The long-awaited ruling in the Cambie case, Dr. Brian Day’s challenge to British Columbia’s Medicare Protection Act, has upheld the rules that effectively bar private provision of publicly covered medical services. But it does not say whether suppressing privately funded care, as the act seeks to do, is good policy. It is not. Absent some degree of competition from private care, the Canadian health-care system will continue to be both expensive and mediocre in comparison with those in peer countries other than the United States.
Like the courts in the 2002 Chaoulli case, the judge in this case found that long wait times for care could be considered inconsistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantee of “the right to…
On Aug. 27, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board announced an important modification of its monetary policy framework, moving towards “average-inflation targeting” (AIT). As the Fed’s announcement said: “following periods when inflation has been running persistently below two per cent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above two per cent for some time.” The obvious question for Canadian policy-makers is whether the Bank of Canada should follow suit. Our answer is: Perhaps, but the bar for changing the policy regime should be set high.
As the name suggests, under “average-inflation targeting,” the central bank’s target would be the average inflation rate over a specified time, say three years.…
Les Québécois ont raison d’être fiers de leur Caisse de dépôt et placement, qui gère avec efficience les avoirs de leur Régime de rentes et ceux des fonds de pension de presque tous les employés du secteur public. Malheureusement, les employés des municipalités et des universités n’ont pas cette chance.
Je connais un grand nombre de gestionnaires de régimes de retraite des villes et des universités et je sais que ce sont des gens dévoués et compétents. Toutefois, leurs caisses étant plus petites, ils n’ont pas accès aux mêmes ressources, aux mêmes occasions de placement et doivent assumer des coûts plus élevés, qui pénalisent tant leurs participants que leurs employeurs et, en fin de compte, les contribuables.
La Caisse…
