There’s been a wringing of hands among members of Canada’s trade-policy community over the suggestion that the Trudeau government might do a revised trade deal with the U.S. on a bilateral basis instead of linking hands with Mexico and keeping the negotiations within the trilateral NAFTA framework.
There was pushback over a column of mine last month proposing just that – that Canada should pursue talks with the Americans bilaterally instead of within confines of the North American free-trade agreement. This wasn’t because of disregard for Mexico, but because trade issues between Canada and the U.S. are fundamentally different than the problems the Trump administration has on its southern border.
Given this…
"My Region First!"
It's a rallying cry we're hearing more these days, as regionalism becomes more a part of public policy.
The B.C. government recently approved the Trans Mountain pipeline that will haul Alberta oil to port. And it did so after squeezing up to a cool billion dollars out of Kinder Morgan — money which will go into an environmental protection fund.
Sounds good. Alberta gets an economic boost, B.C. gets a share of the spoils and some environmental help, and Kinder Morgan foots the bill. Or does it?
Things aren't always how they appear. More often than not, the person who has to cut the cheque is not the one who ends up paying.
So who does? It's a complex question.
But in…
The accumulation of past failures in fighting poverty has breathed new life into proposals to introduce a basic income, also known as a Guaranteed Annual Income. Ontario, for example, has a pilot project underway championed by former senator Hugh Segal. But, is the basic income approach, where governments provide direct financial support to low-income people, the best approach?
Basic income programs are examples of the top-down, one-size-fits-all siloed programs that were developed in the pre-computer age and that are part of the problem of an unresponsive, fragmented social security system. Such programming does not take into account the diversity of circumstances and needs that exist among people with low incomes.
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