties may be far less clear in a historical treaty or non-treaty context where the rights at issue may themselves be disputed or unclear. This diversity across Indigenous rights and interests would generate significant complexity in the pursuit of the corridor concept. This context-dependent nature of the duty to consult presents challenges for consultation in relation to the corridor because it is a relatively abstract undertaking. Even if eventually put forward as a concrete proposal, presumably premised as a legislated right-of-way that follows a specific route, it would be very difficult to anticipate all specific potential impacts and then have the Crown consult on all of them. Such difficulty would be exacerbated by the reality that the specific infrastructure projects to follow would be primarily private-sector driven, and it would be extremely difficult to predict which projects with which attributes privatesector actors will pursue. While it is conceivable that the corridor consultation process employs some kind of envelope approach and attempts to consult on the corridor's most likely uses (e.g., road, rail, pipeline, electrical transmission and communication networks), significant additional consultation would almost certainly be required as each specific project is proposed. Ultimately, however, under contemporary Canadian law and notwithstanding prevalent critiques from Indigenous communities, legal scholars and others, the duty to consult is primarily procedural in nature and provides legal authority for the Crown to proceed without the consent of Indigenous communities. So long as the duty to consult is satisfied, the Crown may proceed (though, as noted in this research paper, there are ensuing legal complexities to consider with respect to infringement of rights and associated justification by the Crown, which warrants further analysis in a subsequent study). Thus, there is a possible legal pathway to follow in pursuit of the corridor, but it is a complex one wherein the highly contextdependent Crown consultation obligations would have to be fulfilled with respect to the many diverse, affected Indigenous communities. In this context, Canadian history offers at least one model: the Berger Inquiry. The 1970s Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, typically referred to as the Berger Inquiry, was a broad-based assessment of proposed major pipeline projects to transport oil and gas from the western Arctic region to southern Canada. It employed many features that today's courts point to as necessary for achieving meaningful consultation, such as community hearings, opportunities to ask questions and provide evidence, and participation funding. The new federal Impact Assessment Act may also have significant roles to play. For example, the minister could designate the corridor as a physical activity and it would undergo a full assessment under the act. The Crown could rely on the significantly increased legal responsibilities and authorities set out in the act for consulting Indigenous communities and incorporating their knowledge and input. Also, the corridor could be the focus of a regional assessment under the new act, wherein the government studies an area of anticipated development to inform planning and management of cumulative effects and uses that study to inform subsequent project-specific impact assessments. Such regional assessments could serve as an opportunity to engage in consultation with affected and potentially affected Indigenous communities. Notwithstanding these potential legal forums and the current state of Canadian law that permits Crown action without Indigenous consent so long as the duty to consult is discharged, the jurisprudence continues to evolve in ways relevant to the corridor. Most notably, in 2016 the federal government announced Canada's "full support" of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), including the declaration's reference to the concept of "free, prior and informed consent" (FPIC). The government has also committed to legislating the implementation of UNDRIP, a step already taken by the government of British Columbia. What implementation of UNDRIP means in today's Canadian legal context is evolving. To date, however, the federal government has largely adopted the view that UNDRIP and the notion of FPIC require only a good-faith effort to obtain consent, and not actually obtain consent in every instance. This is consistent with contemporary duty to consult case law indicating that consent is not required and there is no duty to agree. However, it is certainly foreseeable that this area of the law will continue to change. While the law is increasingly clear with respect to Crown consultation and accommodation obligations, the context-dependent nature of the legal framework presents significant challenges for pursuit of the corridor project, given its linear and relatively abstract natures. Further, this area of the law is evolving, particularly as governments move toward implementing UNDRIP. This article succinctly presents the diverse contexts of Indigenous rights and interests present in Canada today, provides clarity with respect to the concept of "meaningful consultation" in contemporary Canadian jurisprudence, and relates this body of law to the corridor concept. Critiques, complexities and points for further research are noted throughout, including with respect to future legal developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's universal health-care system does not include dental care, which presents problems for both low- and middle-income families. According to the latest Statistics Canada data, out-of-pocket dental expenses are increasing steadily. Lower-income workers struggle with a disproportionate share of these costs, leading one in 4.5 Canadians to avoid visits to the dentist. With dental care becoming increasingly unaffordable and private insurance harder to obtain, it's time for Canada to consider bringing dental services into the public health system. Policy solutions have tended to fluctuate between a fill-in-the-gaps approach or comprehensive restructuring of dental care. This paper examines two new options: universal first-dollar coverage or denticare, and public dental insurance for all those without it or denticaid. Denticare would cover dental treatment with the same eligibility for public health insurance under the medicare system. Denticaid would only provide this to children under 12 and those lacking private insurance. Both denticare and denticaid would lower overall health-care costs, as improved oral hygiene would reduce rates of chronic and serious diseases. Integrating dentistry into the public health system would lead to increased patient contact, more efficient early screening and referrals. Direct clinical costs are estimated through micro-costing of expected annual dental services used. Indirect administrative costs are estimated through average costing based on existing per-patient administrative costs in the Canadian health-care system. Co-payments for both options are based on five household income brackets with the lowest bracket being exempt and the highest paying the maximum rate. The co-payment for advanced procedures would be 50 per cent and 20 per cent for all other services. Everyone over age 17 would have to pay an annual premium to be enrolled in the public plan; the lowest income brackets would be exempt and the highest would pay the maximum of $400. In denticare, public employees would no longer receive workplace dental benefits on the private market, while those same benefits would make them ineligible for denticaid. National clinical costs for a hypothetical denticare program in 2019, including administrative costs, are estimated at $27.50 billion ($737.09 per capita) with an upper estimate of $38.40 billion ($1,029.18 per capita) and a low estimate of $15.50 billion ($415.46 per capita). In all three scenarios, premiums paid by eligible individuals would generate $8.93 billion in annual revenues. After factoring in premiums, co-payments and the replacement of existing dental expenditures, the program's net cost would be $6.01 billion in 2019, with an upper estimate of $15.09 billion and a lower estimate of negative $3.82 billion. Denticaid's costs, including administrative costs, would be $15.09 billion ($404.49 per capita) in 2019, with a high scenario of $21.32 billion ($571.34 per capita) and a low scenario of $8.39 billion ($224.98 per capita). Denticaid's premiums would generate less revenue to offset costs. The program's net costs are estimated at $$7.47 billion in 2019, with a high estimate of $12.85 billion and a low estimate of $1.79 billion. There are additional challenges to consider, including dental office staffing levels in rural areas, dentists' operating costs and orthodontic treatments. But none of this should prevent Canada from committing to a denticare program, which out-performs denticaid in terms of efficiency. Both federal and provincial governments would need to be involved in the necessary modifications to the Canada Health Act, with decisions on premiums and co-pays left to individual provinces. After those offsets, the remaining taxbased costs would be a relatively small increase in Canada's public health spending and millions of Canadians would get access to good oral health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has not been left untouched by a new authoritarian, or ordered, populism that has seen the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union. Based on measurements of public opinion and other means developed to assess the phenomenon, this paper finds that populism in Canada is a significant political force, replacing the traditional left-right political spectrum. Not only has northern populism created a heightened partisan polarization in Canada, but it also proved to be a strong predictor of the outcome of the 2019 federal election. The authors' research shows that 34 per cent of Canadians maintain a populist outlook. Older, less-educated, working-class Canadians are the most likely to sympathize with ordered populism, and it is more prevalent in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is also more closely aligned with Canadians whose political sympathies lie with conservative political parties. A number of factors have contributed to the rise of ordered populism. These include economic stagnation, the growing disparity between the wealthy and the middle and working classes, a sense that society is headed in the wrong direction and a backlash against the loss of traditional core values. Ordered populism rests on the belief in a corrupt elite, and the idea that power needs to be wrested from this elite and returned to the people. Oriented toward authoritarianism, ordered populism emphasizes obedience, hostility toward outgroups, a desire to turn back the clock to a time of greater order in society, and a search for a strongman type to lead the return to a better time. Nothing about ordered populism serves the public interest. Instead, its anti-democratic nature makes it incapable of solving the problems that spawned its rise in the first place. Ordered populism is xenophobic, mistrustful of science and journalism, and unsympathetic to equality and gender issues. Arising out of fear and anger, ordered populism is ultimately unhealthy for Western democracies and their societies and economies. Canada has yet to accord the rise of ordered populism the attention it deserves, although this paper explains why it is a critical force in this country that needs to be addressed. Currently, attitudes toward ordered populism are generally limited to sneering, derisiveness and denial, all of which do nothing to address the problem. Solving it requires understanding its roots. And if its origins lie in the collapse of the middle-class dream, then policy-makers will need to focus on creating a new economics of hope. Ordered populism is at the heart of stark divisions in Canada, and the 2019 federal election did little, if anything, to mend the rupture. Dissatisfaction with the election's results could forecast an even worse polarization in the near future, and increase the appeal of authoritarianism, if populism is left unaddressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of School of Public Policy Publications is the property of University of Calgary, School of Public Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper discusses and describes measures of poverty and, on the basis of that discussion, proposes a public policy response that more closely and more easily targets income support to where it is most needed and most effective. Our review of poverty measures shows there are many holes that prevent advocates and policy-makers from obtaining a clear picture of who is in poverty and the depth of that poverty. The Market Basket Measure is the most finely tuned to identifying where impoverished families live and that is in large part why it was recently adopted by the federal government to gauge its anti-poverty policies. The government of Alberta, on the other hand, evaluates its policies using a measure of poverty that allows no consideration that costs of living might vary by community. Social assistance is the main policy instrument through which the federal and provincial governments provide assistance to people in need. We show that the growing emphasis of increasing social-assistance support via child benefits provides no increase in support in what has been for some time the majority of social-assistance cases. What's more, despite a great deal of evidence that the cost of meeting basic needs varies widely by community, the amount of assistance provided is the same regardless of where one lives in the province. We propose a modification to how social assistance is provided that makes allowances for the fact poverty is deeper in some parts of the province than others and that provides support to individuals and families whether or not they have children. Our proposal is superior to rent control as a means of dealing with falling housing affordability, removes barriers to people receiving social assistance from moving to seek employment, and has features similar to a guaranteed basic income. It is also inexpensive. We estimate the cost of our proposal to be equivalent to less than one per cent of the provincial health-care budget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of School of Public Policy Publications is the property of University of Calgary, School of Public Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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The federal government's role in Canadian health-care funding policy has historically been a matter of writing cheques to the provinces and territories, leaving the nuts and bolts of funding policy for the provinces and territories to work out. Unfortunately, provinces and territories are stuck in policies from the past that have led to underperformance of their health care systems even as their health budgets continue to grow. There are opportunities for the federal government to remove some of provinces' and territories' barriers to adopting new policies for funding health care. Episode-based payments could help break down barriers between and within sectors and providers. Episode-based payments create financial incentives by aligning care providers across settings, with physicians potentially engaging in financial risk-sharing partnerships. The American example, led by U.S. Medicare insurance, suggests that the use of episode-based payments can work for certain conditions even in siloed and fragmented settings. Similarly, capitation-based funding models create incentives for organizations to work together across sectors. Reducing fragmentation includes primary care-centred organizations that span physical and mental health, and requires improvements to the intersection between primary and secondary care. These new-to-Canada models allocate a pre-set budget to provider organizations for health care based on each resident's health. The goal of these primary care-focused models is to align funding with resident's long-term health outcomes. The federal government can use what leverage it has to remove provinces' and territories' barriers to funding policy reforms. The federal government can fund research into best practices, fund the development of new streams of data that better measure value from health care funding, and support ways to link social care data with health care data. On a per capita basis, combined provincial, territorial and federal spending on health care places Canada among the highest of wealthiest countries in the world. Progress on the quadruple aim is elusive and ill-measured. Frustratingly, money does not appear to be the primary reason for underperformance in health care; the problem is likely due to how it is spent. Ontario is experimenting, albeit narrowly and slowly, with some new initiatives in episode-based funding, without causing ruptures in Canadian society. Provincial and territorial funding policies involve costly trade-offs. COVID-induced pressures on health care may tip the balance of these trade-offs towards funding policies previously considered too dynamic. Even with the widespread aversion to use market forces that prevails in Canadian health care, the use of funding policies to shape new and different incentives or activities might work in Canada, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has used the same two-factor formula with a 50-50 weighting for the allocation of taxable income between provinces for 61 years. The intra-country formula allocation (FA) was developed when natural resource extraction and manufacturing were more important in economic activity than now. The FA thus may need to be updated to reflect a changing 21st century economy. Canadian provinces set their own tax rates, while most use the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to collect corporate income tax (CIT). This paper examines the differences in the provinces' CIT rates for some recent years, and what might happen if the formula were changed, particularly when companies operating in more than one jurisdiction pay taxes according to varying provincial rates. Businesses operating in more than one jurisdiction accounted for an average share of total revenue of 42 per cent in 2014-2016. In 2011, there were 23,810 such businesses in Canada, making up 2.3 per cent of the total number of businesses and 43.4 per cent of all employees. If a business operates in several provinces, then provincial governments split the taxable corporate income using the FA mechanism. There are 10 rules for the mechanism, depending on specific business sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All Canadian cities face fiscal and governance problems unique to their individual sizes, economies, housing situations and population demographics. This paper examines how mid-sized cities, with populations between 300,000 and two million, can strive to innovate, to act autonomously and to implement complex policies and programs within larger constraints -- capabilities of which other levels of government need to be more cognizant. Yet, while provincial and federal regulations would seem to often block mid-sized cities' capabilities for policy-making, they also offer a solid basis from which to operate. Property taxes provide stable revenue sources while constraints on borrowing mean protection for cities' credit ratings along with access to capital markets. The challenge is forging a workable balance between constraint from without and a move toward autonomy from within. Municipal governments in Canada typically maintain balanced budgets, but they are also subject to restraints on transfer payments imposed by their provincial governments. How the cities then allocate that money is determined by various factors. These include whether they have large populations of immigrants or the elderly to serve, the basis for the local economy -- such as whether it is fuelled by resources, manufacturing or service industries -- the degree of homelessness, relationships with public-sector unions, and the costs of compliance to federal standards for such things as wastewater. Unfunded liabilities may also put pressure on a city's payroll and create an actuarial deficit for its pension plans, resulting in tighter provincial scrutiny. A city's fiscal health can be assessed by the ways in which it meets the basic criteria of sustainability, flexibility and vulnerability. Sustainability measures how well a municipality maintains its financial obligations to creditors and the public via the services it provides. Flexibility entails how much it can increase its levels of debt and taxes, while vulnerability reflects the way the city is affected by provincial limits on transfer payments and outside factors beyond its control that influence its economy. Cities do have room to innovate within their provincial and economic constraints, however. They can move away from their reliance on property tax revenue by shifting to alternatives such as a greater reliance on user fees or they can piggy-back on taxes imposed by other levels of government where these are permitted. Many of these options have yet to be explored. Ironically, while the municipal level of government is viewed as being at the bottom of the hierarchy of governments, many city governments are larger, more innovative and more versatile than the provincial governments that oversee them. Municipal officials have as much expertise in policy-making as do their provincial counterparts. In fact, own-source revenues, such as user fees, licensing and investments in many large cities amount to 90 per cent of operating monies, making those cities less dependent upon which way the provincial wind is blowing when it comes to transfer payments. They thus have more room to innovate and to develop programs specific to their demographics and to the area's economic health. It falls upon provincial and federal governments to recognize what municipalities are capable of achieving, and to make appropriate legislative and regulatory changes that will permit more innovation and policy-making locally. Loosening the constraints under which cities operate will create the environment for further improvement and innovation in Canada's municipal governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With federal political parties increasingly interested in new options for dental services, it's worth exploring two policy solutions to expand dental care into the public realm. Denticare would be a universal dental program for all Canadian residents. Denticaid would be a public dental insurance program for all Canadian children and uninsured adults. This paper estimates the costs of each option through micro-costing, which identifies the likely resources patients would use in each program and sums each unit cost in a given year to generate the estimated annual clinical cost. With no dental record-level information available for academic research, these estimates rely on survey data on oral health collected from across Canada. In particular, this paper uses the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS), both released by Statistics Canada. When neither survey contains the necessary data to inform assumptions and costing, data from similar high-income jurisdictions are used. Denticare's costs are estimated using four key variables: the expected number of Canadians using dental services in a given year, the expected number of visits per year, the probability of dental treatments used per visit and the expected price of dental treatments. The first variable is based on Statistics Canada's 2016 census data, multiplied by their 2019 overall provincial population estimates. The second relies mostly on the CCHS question "when was the last time you visited the dentist?" The third variable uses Australian data and the fourth integrates data from a variety of provincial dental fee guides. High, low and baseline cost scenarios are included, with each province and territory's clinical costs projected five years after implementation in all three scenarios. To project future changes in service costs, the rate of price increase is calculated from changes between the 2015 and 2019 suggested fee schedules. Methods for micro-costing the denticaid program are similar to the denticare model and the variables are mostly treated similarly. However, the population variable is manipulated to account only for individuals without private dental insurance. There are limitations to this approach. The CCHS is only a telephone survey and does not collect dental data from across every province. The lack of pan-Canadian service-level use data meant that data from an Australian survey was used in its place. This model could not account for the effects of income on the frequency with which any particular dental treatment category is accessed per visit. Australia also covers most dental treatments for children, so use of dental services could be higher than what could be expected in Canada. To obtain a more exact picture, provincial governments should try to collect service-level data on dental use and dental practice activity. However, this paper does provide Canadian policy-makers interested in exploring some sort of public dental care program with a rigorous estimation of the reimbursement of clinical costs for the options of both denticare and denticaid programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals accept additional paid work, in terms of salary increase or more hours, with the expectation they will be financially better off than before. Unfortunately, for recipients of Income Assistance in the province of British Columbia, additional hours of employment or an increase in wages, such as an increase in minimum wage, in some circumstances may actually take money out of their pocket. This is due to the design of Income Assistance and its unintended interactions with other income and social support programs and the tax system. In this paper, we illustrate cases where B.C. residents receiving Disability Assistance or Temporary Assistance (the two main programs that comprise Income Assistance in B.C.) have less after-tax income after working additional hours of employment. In modelling after-tax income for recipients of Disability Assistance and Temporary Assistance as they increase their hours of paid work, we detail when and how additional income earned from paid work affects not only their income assistance levels, but also their eligibility and receipt of some general and health-related supplemental benefits. We show that, as Income Assistance recipients allocate more hours to paid work, the reductions in total after-tax income can be sizable. For example, if a single person receiving Disability Assistance (earning a wage of approximately $15 per hour) increases his or her paid work hours from 16 hours a week to 35 hours a week, it reduces his or her total after-tax income by $1,500 a year. This loss is not just limited to a decline in after-tax income. Access to some general and health-related supplemental benefits provided to Income Assistance recipients may also be lost from working these additional hours.1 By addressing these program-design elements of the current Income Assistance program, the B.C. government can improve the well-being of those receiving Income Assistance. Reforms may also decrease expenditures on Income Assistance in the long-run. Allowing recipients to increase their hours of work or earnings within the year, as their situation permits, without the risk of having their benefits reduced, may actually help more people transition from Income Assistance towards permanent employment, thus breaking the cycle of poverty and increasing social inclusion. Many recipients of Income Assistance already face numerous barriers to paid work, other than those analyzed here, as the result of disability-related employment constraints. After-tax income reductions like those described here create another barrier to employment for these populations that the B.C. government can and should address. Canada's commitment to improving social inclusion for specific populations, such as persons with disabilities, heighten the importance of identifying inequalities and poverty traps within our income assistance system. Institutional barriers to inclusive activities such as employment must be removed to meet these commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whether it's a big city or a small town, all Canadian municipalities have core issues that their elected politicians are concerned about. Regardless of size, the daily business of a municipality must be managed and policies determined about such bread-and-butter issues as garbage collection, snow removal, wastewater and sewage, fire protection, economic development and fixing potholes. However, when size increases, so do the layers of issues that engage municipal politicians. This paper examines the results of a cross-Canada survey of more than 1,000 mayors and councillors from communities ranging in population size from 5,000 to more than two million. With an increase in population size, the numbers and complexity of issues creep up as well. Tiny municipalities typically aren't concerned with issues such as immigrant settlement, homelessness and public transit. Those issues are much more pressing for larger municipalities. A focus on some types of issues, such as public transit, grows right alongside population growth. The physical size of large municipalities means they contain a population whose needs are naturally more diverse than they are in smaller cities, towns and villages, thus shifting politicians' concerns to such things as homelessness and climate change. However, issues such as relations with Indigenous people and climate change also tend to hold regional, not just municipal, importance. They may be extremely important to a small municipality because of its geographic location and less important in a larger municipality located elsewhere. For example, municipal politicians in British Columbia reflect regional concerns with their emphasis in the survey on the importance of tackling homelessness, affordable housing, climate change and Indigenous relations. Yet, next door in Alberta, Indigenous relations and climate change ranked in the survey as being of low importance, along with climate change, despite the presence of two cities in the province with populations hovering around the million mark. The number one issue for municipalities regardless of size is economic development, since job creation and attracting investment are key for a healthy municipality regardless of its location or size. And nearly every politician surveyed listed planning, water supply and transportation infrastructure (roads, highways and bridges) as being of deep importance to their communities. Of almost equal importance in the survey were a second slate of issues including emergency planning, parks and recreation, public health, solid waste removal and policing. The results of this survey are intended to lay the groundwork for future researchers who want to focus on specific problems in the area of urban policy-making. Those who want to study the bread-and-butter issues can do so among a wide range and size of municipalities, knowing that these issues are vital to all. Those with an interest in homelessness and immigrant populations can focus on the big cities while being assured they are not missing out on key points among smaller communities. This survey will be highly beneficial for researchers in urban policy issues as it will help them to decide where to look and exactly what to look for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, approximately $27 billion is spent annually to fund services that deal with homelessness, including the related issues of poverty, mental illness, addiction, domestic violence, poor health and childhood trauma. Another $6.5 billion annually is spent on social assistance programs, health care, and the police and justice systems when their roles intersect with homelessness. Thus, $33.5 billion is spent each year on an array of 167,000 fragmented services provided by both government and nonprofit organizations across the country. Ontario alone has some 60,000 social and community services in operation, while Alberta has 20,000. There must be a better, more cost-effective way to achieve results through co-ordinating this confusing jumble of services. Integrating services for cost-effectiveness and streamlining to clients must be done properly or it risks simply adding more layers of bureaucracy. When considering how best to integrate and consolidate services, the focus must remain on the clients and not on the systems involved. Nor does integration necessarily equate to more positive outcomes. Integration should not be considered a cure-all for what ails the system; rather, it would be more realistic to take a transformative and deliberate approach to collaboration and change. This paper examines methods and proposes tenets by which services can be integrated, yet still deliver efficient and effective assistance to homeless Canadians. Moving towards integration entails examination of the primary objective, the systems involved, the target population of clients, development of an integration strategy and activities, a timeline, a list of participant organizations, regional scope and client impact, to name a few of the variables. The idea is to develop mechanisms to share, link and leverage the various stakeholders' realms more strategically. The work requires co-operation and co-ordination among organizations that may have different commitments and thinking, with the aim of creating mutual trust and effective relationships. The best way to think about integration is to picture a network and nodes of activity, interests, people and resources as being parts of all the systems that provide services to the homeless. The key then is to focus on which nodes offer clients the best outcomes. These nodes include social services, education, justice, housing, health, children's services and income supports. The cost to end homelessness has been estimated at $3.8 billion a year. Unfortunately, no clear line of sight exists between the $33.5 billion annual investment and the current client and population outcomes. The array of resources needs to be sorted out and integrated where deemed beneficial, to create maximum impact and value for Canadians. Amalgamation may be the answer in some cases, but so too may be the shutting down of some services whose roles are blurry or poorly defined. In the end, integration will not be about cutting back on funding, but rather using the existing funding more wisely, strategically and transparently. Integration is so much more than piecemeal strategies aimed at repairing a broken system; it is a full-scale transformation of that system. The work needs to begin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pilot projects in the past that have experimented with a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) in Manitoba and Ontario, and a recent study of the feasibility of a GBI in British Columbia, indicate that provinces are not in an ideal position to successfully implement an affordable and effective GBI. However, a GBI implemented by the federal government, financed by eliminating the GST credit and lowering personal tax exemptions, could be both effective and affordable. It could also do so without requiring the elimination of those provincial social assistance programs that are more deeply targeted toward people’s needs. By using its revenue powers, the federal government could create more fiscal capacity for the provinces to provide other cash and in-kind social supports, allowing for greater provincial benefit targeting. The federal government’s centrality in designing and implementing tax structures and collecting tax revenue make it singularly suitable for administering and delivering a GBI. Financing the GBI by eliminating the modest GST credit and lowering the current basic personal income tax exemption could provide a significant reduction in the rate, depth and intensity of poverty in Canada, without imposing an excessive tax burden on Canadians. If provinces use the GBI as a replacement for certain less-targeted provincial social assistance income transfers, the freed-up payments and reduced caseloads could also allow provinces to target more effectively those needs not addressed by the GBI. The recent COVID-19 pandemic exposed longstanding gaps in Canada’s incomesupport frameworks, with lower-income workers facing exceptional economic vulnerability. At the same time, the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit proved edifying in terms of how to best design a basic-income program. In addition, the federal government’s experiences with the poverty-reducing impacts of the Canada Child Benefit, the Old Age Supplement and the Guaranteed Income Supplement have moved Canada closer than ever to a workable GBI. While it comes with additional costs, those costs will be less burdensome than many GBI skeptics might believe. They must also be put into perspective, by comparing them against the costs of current and, in many cases ineffective income transfers and, just as importantly, against the human cost of leaving more Canadians living in poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's history is punctuated with a number of big and bold national projects, such as the Trans-Canada Highway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, that have played defining roles for the country and its citizens' prosperity.1 However, over more recent decades, there has been much less success in bringing such projects to fruition. Indeed, the growing number of major national infrastructure projects that have been stalled or cancelled suggests some re-thinking of the factors that impact the development of these projects is required. The lengthy regulatory and review processes to assess major infrastructure development projects and lack of long-term planning are often viewed as sources of conflict between the economic objectives and environmental conservation and culture and heritage preservation. Cancelled and stalled infrastructure projects can offer valuable insight into this and can lead to better decision-making processes around infrastructure development in Canada. For this purpose, this communiqué provides a retrospective look at the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline. Industry proponents developed the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline project in the 1970s in response to the federal government's decision to facilitate the delivery of gas from Canada's Arctic to markets in the south (Dosman 1975, 119-124). About half a century later, the project was finally cancelled. As one of the largest infrastructure projects ever considered in Canada, the issues encountered throughout the initial development and regulatory review phases of the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline proposals can provide valuable lessons for similar major infrastructure projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Who bears the burden, or incidence, of the corporate income tax (CIT)? This is an important, if not somewhat contentious, policy issue. In this paper we provide a discussion of the existing research on the question, viewing it through a Canadian policy lens. We also use some new results from a companion technical paper, which undertakes one of the few empirical investigations of the issue using Canadian data, to discuss the implications of increases in corporate taxes for wages in Canadian provinces. While it is clear that people, not corporate entities, ultimately bear the burden of corporate taxes, a key question is which people? The answer to this question has important implications for the equity, or fairness, of the tax system. Much of the recent focus in policy discussions concerns the allocation of the burden of the CIT between owners of capital and labour. Since income from capital tends to be concentrated with wealthier individuals, if the burden of the CIT falls mostly on the owners of capital, it increases the progressivity of the tax system. On the other hand, if the tax is borne mostly by labour through lower wages, the CIT is less progressive. Much of the research into the incidence of the CIT has employed theoretical simulation models. Early models of this type, which were based on a closed economy with fixed supplies of labour and capital, suggested that most of the burden of the CIT would be borne by the owners of capital throughout the economy, and not just the shareholders of firms in the corporate sector. Subsequent extensions of those models into a small open economy setting, where capital and goods are highly mobile between jurisdictions (countries, provinces), predict that most of the burden of the CIT will be borne by other inputs that are relatively inelastic in supply, such as labour. These small open economy models are particularly relevant for Canada. Viewing the results of these models through a Canadian lens, we conclude that there is good reason to expect that much of the burden of corporate taxes in Canada, particularly those levied by provincial governments, will fall on labour through lower wages. While useful, the predictions of these simulation models should be viewed with caution, largely because of the sensitivity of the results to the underlying assumptions. A nascent empirical literature has emerged that provides econometric-based estimates of the distribution of the burden of corporate taxes. While this research is relatively new, our reading is that the evidence is mounting that corporate taxes are indeed borne to a significant extent by labour through lower wages. However, there is very little empirical work done in an explicitly Canadian context. In a companion technical paper we employ Canadian data to examine the impact of provincial corporate taxes on wages. Our results suggest that, consistent with the predictions of the open economy simulation models, provincial corporate taxes adversely affect the capital/labour ratio, which lowers the productivity of labour which, in turn, lowers wages. Accounting for the shrinkage in the corporate tax base in response to an increase in the tax rate, we calculate that for every $1 in extra tax revenue generated by an increase in the provincial CIT rate, the associated long-run decrease in aggregate wages ranges from $1.52 for Alberta to $3.85 for Prince Edward Island. Applying our estimates to the recent 2 percentage point increase in the CIT rate in Alberta we calculate that labour earnings for an average two-earner household will decline by the equivalent of approximately $830 per year, which amounts to a $1.12 billion reduction in aggregate labour earnings for the province. By way of comparison, other research has estimated the impact of the recently imposed carbon tax in Alberta -- the subject of considerable scrutiny -- to be approximately $525 per household. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teen violence in dating and peer relationships has huge costs to society in numerous areas including health care, social services, the workforce and the justice system. Physical, psychological, and sexual abuse have long-lasting ramifications for the perpetrators as well as the victims, and for the families involved on both sides of that equation. An effective violence prevention program that is part of a school's curriculum is beneficial not only for teaching teenagers what is appropriate behaviour in a relationship, but also for helping them break the cycle of violence which may have begun at home with their own maltreatment as children. The Fourth R program is an efficacious violence prevention program that was developed in Ontario and has been implemented in schools throughout Canada and the U.S. Covering relationship dynamics common to dating violence as well as substance abuse, peer violence and unsafe sex, the program can be adapted to different cultures and to same-sex relationships. The program, which gets its name from the traditional 3Rs -- reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic -- offers schools the opportunity to provide effective programming for teens to reduce the likelihood of them using relationship for violence as they move into adulthood. The federal government has estimated that the societal costs of relationship violence amount to more than $7 billion. These costs can continue to be incurred through the legal and health-care systems as the ripple effects of violence play out over the years, even after a relationship has ended. Other types of violence are also costly to society and not just in terms of dollars, but in young lives diverted into criminal activity. Up to 15 per cent of youth who become involved with the justice system grow into serious adult offenders who develop lengthy criminal careers. Yet, research shows that if prevention programs such as the Fourth R can deter just one 14-year-old high-risk juvenile from a life of crime, up to $5 million can be saved in costs to society. Research involving 1,700 Grade 9 students in 20 schools showed that those who did not take the Fourth R programming had a rate of relationship violence 2.5 times greater than those who did, and that the program had the greatest impact on boys, who are the most frequent perpetrators. There was also a significant reduction in violence towards peers, especially for youth who were at risk to be violent because they had experienced previous child abuse. Students likewise became more aware of violence and its impacts on others, and they gained a greater command of coping strategies. The program's start-up costs vary depending on the school's geographical location. This paper shows that the program's costs per student are small compared to the savings to society in terms of violence avoidance. In a large Ontario school board, costs were down to $5 per student. In the Northwest Territories, smaller class sizes and bigger geographic distances make implementing the program more expensive, but still only $15-33 per student. The authors calculated savings based on costs avoided related to dating and peer violence at $2,101 per student. Violence prevention is an ethical imperative and it must start with teenagers. In an era of fiscal restraint and demand for more financial accountability, the Fourth R has proven to be a pro-active success in terms of saving both public money and young lives from the deleterious effects of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the federal government coordinated point-in-time counts in 61 Canadian communities. These counts, all conducted over the course of a few nights during the months of March and April, revealed that 25,216 people were experiencing homelessness. Of those, 20,803 slept in emergency shelters while 4,481 slept on the streets, in cars, or in some other unsuitable place. Reviewing the data for 49 of those 61 communities, this paper examines the impact of community-level conditions on the prevalence of homelessness. The structural determinants of both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness are examined. The analysis shows that more expensive low-quality rental units have a strong positive relationship with the numbers of people staying in homeless shelters. A higher percentage of people in a community living in poverty is also related to increased numbers of people having to make use of homeless shelters. Increases in social assistance income, which undoubtedly improved the well-being of recipients, had no significant relationship with the number of people experiencing homelessness. This latter result is consistent with individuals and families with low income having a small income elasticity of housing demand. For these individuals and families, marginal additions to income are first used to relieve constraints on their budgets for food, utilities, and other necessities rather than being used to finance improvements in housing conditions. The fraction of the population that self-identifies as Indigenous is positively related to both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness, a result consistent with claims of discrimination in housing markets. Finally, a milder climate is associated with higher numbers of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. These results suggest the most effective policy response to addressing homelessness is to lower the cost of shelter, an outcome best achieved by increasing the supply of shelter that can be afforded by individuals and families with limited income. To this end, public policies directed toward reducing the cost of construction, policies that include reviewing density restrictions and land-use regulations and offering tax incentives, can be effective. Preventing the disappearance of single-room occupancy hotels, boarding houses, trailer parks and other forms of housing affordable to people with limited income are other policy responses likely to be associated with decreases in homelessness. Increasing the stock of government-owned housing is another policy option, one best suited for providing housing for people whose homelessness is caused or exacerbated by disability, mental illness, substance abuse or other health issues requiring other support services. Marginal increases in income support, while important for increasing the well-being of individuals and families with limited income, are unlikely to be associated with decreases in homelessness unless they are sufficiently large to significantly reduce rates of poverty in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is already at a disadvantage with lagging growth and productivity even before the massive economic destruction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic hit, Canada's corporate tax system was already becoming uncompetitive in attracting highly profitable investments relative to other developed countries. Canada's general corporate tax rate, averaging 26.1 per cent, is within spitting distance of the highest rates in the OECD. While some industries may benefit from special preferences, the corporate tax has become increasingly inefficient and complex with targeted measures, and in some cases impeding the allocation of capital to growth industries like communications and services. This was having a serious effect on Canada's economic health before COVID-19. Business investment in Canada has lagged that of many countries since 2015, well before the pandemic. Productivity has been weak and wages for workers have been depressed, particularly for unskilled labour. Additionally, the corporate tax system currently distorts the allocation of capital in the economy, favouring some sectors over others. In fact, some of the sectors least-favoured by the tax system -- including retail and tourism, which face an eight-point tax disadvantage compared to the governmentfavoured manufacturing sector -- are the very ones that had the roughest time during the pandemic and face a more difficult road to recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With its 2016 budget, the Government of Alberta laid out the basic details of the carbon tax rebate. The rebate is constructed to increase based on household size, and will decrease with income after a pre-set cutoff. The government has stated six in 10 households will be eligible for a full rebate, with an additional six per cent receiving a partial rebate. This paper examines the income distribution of Albertans, to determine how the rebate and income cutoffs affect different types of Alberta families. Using easily available data from Statistics Canada, we shed light on the question of who will receive a carbon-tax rebate. Based on 2013 data on median incomes, single-parent families, elderly families and single Albertans are all groups where a majority of households will receive rebates. In some cases, it appears well over 50 per cent of those groups will receive a full rebate. However, fewer than 50 per cent of Alberta families that are couples (with and without children) will receive a rebate. Still, even those that get a rebate will not necessarily exactly break even against the additional costs they incur from a carbon tax. Interestingly, the lowest-income households, which are most likely to qualify for a rebate, appear to be in a position where they will receive a larger refund than they will pay in carbon taxes. For households where incomes fall in the middle of the provincial distribution, the data suggest that the rebate will come close to compensating for additional costs of the carbon tax, although it may fall slightly short. The analysis presented below is a first pass at a very important question facing Albertans. When data from the 2016 census becomes available, we will be much better able to evaluate which Albertans will be eligible for the rebate. The census will enable a more precise evaluation of whether the rebate matches the government's 66 per cent goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All the excitement around the great possibilities that the opening of the Northwest Passage could offer the shipping industry -- and Canada -- could not last. Just a few years ago, as sea ice in the North seemed to be steadily melting away, observers were eagerly tallying up the savings in time, fuel and costs that a reliably ice-free route across the top of the planet would provide for shippers. A couple of trial runs only confirmed that for shipments from Asia to Europe or North America, or the other way around, the route could shave thousands of kilometres off each trip, compared to journeys through the Suez or Panama canals. Rapid growth in shipping traffic across the Northwest Passage and its sister route, the Northern Sea Route, seemed not just inevitable, but imminent. Just a short while later, it now seems neither imminent nor inevitable. The retreat in sea ice may persist, but it is evident that due to regular fluctuations in ice coverage, the Northwest Passage will not be reliably ice-free for many, many years, if ever. Shipping may be more possible through the Northwest Passage than it was in the past, but it will not be consistently unobstructed. The challenges of ice combined with Arctic weather conditions may well mean that any shipping through the passage is slower than expected. Other complicating factors include uncharted or poorly charted sea lanes and the difficulty in securing insurance for Arctic shipping. At the same time, the competition from alternate routes is only becoming more intense, with expansions in both the Suez and Panama Canals and the potential for a new canal across Nicaragua. Regarding the Northwest Passage, Canada lacks much of the infrastructure in the North that would make Arctic passage a strong competitor, including multiple ports enroute and sufficient icebreaking equipment. There are still advantages that might draw some shipping away from traditional routes to the northern passages, particularly for the movement of western resources to growing Asian markets. But even moderate levels of shipping through the Northwest Passage do have the potential to change Canada's relationship with its Asian trading partners, especially China. The Canadian and Chinese governments share a number of priorities regarding the Arctic, including environmental protection, safer navigation and resource development. These will provide opportunities for more dialogue and engagement between the two countries. While the Northwest Passage may not become the important trans-shipment route to Asia once imagined by enthusiastic observers, the most meaningful impact that a more useful route may provide is to alter, and improve, the course of Canada's relations in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper seeks to examine likely developments and trends in Arctic shipping given the shrinkage of the polar ice cap, and to situate these trends in the broader context of changing global maritime and trade realities with particular focus on their impact on trade with Asia. There are implications for Canada and its relations with Asia, especially China, that flow from these developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving access to domestic and international markets can create large economic benefits. Multimodal infrastructure corridors of road, rail, utilities and communications can improve accessibility by reducing interprovincial and international trade costs. Depending on the geographical area they serve and the modes of transport and types of connections they promote, infrastructure corridors can create trade-offs and synergies between different kinds of economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Yet the implied effects can vary across different regions, population segments and industries. A complete review of a proposed infrastructure corridor package involves a rigorous analysis of all of these potential effects. In this paper, we focus more specifically on quantifying potential gains from reductions in trade costs on Alberta's economy and identify the importance of improved access to lower cost transportation options like rail for select commodities. We find that lowering trade costs substantially increases Alberta's real GDP through its effect on international and interprovincial trade flows. Although interprovincial tariffs on domestic goods are forbidden by the Canadian Constitution, the economic effect of internal non-tariff trade barriers is substantial. Albrecht and Tombe (2016) show that eliminating these interprovincial trade costs would increase Canada's GDP between three to seven per cent. These barriers represent additional costs on Canadian firms and adversely affect their competitiveness in domestic and international markets. High interprovincial trade costs may also pose an additional barrier to entry for foreign firms otherwise willing to enter the Canadian market. As a result of this, Canadian firms end up producing at a less efficient scale and pass the cost of these inefficiencies to consumers. Interprovincial trade costs therefore hurt both producers and consumers. Gains from improved infrastructure are also amplified by the interconnected nature of industries. Output of one industry is often an input for another industry. Shipments cross provincial and national borders as part of these supply-chain relationships which allow for more efficient production but at the same time create additional trade costs on producers. Infrastructure corridors provide one option to lower these trade costs by increasing transportation capacity, creating savings in travel time and distance, creating better quality physical transport infrastructure, simplifying the regulatory and legislative differences across provinces and territories, and improving access to information, to name a few. To quantify the potential effect of increased transportation infrastructure on trade costs, we combine rich data on interprovincial trade flows and shipment-level information on volumes, values, and transportation costs by mode. We empirically estimate the potential for increased rail shipment capacity on shipment costs between various internal trade pairs within Canada. Two key results stand out. First, we find that while distance is an important factor, a higher share of shipments by rail is associated with markedly lower trade costs. Specifically, we find a 10 percentage point increase in the share of value shipped by rail is associated with a 3.2 per cent lower aggregate cost of trade after controlling for commodity, source, and destination of shipments. Second, we also find important differences in the relevance of rail across commodities. We find larger trade costs reductions for coal, mineral products, and fuel oils. The focus on rail is an important one for Alberta since coastal or canal shipping is not a feasible alternative. As a natural next step, we then evaluate the potential gains to Alberta's economy from increased access to internal and international markets that improved infrastructure might provide. We find that lowering trade costs substantially increases Alberta's real GDP through its effect on international and interprovincial trade flows, in both the short run and the long run. The results show that, in the short run, lower trade costs by one per cent increases real GDP by roughly 0.8 per cent and lower trade costs by five per cent increases real GDP by roughly 4.4 per cent. These correspond to approximately $3 billion to $15 billion per year in additional economic activity in Alberta. We find larger gains in the long-run, equivalent to roughly a one per cent increase in real GDP for each one per cent reduction in trade costs. Gains from lower trade costs come primarily through lower cost access to imported inputs and final goods. There are also gains from increased demand by purchases outside Alberta on goods produced by Albertans. This increases real incomes and productivity, which is captured by the increase in real GDP. The combined results of lower import costs and an increase in GDP imply an about six per cent long-run increase in real personal income, equal to an extra $6,423 annually for the median Alberta family. This is a level effect and represents a persistent increase, not a one-time bump. That is, GDP is permanently higher and by extension, annual personal incomes are also permanently higher. Although we don't explore the infrastructure investment options for lowering the trade costs by these levels, the corresponding impacts on real GDP of doing so indicate how high the costs of expanding infrastructure could be while still yielding net benefits to Alberta. An infrastructure corridor could facilitate the expansion of Canada's rail shipment capacity. While many transportation modes could expand within such a corridor -- including roads, pipelines, transmission lines and so on -- our data allow us to specifically quantify the extent to which Alberta's economy could gain from more access to lower cost shipment options like rail. Rail shipment costs are lower than truck transportation when distances are sufficiently long. We find that each one percentage point increase in the share of non-air trade sent by rail is associated with a 0.32 per cent lower trade cost. This implies that if the share shipped by rail increased by 10 percentage points, then trade costs to and from Alberta would, on average, decline by 3.2 per cent. Expanding the rail capacity is particularly valuable for Alberta, since increasing the share of exports shipped by rail by ten 10 percentage points may increase Alberta's GDP by nearly 1.5 per cent in the short-run and over 2.5 per cent in the long-run -- equivalent to over $9 billion per year in economic activity. This is a relatively large increase in economic productivity -- equivalent to roughly $4,500 per household, on average, per year -- and, in addition, it abstracts from other potential sources of gains, such as increased labour migration into the province. The combined increase in GDP and lower import costs from increased rail penetration imply an increase in real personal income. It is more modest here at approximately 3.3 per cent (rather than six per cent), but still very significant and equal to an extra $3,419 annually for the median Alberta family. As before, it is important to note that this is a level effect and represents a persistent increase and permanently higher annual GDP and annual personal incomes. Our analysis is only a first step and explores only one potential effect of expanding infrastructure capacity. Overall, the potential for positive economic effects from multimodal infrastructure corridors is compelling and warrants additional investigation. Governments can play a role by supporting expanded research activities into the feasibility and potential benefits of dedicated multimodal infrastructure corridors in Canada. In addition, though we made progress using detailed shipment-level data, there are shortcomings in coverage and detail that constrain the scope for potential research. Governments should therefore increase the collection and reporting of relevant data on internal trade to facilitate research into the costs producers and consumers face, and the potential gains from internal trade liberalization. Despite the value of expanding research capacity, our analysis points clearly towards the potential gains from internal trade liberalization. Expanded transportation infrastructure capacity can lower trade costs, and therefore governments hoping to expand internal trade should explore means of increasing such capacity, especially the possibility of increased rail shipment capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seventy per cent of Canada's beef production capacity is located in just two meat plants in Alberta. This is one of the most obvious examples of the high concentration in Canada's food-production sector. Industry has naturally tended to larger but fewer facilities, due to the economic imperatives of economies of scale. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the risks to Canada's food supply by having so much food production located in so few places. The work done at foodprocessing facilities entails large numbers of employees, often working shoulder to shoulder. There is a clear potential for a disease to spread quickly, leading to a disruption in food output, or even a complete shutdown of a critical facility. This is what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. It could easily happen again. Changing the structure of the Canadian food industry is one option to better insulate the industry against pandemic in the future, creating a greater number of smallerscale facilities scattered in more places across the country. The question is whether Canadians are willing to pay for such changes. That payment could come through taxes, to fund the significant incentives required to entice food producers to move away from the larger and fewer facilities that provide them greater profits through economies of scale, or it could be in the form of higher food prices, as less efficient and more expensive models of production lead to more expensive products. It may still be possible, however, for Canadians to enjoy a secure supply of the more affordable food provided by the highly concentrated model without having to pay for it, if facilities can be adapted to lower the risk of outbreaks. Mechanization can reduce the dependency on large numbers of workers, while those workers that remain could operate within more stringent safety measures. Safer plant design, more mechanization and fewer workers would, of course, come at some short-term cost, both in terms of the capital outlays required by facility owners and in terms of jobs lost. But in the long term, the result could well be a continued supply of secure, cheap food for Canadians. With that outcome evidently being what Canadians value most of all, the future of Canada's food supply is likely to be safer but as concentrated as ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the expansion of Canadian companies into global markets is to be hampered by two main factors including a lack of management skills, experience and talent, and the propensity of Canadians to be risk-averse. It mentions that Canada is punching well below its potential in critical areas, an underperformance that has enormous economic and social implications; and also mentions dynamic companies post the highest productivity-growth rates.

Canadians often assume that seeking asylum in Canada is a quick and easy route to permanent residency and citizenship. Nothing could be further from the truth. With its emphasis on due process, the asylum claim system is a complex machine whose wheels turn slowly. It is managed by a number of bureaucracies which offer different pathways through the system based on the particulars of the claim. The current cumbersome set-up is not conducive to quick resolution of asylum claims, nor is it capable of responding efficiently to sudden, large influxes of claims over a short time. Surges in the volume of claims are natural due to the volatile character of politics and economics, ethnic conflict, war and natural disasters in many countries around the globe. The denizens of those countries seek Canada as a place of refuge; yet, the bureaucracy has not developed methods to deal with the demand in a timely way. Three agencies - the Immigration and Refugee Board, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency - oversee the process, each within its own silo of budget, staff, case management and duties. The duties of intake, triaging of claims, determining eligibility, decision-making, intervenor power and appeals are parcelled out among the three agencies. The Federal Court, the RCMP, CSIS, the provinces and territories, and numerous for-profit and non-profit consultants, lawyers and service providers may also be involved in the process. The choice of winding path through the bureaucratic maze can depend on whether the asylum claimant surrendered themselves at the border or is already living in Canada. In a complicated series of steps, claimants are triaged to weed out the ineligible through various criteria, while other applicants are shunted into streams based on the level of urgency in their cases. Forms must be filled out, evidence gathered in support of the claim and hearings attended. If this process results in a negative decision, a lengthy appeals process can be launched. A backlogged claim system does no one any favours. It hampers the asylum process for people who genuinely need protection and attracts those with dubious claims who take advantage of it to stay in Canada and access Canadian services for long periods of time. A good processing system should be founded on the four Fs: it should be fast, fair, final and flexible. It should offer a quick resolution to those with genuine claims to refugee status and quick removal for those who do not qualify. Any reforms to the processing system must not affect asylum seekers' right to due process. However, the government must find ways to simplify and hasten the processing of asylum claims. Ensuring proper staffing levels at the various agencies involved, even during lulls in asylum applications, would be one place to start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigrants coming to Canada over the last two decades have been doing considerably worse in terms of economic outcomes than in previous decades and observers could be missing the real reason why. Until now, we have heard suggestions that it has to do with the changing economy, systemic racism or barriers to getting foreign work credentials recognized. But one likely possibility has not yet been seriously considered: that changes in the early 1990s to the way economic immigrants are processed may have resulted in a system that is poorer at selecting those immigrants likeliest to succeed in Canada. The good news is that this problem is fixable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal government and the four largest provinces in Canada spend about $29 billion a year on business subsidies, delivered through program spending, the tax system, government business enterprises and direct investments by government. These subsidies represent almost half of the corporate income tax revenue collected by the five jurisdictions. Surprisingly, given its reputation as a bastion of free enterprise, Alberta is the most prolific subsidizer. In the 2014-15 fiscal year, per person subsidies were $640 in Alberta, about $100 ahead of the next most generous jurisdiction, Québec. Alberta has probably added to its "lead" through measures introduced in the October 2015 Fiscal Update and the 2016 budget. Alberta also stands out by having the least transparent public reporting of business subsidies. What motivates governments to subsidize business? Abstracting from cynical efforts to win votes, business subsidies have two broad objectives: to improve economic performance and to achieve a social objective by supporting specific firms, industries or regions. On average in the five jurisdictions, the split between the two categories is about 70-30 in favour of economic development measures. Assessing value for money from programs with a social objective is subjective, but measures intended to improve economic performance should be assessed on their ability to raise real income. Business subsidies can only raise real income if markets fail to allocate labour and capital to their best uses. The classic case is R&D. When a firm undertakes R&D, some of the knowledge created inevitably spills over to the benefit other firms. Firms are focused on their own benefits and costs when deciding how much to spend on R&D, not the benefits received by other firms, so society has an interest in encouraging additional R&D. While markets generally do a good job allocating capital to its most productive uses, governments express concern about the ability of small firms to access external financing. Just over half of business subsidies are intended to address these two issues. Governments also provide subsidies in order to create what are often described as "good jobs," meaning employment in high-wage, high-productivity industries. There is ample evidence that wages differ by sector even after differences in worker skills and working conditions are taken into account. That opens up the possibility that subsidizing high-wage jobs will make us better off. Almost 10 per cent of government subsidies are pursuing "industrial policy" objectives. But real income won't necessarily go up, even in these circumstances. Benefit-cost analyses of key programs suggest that, at best, only a third of subsidies intended to raise real income achieve their objective. The main reason these subsidies are unsuccessful is that they have to be funded, either by raising taxes or cutting program spending, both of which harm economic performance. And avoiding the pitfall of excessive subsidization can be challenging. For example, small firms performing R&D get about 43% of their funding from governments, which is substantially beyond an effective level. Industrial policy measures are particularly tricky to get right. Governments have to identify sectors and firms that pay a premium for a given set of skills and working conditions, determine the subsidy that generates a social benefit net of the costs of providing assistance and avoid transferring income from low to high-wage taxpayers. With so much money at play, business subsidies should be reported more transparently and managed more effectively. For greater transparency, governments should prepare a comprehensive annual report on business subsidies delivered through program spending, the tax system and through the activities of government business enterprises. The report would describe the programs, state their objectives and report funding levels. When discussing program objectives, the report should set out in general terms the expected benefits and costs of government intervention and discuss who benefits from the measure and who is expected to pay for it. Making a commitment to set out the expected benefits and costs of all new business subsidies as they are introduced might prevent the worst offenders from being implemented in the first place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal government's decision to impose a minimum national price on carbon emissions has the potential to make certain businesses in the country less competitive. Specifically, there are emissions-intensive and trade-exposed industries across Canada that compete against producers from other jurisdictions where governments do not put a price on carbon. For these industries, the obligation to pay a carbon price creates a competitive disadvantage. Specifically, these businesses will face higher costs and may encounter a loss of market share to international competitors from jurisdictions that lack the same emission-control measures. That not only hurts Canadian businesses, it could also negate any emissions reductions that carbon pricing in Canada achieves on a global scale. The federal government has opted to protect such emissions-intensive, tradeexposed businesses using subsidies called output-based allocations (OBAs). This is the same system that Alberta is introducing through its forthcoming Carbon Competiveness Regulation. It also shares certain similarities with cap-and-trade programs, such as those in Ontario and Quebec, which provide free allocations of emissions permits to certain firms. OBAs are a desirable complementary policy to a carbon price as they maintain the incentive for producers to invest in production methods and facilities that are less emissions intensive. So while producers are still, nevertheless, subsidized to offset the tax burden of the carbon price, they will, under an OBA system, see greater benefits the more they work to reduce their emissions intensity. Still, to function most effectively and most efficiently, an OBA policy should follow certain key principles. The most critical principle in the design of an OBA policy is ensuring that OBAs are allocated to facilities independent of their individual emission levels, and allocated equally (on a per unit basis) to facilities producing the same product. One of the major flaws with Alberta's current Specified Gas Emitters Regulation (SGER) is that it does not follow this principle. Rather, subsidies under SGER are allocated based on a facility's historical emissions intensity. As a result, more generous subsidies are given to those facilities that are "dirtier" (that is, those with higher emissions intensities) than to "cleaner" facilities with lower emission intensities. Secondly, it is important for a well-designed OBA policy to have transparent costs. Including a clear accounting of OBAs in government finance reports will ensure the public is fully aware of the revenues being directed to the subsidies. Thirdly, OBAs for different facilities are best allocated using a classification system based on the product being produced, and not using more conventional industry-classification codes. Commonly used conventional industry classifications--for example, conventional oil and natural gas extraction--group together facilities that produce distinct products and compete in different markets. Consequently, this classification will not recognize the various levels of emissions intensity and trade exposure within an industry. This will result in some facilities receiving more OBAs than they should and others receiving less than they should. Finally, a well-designed OBA system should seek to be as administratively efficient as possible with minimal implementation costs imposed on government and businesses. It is important to recognize that the federal carbon price and OBAs are a new policy and that many large emitting facilities have been making investment decisions based on a previous regulatory environment. Therefore, a compromise approach may be to initially provide an output subsidy based on a facility's past emissions intensity (as Alberta has historically done under its SGER system) and then to transition gradually to the optimal OBA system over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the strategies used by municipalities of Alberta, in Canada in generating revenue through property taxes, user fees for services, and licensing systems. Topics discussed include metropolitan planning in Alberta with regional planning frameworks in various parts of Alberta province; effect of municipal revenue generation on land development; and mentions the involvement of investments of capital on land for constructing dwellings of a fixed size.

Canada in 2016 faces new and uniquely modern challenges. At the same time, our prosperity largely depends on our nineteenth and twentieth century accomplishments. Canada was built by visionaries who were able to overcome massive geographic and topographic challenges to create a great trading country, bound together and made successful by infrastructure projects like the trans-continental railways, highways and the St. Lawrence Seaway. But as we approach the 150th anniversary of Confederation, today's Canada faces serious challenges to its continued growth and prosperity as a trading country; challenges that are political and economic as well as geographic: improving access for our goods to diversified international markets, improving interprovincial trade and, most importantly, including the north in the prosperity of the south. Is there a way to unite Canada economically east, west, north and south, to bring badly needed trade diversification, and to encourage private investment in national infrastructure projects? The School of Public Policy and CIRANO have done initial research on this issue, and we conclude that there are strong grounds to start a discussion about a Northern Corridor rightof- way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Investment Canada Act (ICA) needs an overhaul. This reform must include a paradigm shift in thinking to a much less restrictive view about the benefits of foreign direct investment in Canada. Currently, the ICA operates under the presumption that foreign firms behave detrimentally to the Canadian economy: foreign acquirers are required to show "net benefit" to Canada and may need to make onerous commitments for maintaining output or employment. This attitude, a holdover from the ICA's predecessor, the Foreign Investment Review Agency, has created an atmosphere which fosters protectionism and relies on economically incoherent factors to assess the merit of proposed transactions. It is time to shed that archaic attitude and adopt a more reasoned perspective. Rather than requiring each proposed transaction to provide proof for the specific benefit to Canada, the ICA should assume that foreign acquisitions benefit Canada unless there is proof to the contrary. A more welcoming, balanced and rational perspective would be that foreign acquisitions actually improve the productivity of Canadian companies and contribute to the wellbeing of Canada's economy. The ICA is flawed in other ways, too. Some reviews of proposed transactions have become unnecessarily fraught with politics. Think of the recent politically enmeshed fretting over the bid that the state-owned Chinese Offshore National Company made for Nexen Energy, or Malaysia's state-owned Petronas' bid for Progress Energy Resources Corp. Indeed, there has been a very real fear of traditionally Canadian-owned institutions losing their Canadian essence to foreign ownership. Then, too, there is the federal government's built-in ability to impose onerous conditions, or undertakings, on foreign acquirers. All this is clearly a deterrent to potentially beneficial foreign investment in Canada. Canada needs a new regime without nationalism, protectionism and politics. Ideally, this new regime would require decisions based on economically-grounded criteria, with the onus placed on the federal government to prove that a given transaction would be detrimental to the domestic economy. This would shift the government's role from its current one, in which the minister of innovation, science and economic development approves a proposal deemed to be beneficial to Canada, and has broad powers to withhold federal approval. This leaves the rejected foreign acquirer with no impartial avenue of appeal, such as a specialized tribunal. The reforms to the ICA should also include establishing a specialized tribunal where foreign acquirers can challenge negative decisions, just as the Competition Act provides a means for challenging antitrust aspects of mergers and acquisitions more broadly. There is extensive empirical evidence demonstrating that foreign investment is beneficial to Canada because it results in improvements in productivity and competitiveness. As well, foreign-controlled firms in Canada pay higher wages, make large investments in R&D, innovation and skilled labour, experience fewer layoffs during economic downturns, and impart their technologies to domestic firms, among other benefits. Indeed, from 1980 to 1999, 2/3 of Canada's manufacturing sector labour productivity growth came from foreign-controlled companies, even though they comprised only 40 per cent of that sector's employment. Not only could the Competition Act with its tribunal model serve as a framework for these much-needed reforms to the ICA, but, as well, reform of the ICA should similarly entrench the promotion of competition, economic efficiency and domestic welfare as its core objectives. That translates to not treating foreign investment as an end in itself, but as a means to promote economic efficiency through competition in both markets for products and corporate control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's tax code allows the use of flow-through shares for mining and oil and gas companies on the assumption that they are a good way to spur new productive exploration and are also beneficial to investors. In reality, it appears that flow-through shares are lousy for both. Flow-through shares are designed for corporations that cannot make good use of expense deductions from their taxes and so, through the use of these special type of shares, can pass along their expenses for shareholders to deduct from their own income taxes. This tax break is not insignificant: The amount of revenue foregone by the federal government due to flow-through shares and the related Mineral Exploration Tax Credit averaged $440 million every year between 2007 and 2012. But the steepest price has arguably been borne by investors, with returns on flow-through shares performing extraordinarily poorly. For small companies that issued these shares, the annualized absolute return was a nearly 100 per cent loss. For larger companies, the returns were not as bad -- negative 14 per cent -- but still a loss. And if adjusted for corresponding benchmarks, the returns were even worse. From the $2.5 billion raised from Canadians using flow-through shares, investors have lost $1.2 billion. Certainly these results would indicate that flow-through shares are hardly helping Canadian explorers strike lucrative new discoveries (it is impossible to say whether the limited success some larger companies had in locating productive assets, using flow-through shares, would not have occurred anyway). Meanwhile, these share issues, bearing the imprimatur of a special government right and the incentive of an investor tax benefit, have likely led to market distortions, luring capital that might have otherwise gone to more productive and rewarding investments. Compounding matters is the very real possibility that those projects that were funded by flow-through shares, but would have been better not begun at all, added competition for inputs and labour, increasing their prices -- and lowering returns -- for other mining and oil and gas projects with better prospects. In sum, the legacy of flow-through shares is effectively a list of everything that would indicate the policy's failure. They have hurt investors. They have hurt economic efficiency. They have distorted market competition. And all at a cost to the federal government of nearly half-a-billion dollars a year. Furthermore, the incentives created by flow-through shares can only run counter to any desires among federal and provincial governments to diversify their economies and reduce dependency on mineral and fossil fuel resources. And even where it remains a goal to increase investment in such resources -- or any other government-favoured sector, for that matter -- it is clear that flow-through shares or tax incentives similar to this policy mechanism are an extremely poor way to achieve it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To put it in simple terms, Canada's corporate income tax is a mess. It discourages capital investment most heavily in many service sectors, is highly distortionary and overwhelmingly complex, impeding economic growth. With current inflation rates, these distortions are even larger. With so many tax preferences, the combined federal-provincial corporate income tax with a headline tax rate of 26 percent raises revenue little more than 19 percent of corporate profits. To build up productive capacity in a post-COVID world, a big-bang approach is needed to put Canada into a better position to attract investment and reduce distortions in the business tax system. There are some major revenueneutral reforms that could improve neutrality and simplify the overly complex corporate tax. Here, we particularly explore a corporate tax on distributed profits without a reduction in corporate tax revenues. A distributed profits approach means profits from investment activities would only be taxed when they are distributed to investors. This allows profits reinvested in capital to be exempt from taxation. A good example of this design is Estonia's corporate profit tax on distributions, introduced in 2000. This reform resulted in the elimination of the corporate tax on reinvested profits -- these profits are only taxed when the profits are distributed. In 1999, prior to the reform, corporate taxes, as a share of taxes, made up 0.9 per cent of GDP. In 2019, they made up 1.7 per cent of GDP. Estonia has also had remarkable investment performance since with fixed capital formation equal to 27 percent of GDP compared to 23 percent in Canada since 2015. Taxes generally distort economic activity -- production of the taxed good or service is reduced when effective tax rates are increased. The value of the lost production is greater than the value of the tax added to government revenue. This results in several distortions: intertemporal, inter-industry, inter-asset, international, risk-taking, financing and business organization. The corporate tax on distributed profits, while still having some disadvantages, does have several advantages in reducing these distortions. The proposal considered here would tax deemed distributions of profits including share buybacks and certain deemed payments to prevent erosion of the tax base. Passive income and capital gains earned by the corporation would remain taxed similar to existing rules. The revenue-neutral corporate tax on distributed profits would be an estimated 16 per cent at the federal level and 11.2 per cent on a provincial average tax rate, when brought forward to the 2022/23 fiscal year results in the same corporate tax revenues collected as in 2022 ($37 billion). While it seems that a distributed tax that exempts reinvested profits would lower the corporate taxable income, it actually doesn't lower it much. Due to tax incentives, taxable corporate income ($370 billion for 2022/23) is significantly below corporate operating profits ($515 billion). The distributed tax removes the need for tax incentives, no longer providing those tax savings. This proposed model is not perfect, but it is better than the current system, which is distortionary, with high economic, compliance and administrative costs. A distributed profits design would make the corporate income tax fairer and simpler, reducing administrative and compliance costs, while not significantly eroding corporate tax revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of School of Public Policy Publications is the property of University of Calgary, School of Public Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of School of Public Policy Publications is the property of University of Calgary, School of Public Policy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The COVID-19 pandemic offered Canadians a glimpse of the digital healthcare system we could have here if we are willing to clear away the traditional roadblocks that stand in the way. However, as the pandemic slowly recedes, the opportunity to keep moving forward, with a health-care system that fully embraces digital, will likely require the federal government asserting itself as a leader in a policy area that falls within provincial jurisdiction, despite the controversy and contention that federal intervention would arouse. The pandemic's urgent demands on the health system forced jurisdictions to clear many barriers that have impeded digital-health innovation until now. Within weeks of the onset of the pandemic, virtual care exploded to previously unimaginable levels, with health-related telephone and video calls rapidly rising from less than two per cent of all ambulatory visits at the beginning of 2020, to as high as 70 per cent by mid-May the same year. The bureaucracy around procurement, privacy and security was reduced, while digital-health innovators were given the opportunity to take a larger role in the health system. Digital health care is much more than just a doctor making a Zoom call, however. Seizing the momentum to realize broader change will require a national approach. This should include several policies, many requiring federal leadership, such as enshrining digital care within the definition of "medically necessary" care, insured under the Canada Health Act. Digital health also includes giving patients ownership of their personal health data, while ensuring data interoperability across Canada. The current, fragmented, provincial approach to health care is a drag on innovation, creating barriers to the efficient procurement of technologies, interoperability and data sharing. Our heavily siloed system disadvantages not only the health-care system and patients, but Canadian digital-health companies who, because they are unable to scale up in Canada, will find it hard to compete in the growing global digital-health industry. The federal government can show leadership by innovating with digital health policy for those citizens that fall under its health-care purview, such as Indigenous Canadians and members of the Canadian Armed Forces. Ensuring that Canadians everywhere realize the benefits of digital health care, however, will require Ottawa taking a more active role in breaking down barriers between provinces and territories, making it clear that our slow-to-innovate health-care silos are no longer sustainable in a digital world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada produced 729 megatonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2018 and approximately 10 per cent of that came from the country's agricultural sector. Different farming operations produce varying amounts of GHGs, whether they are small animal or crop farms, or large beef cattle operations. Besides field techniques, researchers are using models such as HOLOS - a Canadian whole-farm emissions model - and the Integrated Farm Systems Model, among others, to find ways to target emission sources without hampering a farm's financial sustainability and production. Other models focus on simulating the productivity and impact of cropping systems on the environment, with the goal of estimating the level of emissions. Other models are used to derive management-driven soil carbon change factors. Carbon footprints vary for every subsector of agriculture and assessing them is a complex effort that involves accounting for every process that occurs throughout production. Methane and nitrous oxide are the main GHGs that agriculture emits at 38 and 36 per cent respectively, with carbon dioxide responsible for the remaining 26 per cent. GHGs arise from enteric fermentation of cattle, the application of synthetic and organic fertilizer, biomass decomposition, soil cultivation and tillage, mineralization of soil organic matter and manure, among other sources. There are many options available for reducing agricultural GHG emissions, depending on the type of farm operation. Soil carbon content can be increased and stored in the soil or in plants to cut CO2 losses to the atmosphere. Carbon storage can be achieved by using cover crops or mulches and switching from annual to perennial cropping, for example. No-till practices permit the soil to develop porosity with better moisture retention and organic matter buildup, creating a healthy environment for roots, microorganisms and fungi. Manure emissions can be managed by capturing CH4 (methane) and using it to generate heat and electricity. Manure piles can also be aerated to reduce emissions. Energy consumption from farm equipment can be reduced through sustainable practices such as reducing tillage, retaining residue and managing mixed-species forests, as well as reducing pesticide and fertilizer applications through diverse cropping systems. In addition to saving fuel consumption, sustainable practices minimize soil erosion. Other sustainable practices include avoiding clear-cutting, contour plowing and using mulches and compost to increase the soil's carbon and nutrient content. Consumers can make a significant difference in reducing agricultural GHG emissions by making informed choices when purchasing food. Eating a balanced diet that includes a variety of sources of protein can contribute to reducing emissions. Multi-product farm systems that integrate cropping, dairy and beef production have a lower carbon footprint and higher production efficiencies compared to single-product farm systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada's federal carbon tax currently applies in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Farmers in these provinces lack consistency on the tax, which is differentially applied to agricultural fuels. They must navigate between distinct sets of rules depending on the type of fuels they're using and what those fuels are used for. Some fuels are eligible to be fully exempt from the carbon tax; others may be allowed a partial exemption, and still others may force farmers to face the full amount of the carbon tax. The most significant agricultural fuel sources facing the full amount of the carbon tax are natural gas and propane used for grain and oilseed drying and for the heating of barns and other farm buildings. The burden of these tax payments on farmers is unclear. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada reports carbon tax cost estimates for grain and oilseed drying that range from an average of $210 per farm in Alberta to $774 per farm in Saskatchewan. Individual farmers, in contrast, have reported carbon tax costs of up to $10,000. Agriculture's sector-level emissions and trade flows are comparable to those of many industries in Canada that meet the criteria for being labelled an emissionsintensive and trade-exposed (EITE) industry. EITE industries are typically eligible to receive carbon pricing support on all priced emissions as part of either the federal government's output-based pricing system (OBPS) or similar provincial government programs. Agriculture is typically excluded from these programs because of the thousands of small producers in the sector, most of whom remain below the minimum emissions thresholds required for participation. As a result of this exclusion, agricultural subsectors have generally not been evaluated to see whether they meet EITE criteria. With all federal parties in favour of additional carbon pricing support for farmers, it is likely that support will soon be expanded to additional fuel uses. Future support to the agriculture industry is best offered via a mechanism that maintains the full incentive of the carbon tax. Two options that satisfy this objective are either a lump sum rebate to farmers or an output-based rebate system specific to agriculture. With both options it is important that any rebate amount is divorced from emissions and fuel use, A third option, which does not maintain the incentive of the carbon tax, is to expand farm-fuel exemptions. All of these options come with advantages and disadvantages, which would need to be carefully weighed. It would also be informative to complete an EITE assessment for agriculture that is based on all of the sector's combustion emissions being subject to the carbon tax. This would help to inform the potential impact of the carbon tax on agricultural production costs, farm profitability and the global competitiveness of Canada's farmers. Such an assessment would provide important insights on how to best support Canada's agricultural competitiveness without undermining its overall emissions reduction plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrifying as many end-uses as technically and economically feasible is a key strategy for achieving net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, “electrifying everything” is not currently a practical or economical option for everything. In many of these hard-to-decarbonize sectors, hydrogen has a role to play. Hydrogen and hydrogen derivatives can play a key role in certain emission-intensive sectors that are important to Canada’s economy, including steel, chemical and clean fuel production, and possibly heavy freight, long distance rail, and other off-grid end-uses that currently depend on diesel motors. In a companion piece, we discuss the role for hydrogen in electricity systems. Unlike oil and gas, whose resources are isolated to only some parts of the country, hydrogen has the potential for broad participation across Canada due to the ability to produce it from hydrocarbons and clean electricity. The former is likely to dominate in the near term, whereas declining costs for hydrogen from electricity should tilt the economics in that direction in the longer run. In all cases, however, regulators and policy makers should be focused on life-cycle emissions from the production process rather than arbitrary colour classification schemes. Canada’s natural advantages in producing clean hydrogen also puts it in a position to capitalize on new export opportunities from hydrogen-derived products. It already has one of the cleanest steel-production facilities in the world in Québec, a technology that can be adapted to operate on 100% hydrogen. Opportunities exist for Canada to become a green iron or steel exporter, from Québec or even possibly Alberta with its unused iron ore deposits and abundance of hydrogen potential. For hydrogen to reach its potential, there are some key areas where government policy and support will be needed. From helping to establish clean hydrogen industrial clusters, where firms share production and storage infrastructure, to ensuring hydrogen refueling networks for transport are established with sufficient breadth needed for heavy freight transport, government has a role to play in setting up the landscape for innovators to thrive. Ultimately, hydrogen will not solve every decarbonization challenge Canada faces, but it will have a critical role to play as a complement to a variety of strategies aimed at reaching net-zero emissions. Hydrogen has had many “hype cycles” before, and while it is no panacea for decarbonization, it is now genuinely poised to help Canada achieve its net-zero goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is not immune to the dramatic economic changes that are transforming society in other industrialized countries, where once-thriving factory and resource towns are dying, while educated knowledge workers in more cosmopolitan centres prosper. Where this growing inequality between communities and social classes takes root, worrisome social and political developments can develop, such as the polarization occurring in the U.S. and parts of Europe. Canada's 10 largest cities have been the primary driver of economic growth in recent years, and Canada is unusual in the degree to which its population is concentrated in a relatively small number of cities. To date, Canada's largest cities have been doing well and Canada has not so far seen the contrast so evident in the United States between highly successful cities and large cities in decline, such as Detroit and Cleveland. However, a ranking of national cities using "vitality" scores highlights a growing inequality between Canada's largest cities and its midsize and smaller cities. In many communities in the Atlantic region, in Quebec beyond its two major cities, and in the northern regions of B.C. and Ontario, harder times may lie ahead. Their populations are stagnating, their employment rates for people of prime working age are distressingly low, and their proportion of lowincome families is high. Urban decline can lead to further poverty, significant population aging and more pressure on higher levels of government to provide services that these communities can no longer afford. The strength of cities primarily revolves today around human capital and the ability of a community to develop or attract a highly skilled labour force. If Canada is to avoid a future where just a few cities are economic and demographic "winners" and the rest are "losers," policy-makers will need to consider how to help keep midsized cities from being increasingly left behind, whether that be through diversifying immigration patterns, targeted investment outside large urban areas, or other approaches. The pandemic, which has led some employers to rethink the need to keep workers in expensive big-city downtown offices, could create new opportunities to reinvigorate smaller, lower-cost centres. However, without a change in the pattern of divergence between Canada's dynamic cities and the rest, the societal and political strife that has unfolded elsewhere could someday happen here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments, including Canada's, offer tax benefits to small businesses, such as lower rates, in the belief that these benefits encourage growth, but these attempts can easily have the opposite effect. Small businesses that face steep "tax walls," meaning a sudden and sharp increase in tax rates once they grow past a certain size, are discouraged to grow rather than incur significantly greater tax expenses. Canada's tax wall is steeper than that of any other G7 country or Australia. With a tax wall representing a 27-point increase in taxes after the smallbusiness threshold is reached, it is far higher than even the second-highest walls of 18 points in Germany and the U.S., and drastically higher than the least steep wall, of three points, in Japan. The result is that Canada encourages investors to keep companies small and less efficient. Growing companies will choose to break up into smaller, more inefficient units, before they get too big, or they may simply look to sell out to foreign buyers after reaching a certain size. This hurts Canada's economic growth, economic efficiency and productivity, and it depresses Canadian workers' wages. Further, once considering both corporate and personal income taxes, Canadian small business are taxed more highly on their investments compared to S-corporations in the United States once they grow beyond $13 million in asset size (based on specific assumptions used for modelling). The higher tax in Canada encourages small business owners to migrate or sell out to US companies. The steepness of Canada's tax wall is affected by the jump in corporate tax rates once a business grows larger, but it is most affected by the sharp increase in the personal income taxes paid by the owners of that business. If innovators and inventors are successful in growing a business in Canada, they will face one of the highest personal income tax rates in the world, beginning at a relatively low level of income. The system therefore encourages them to take their business elsewhere. With a few reforms, the government could ensure the small-business tax system actually promotes small-business growth, as intended. Among them are a flat tax on corporate profits for all businesses, regardless of size, but with an annual 100-per-cent write off on capital expenditures. In addition, income averaging for small businesses would put owners, who will have lean earning years and fat earning years, on a more equal footing with salaried taxpayers. Targeted small-business dividend taxes, for owners with a large interest in an active business, and a capital-gains exemption for purchasers of initial public offerings in qualifying small corporations would also help reorient Canada's small-business tax system towards its goal of helping businesses grow. After all, there seems little point in Canada having a small-business tax regime at all, if its effect in reality is to discourage business growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]