Policy Options

Neil Smith was a revolutionary geographer. His love for his native Midlothian landscape (and its avian denizens) drew him into a field of study that could be an intellectual backwater. An...

chinadialogue.net: How has China’s role in the global response to climate change evolved over the past decade? Zou Ji: I divide it into three stages. First, from 1989 to 1995,...

There is not only the problem of a lack of representation of First Nations peoples on juries that is of serious proportions, but it is also regrettably the fact that the justice system...

Core values [are] the responsibility of the financial sector and its leaders. Their behaviour during the crisis demonstrated that many were not being guided by sound core values. Many in the wake of...

We managed to get a seat at the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) table only because of the persistent efforts by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the extraordinarily close relationship he had...

 I was asked to deliver a lecture on productivity and innovation. I have learned a thing or two about both these themes in my years of building a company called...

“But you promised!” screeches the four-year-old. “You promised we’d get ice cream today.” A parent’s nightmare: a pledge, made with the best intentions, derailed by an unexpected turn that makes a...

Pour de nombreux Canadiens, le gouvernement Harper se comporte de façon mystérieuse. Parmi ses politiques les plus opaques, l’obsession monarchique, les célébrations de la guerre de 1812 et la...

One thing you never get used to as a politician is seeing yourself burned in effigy. It’s happened to me more than once, but the first time was in...

In January, the Quebec government announced its intention to introduce “dying with dignity” legislation. The plan would effectively permit doctors, under stringent conditions, to engage in assisted suicide in...

Canadians have been treated to an endless stream of politicians declaring our newly discovered energy “superpower” status. In 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper boldly claimed that Canada was an emerging energy...

The slaughter in Syria stains the world’s conscience. And yet as the shelling and shooting go on and civilians continue to die or to flee by the thousands, the...

Only four decades ago, Norway was considered a bit of a backwater Scandinavia. It lagged behind its Scandinavian neighbours in per capita wealth, education attainment and other economic and...

En moyenne, et toutes choses égales par ailleurs, il me reste environ 27 ans à vivre. Ce n’est pas mal. Il y a 30 ans, j’en aurais eu cinq de...

The capitalist idea has dominated the history of modernity, both in its appeal, and in the revulsion it has elicited, and then in revulsion against the systems that were...

The possibility of continued low productivity growth leaves me with two great concerns. The first is the consequence for government finances. The second is whether inequality in opportunity will...

Canada has witnessed meagre economic growth for the last half decade, as has much of the developed world. Many economists project this slow rate of growth could continue for some...

In a provocative thought piece published in fall 2012, Northwestern University economist Robert Gordon argued that for the United States, “future growth in real GDP per capita will be...

Sign the manifesto at www.kickitover.org From Meme Wars: The Creative Destruction of Neoclassical Economics, by Kalle Lasn, with Adbusters. With permission. Random House, 2012.

Slow growth in real income is old news for most in the Canadian income distribution. Even before the onset of the Great Recession, there was not much growth at...

In life and societal affairs, “cumulative limits” can come into play. An ecosystem or a fishery, for example, can tolerate disruption in small doses, but persistent, cumulative disruption can do...

One of the most high-profile issues of the day is widening income inequality, so a reasonable question to ask is what to expect when such distributional change is combined...

Over the coming decade or more, Canada’s potential economic growth will decline from above 3 percent annually a decade ago to below 2 percent annually. This is mostly because...

In 1980, economist Gary Fields, who specializes in poverty, described India as a “miserably poor country.” Yet the reforms that followed, especially beginning in 1991, transformed it from a...

Economic growth may not be as strong in the future as it has been in the past. This conclusion is critical for policy-makers, since expansion of national income fuels...

Canada has been on a trajectory of slower economic growth for the past half century. If this trend continues, inflation-adjusted GDP per person will stop rising by 2020 and...

I would like to argue that an extended period of slow growth for the Canadian economy — by which I mean GDP growth that exceeds the rate of population growth...

The US and Canadian economies are slowly slipping into a world of mediocre growth, due to an aging population and much slower labour force growth. The Conference Board of Canada...

Economic growth is the increase in our measured ability to alter our environment to suit our needs and tastes. We do this using tools, but it is energy that does...

The Canada we know was built on the presumption of rising economic output over time. That faith has been factored into the way we live, from the social services...

“‘Canada Made Me Do This — The Death of Nellie Traverse,'” is a fictitious crisis that ensues after the videotaped suicide of a young Aboriginal woman is posted online,...

As the Tory government puts the last touches on another budget, it faces a landscape of sluggish economic growth for the visible future. Our rate of expansion trails that...