- Mark your calenders -

Ottawa movers and shakers, be sure to get your tickets for the annual MLI Soirée, which will be held on the evening of Feb. 12, 6 pm to 8 pm at the Rideau Club. The Soirée brings together parliamentarians, political watchers, public servants and other Ottawa luminaries to celebrate great Canadian Prime Ministers in the tradition of Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier. The Hon. Peter Milliken, former Speaker of the House of Commons, will again act as guest host. Previous speakers have included the Rt. Hon. Joe Clark and the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien. Please join us as we celebrate the very best of Canada's political history and traditions, while supporting the work of MLI - the premier voice in Canadian public policy. To register click here.

 

The next edition of MLI's Great Canadian Debates series takes place on Feb. 27 at 7 pm at the Canadian War Museum. Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders, author of The Myth of the Muslim Tide, will debate Western University professor Salim Mansur on the resolution: "Muslim immigration is no threat to Canada or the West." Saunders will argue for the resolution, Mansur against.

 

 

 

 

What would a health care system look like if we took economics seriously? Hint: Not much like Canadian medicare. Nor would it look much like the US system.

In a major new paper published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, Audrey Laporte, a noted expert in the economics of health care at the University of Toronto, addresses the erroneous but popular notion that health care delivery is fundamentally different from other areas of human economic activity. She urges policy-makers to consider taking advantage of market-based incentives to improve efficiency and meet the needs of that often forgotten and neglected stakeholder - the patient.

"The drawback with the solutions that have been introduced to tackle problems like wait times is that they are management-based solutions whereas economics-based solutions are needed", says Laporte.

Laporte's paper, titled "How markets can put patients first: Economics before politics in Canadian health care delivery," examines the mechanics of markets for health insurance, the organization of supply and the nature of demand for health care, and looks for evidence of the price mechanism in "the few still-untouched areas of its natural habitat". It examines the valid role of government in a universal-access system, and finally suggests what an economically rational health care system might look like.

Laporte published an op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen on the subject, and her paper was covered by Sun Media.

Jeffrey Simpson

In the latest instalment of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Straight Talk series of Q&As, Globe and Mail national columnist Jeffrey Simpson explains that the problem with Canada's health care

system is that it's quite clear we aren't getting value for money. Not only that, the provinces are going to have to make do with less health care funding in the future while attempting to improve outcomes.

On the question of whether Canada has the best health care system in the world, Simpson says "I think that perspective now lies pretty much in tatters". But there is reason to be optimistic. "We can now have a frank conversation and that's very, very helpful. ... I've heard ministers of health say that we don't have the best health care system in the world, that we have an underperforming system. I tell you, five to 10 years ago they were scared to say that publicly because they thought they'd be hung from a lamp post".

  

 

Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald and other Postmedia papers, MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley notes that headline-grabbing figures about federal spending on Aboriginal Affairs mean little when one considers decades of neglect and mistreatment of Aboriginal peoples, and the high costs of delivering services to remote regions. Moreover, "Government spending, rather than a proxy for generosity, however, is actually a measure of our failure to open real opportunities for Aboriginals", writes Crowley.

Writing in the Globe and Mail about the then upcoming Supreme Court decision on Canada's prostitution laws, MLI senior fellow Benjamin Perrin says that while the status quo is ineffective, decriminalization or legalization of prostitution "has been a flawed social experiment in numerous countries." He recommends that Canadian laws be changed to protect women and punish traffickers, pimps and johns. Perrin is the author of the MLI paper "Oldest Profession or Oldest Oppression?" which will be released next week.

Writing in the Globe and Mail, MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley says that for all its successes, "North America seems to be a perpetual disappointment as economic power blocs go." He points out that the members of the European Union, formerly torn by war, have done much better in creating an enormous and open free-trade area, and an integrated Asia is coming together with the nascent Trans-Pacific Partnership. "NAFTA is showing its age", he writes.

 

Stanley Hartt in the Post: How to privatize CMHC

 

Writing in the Financial Post , Stanley Hartt argues that to avoid damage to Canada's banking sector, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation should be weaned off government support. "Fiscal prudence demands a new approach to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation," he writes. The op-ed was based on a longer piece by Hartt, a legal expert and former high-level public servant in the December issue of Inside Policy.

 

Crowley in the Citizen: Liquor control monopolies' Achilles heel

 

Writing in the Ottawa Citizen , MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley detects a potential weakness in the seemingly impregnable provincial liquor monopolies. Like Achilles and his vulnerable heel, provincial liquor control boards could be brought down because provinces don't have the constitutional authority to create such monopolies, Crowley argues. Ottawa gave them the authority in a 90 year old law, that it is time to be rid of. "With one stroke of a pen, Ottawa could free consumers to buy and sell as they wish, subject to perfectly legal rules about the drinking age and other public health concerns", Crowley writes.

 

Crowley in the Globe: Sick of congestion? Build roads, not transit

 

Writing in the Globe and Mail, MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley challenges the common notion that building more roads only increases traffic congestion because it encourages more people to drive. He writes: "Now data are starting to emerge that allow us to compare commute times among similar rich-world industrialized countries in Western Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The results are not encouraging for the anti-car crowd. The worst urban congestion in this group of countries is in New Zealand, followed by Australia, countries that have invested relatively little in urban highways. 

 

Crowley in Postmedia papers: Thank goodness for the cold

 

In the Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald and Regina Leader-Post, MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley meditates on our cold climate and the Canadian character. While much of the country has been facing an early and harsh winter, we "are rather proud of being snow-covered a good part of the year", writes Crowley. "... Over the centuries some of the leading philosophers, people like Aristotle and Montesquieu, have speculated that climate might be an important factor in shaping national characters. From observing Canadians, I think they were on to something".

 

Nazareth in the Globe: Taking on debt has been fun, but 2014 may be the year we pay for it

 

Writing in the Globe's Economy Lab blog, MLI senior fellow Linda Nazareth looks at the major economic issues of the year ahead, including the effect rising interest rates will have on debt levels and the housing market. But she notes that of particular interest is how the labour market will transform over the next 10 years, beginning in earnest in 2014. She writes: "Notice I said 'labour' and not 'jobs?' That was intentional. See, I truly believe that we are moving to an era of getting the work done, rather than giving people jobs. That means more 'gigs', or contracts for people, and more temporary employment, and more part-timers, and more just using outside contracts to get work done. The big happy work force family will still exist in some companies in 10 or 20 years, but not all.

 

MLI's Cross in the Post: Are Canadians saving too much?

 

Writing in the Financial Post, MLI senior fellow Philip Cross points out that measures of personal retirement savings that seem to show a decline are ignoring the vast funds in forced savings that are being held for them by government, such as CPP and the Quebec Pension Plan, which have grown enormously in recent years.  "It is duplicitous that the very people who want to increase the CPP contribution rates don't count the forced savings in social insurance funds when measuring personal savings. They want households to have more savings available for retirement, but don't count the very savings they are imposing", Cross writes.

 

Crowley in the Globe: In foreign student gold rush, standards get left behind

 

Writing in the Globe and Mail, MLI managing director Brian Lee Crowley notes that international student populations are booming worldwide, with the number in Canada growing by 60 per cent between 2004 and 2012, encouraged by politicians and administrators alike. But, Crowley says, "If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And the notion that foreign students will be universities' saviours almost certainly falls into this category". Crowley lists problems that are politically correct to ignore, such as poor English comprehension by international students, lower education standards and the potential for fraud, which should be considered alongside the high fees and local economic boost that international students bring.