Policy Options

OPTIONS POLITIQUES : Monsieur le Premier ministre, merci d’avoir accepté de nous rencontrer encore une fois, à l’occasion de votre deuxième anniversaire au pouvoir. Êtes-vous surpris, si je peux...

Stephen Harper said long ago that he would try to change Canadian federalism. If he still means it, this is the year. It probably means also that in 2008...

So it’s off to the movies, and why not? Friends have e- mailed to say ”œyou must see Charlie Wilson’s War ”” you’re in it!” Strange, I don’t recall...

This year got off to a bang-up start for the energy sector when the benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude hit US$100 a barrel ”” a record in nomi-...

Canada’s civil servants are more than hard-working and dedicated. They are highly motivated and very talented, easily the match of civil servants anywhere and everywhere. Intriguingly, this poses an...

It always seems to be the right time to debate Canada’s flexible exchange rate. As figure 1 shows, the Canadian-US dollar exchange rate has fluctuated a great deal over...

The last time Policy Options hosted a discussion of whether Canada should return to the fixed exchange rate it had during the Second World War and then again from...

Since the dollar surpassed parity with the US dollar in late October/early November of last year, there have been renewed calls from pundits for some kind of monetary integration...

The Canadian furniture and wood cabinet industry comprises 3,600 companies employing over 100,000 workers and shipping goods valued at $14 billion per year. Many of these companies are small...

Over the last few decades, agroforestry has emerged from long historical roots to become a recognized modern land use practice in some parts of the world. Modern agroforestry has...

Canada’s forests represent about 40 percent of its total land area. Forests have been instrumental in the development of this country, first with the extraction of timber for European...

Le paysage canadien s’est modifié constamment au cours de sa courte histoire, depuis le début de son occupation par les premiers Européens. Dans la région de la plaine du Saint-Laurent...

During the course of his long years in power, Bismarck brought his ministerial colleagues into unconditional bureaucratic dependence by eliminating all independent statesmen. Upon his retirement, he saw to...

Sovereignty, to believers, has always been an absolute. Defenders of national sovereignty have no time for shades of sovereignty, let alone something as absurd as a sovereignty with which you...

What is it to ”œbe Canadian”? The question of who we are and what defines our identity has preoccupied Canadians, more than people of any other nationality, since Confederation....

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives made defence and national secu- rity a central pillar of their campaign in the 2006 election. On the campaign trail they pledged to commit 5.3 billion...

If I have learned anything that is absolutely essential to an under- standing of the foibles of government and public policy, it is the corrosive nature of two compelling...

This book is better than we anticipated but not as good as it could have been. Over the course of some 300 pages, David Jones and David Kilgour seek...

Connaissez-vous l’allocation-logement ? Probablement pas. En 2006, en effet, ce programme québécois ne rejoignait que 128 903 ménages, qui recevaient en moyenne 56 dollars par mois pour le paiement...