Policy Options

When I talk with other “formers” from the political world, not just in Canada but elsewhere as well, about what we miss and don’t miss from our past lives,...

Les Américains ont une façon bien à eux de mesurer la pauvreté. Comme tout le monde, ils fixent un seuil de revenu — une ligne si on veut —...

The United States has travelled a long way from the Back in spring euphoria of election night 2008 to the crankiness of the 2010 midterm elections. Even President Barack...

Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency was a brilliant fusion of unique ingredients. Among them was the astonishing feat of persuading tens of millions of Americans to suspend their...

How to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans. An old joke that would not be lost on the still new and young president of the US, whose transformative...

Immediately prior to the 2008 US election, I wrote an article combining hubris and humility (“Foreign Policy: Obama vs. McCain,” Policy Options, October 2008). I played prognosticator regarding the...

It seems like only yesterday that the newly elected President Barack Obama strode onto the well guarded stage in Grant Park, Chicago, to deliver his victory speech. The bright...

Le 2 novembre prochain, les Américains voteront pour reconduire ou remplacer toute la Chambre des représentants et un tiers du Sénat. Qui sortira gagnant de ces élections? Si on...

We are 10 years away from 2020, the date when global emissions reduction targets for green-house gases (GHG) are to be met. Regardless of what happened in Copenhagen, or...

In 1497 the Italian explorer John Cabot was commissioned by King Henry VII of England to find a direct sea route to the Orient. Cabot failed to find the...

In July 2009, Robert Thirsk and Julie Payette spent 16 days together with other crew members on board the International Space Station (ISS). The presence of two Canadian astronauts...

We hear, over and over, how problematic minority governments are in Canada. “Nothing gets done.” “It’s politically unstable.” “The government can’t get any legislation through.” “The opposition only opposes.”...

In October 2008, New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham announced his government’s Poverty Reduction Initiative. The goal, he said, was to transform how the province deals with poverty. Graham went...

Experts agree that carbon taxes intended to combat global warming could most efficiently be imposed upstream or midstream in the production-distribution process for fossil fuels. In the case of...

The 2010 G20 Summit in Toronto ushered in what likely to be a long period of fiscal consolidation in advanced economies. Although our country is in better fiscal shape...

Like several other developed countries, Canada will face two significant economic policy challenges in the coming decades. Both will be driven by a single force: the gradual but inexorable...

Back in the ‘90s, Canadian songstresses Jane Siberry and k.d. lang sang a hauntingly beautiful duet about the beauty and pain of life, and all its unanswerable questions. “Calling...