Health care is a provincial responsibility. A national role in health care would have been incomprehensible to our founders, as health care was delivered locally in 1867 by caregivers who physically visited their patients. This delivery method has changed dramatically in recent times, creating a legitimate national role for the federal government to push forward the modernization of health care in Canada, and globally.
The modernization of clinical practice has many dimensions: digital health, national licensure, virtual care, and best practice and quality indicators are among them. Fundamentally, the rise of information technology makes it possible for clinicians to standardize and improve their practice and, in some instances,…
The Bank of Canada announced on Wednesday that it was holding its overnight rate target constant at 1.75 per cent. By coincidence, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced its rate decision on the same day, and cut its target to a range of 1.5 to 1.75 per cent.
While neither decision was a surprise, the resulting configuration of central-bank policy rates leaves the Bank of Canada in a prominent – some might say exposed – position. Canada’s policy rate is now the highest of the countries to which we usually compare ourselves. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s rate sits at 1 per cent, as does the Reserve Bank of Australia’s. The Bank of England has a rate of 0.75 per cent, the European Central Bank is at zero, and the Swedish Riksbank,…
On Tuesday, Alberta’s United Conservative Party government announced the details of its carbon pricing plan for large emitters, the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction Regulation (TIER). At its core, TIER is a carbon tax, in the sense that it puts a price on emissions. While the large-emitter piece of carbon pricing receives far less attention than the notorious “carbon tax,” TIER will cover more than double the emissions.
It was highly anticipated, given the party’s rhetoric around climate change: The UCP’s seeming raison d’être was fighting the carbon tax espoused by the provincial NDP and the federal Liberals, and it wasn’t so long ago that Premier Jason Kenney mused openly about reviving coal power and vowed to…
