Notes from the ivory tower.

The editor comments on business thinkers in Canada. Economists Don Drummond and Gillian Manning wrote a paper, Time to Eliminate the Foreign Property Rule for Canadian Registered Pension Plans, that is well worth reading. It's the most cogent and concise argument I've read against the silly 30% limit on non-Canadian content in our RRSPs. Not only does it deflate the fallacies the 30% limit is based upon--that open borders for RRSP--included assets would create a flight of capital or are somehow unpatriotic--but they also point out that the cap basically benefits nobody. The second mind I wanted to mention is that of Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He's also chair of the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity, a not-for-profit organization whose mandate is to measure the economic progress of Ontario, but whose findings have relevance for the entire country. Martin recently presented a paper entitled Realizing Canada's Prosperity Potential to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Martin's basic argument is that a "prosperity gap" exists between Canada and the United States, and that the way to close it is to increase our productivity. The other big point Martin makes is that the time is long past due for Canada to revamp its allegedly progressive and needlessly complex tax system--in which, perversely, the lower middle class pays the highest marginal rate of any income group.