We have not seen inflation this high in Canada for decades. With it has come a resurgence of arguments not heard for many years, both about the causes of inflation and whether we should reduce it.
These arguments will be fierce. Getting inflation back to the 2-per-cent target set by the Bank of Canada will mean tighter monetary policy, including higher interest rates. That will hurt – but inflation hurts more. The sooner we settle on what to do about it, the easier reducing it will be.
Disagreement about what causes inflation matters. After all, if inflation were not related to monetary policy, asking the central bank to fix it would make no sense. Higher prices at stores or in Statistics Canada reports often seem…
The world got its first digital currency, DigiCash, in 1989. Nine years later it filed for bankruptcy. Since then the world has been waiting for digital currency to take over from cash – as it seems bound at some stage to do. Is 2022 the year it finally happens?
Bitcoin (est’d. 2009) is the best-known crypto currency. Bitcoin does not have any value in its own right yet it has a market value near US$ 1 trillion, almost 40 per cent of the total crypto currency market valuation. Bitcoin aspires to be used widely as a currency and has been accepted as legal tender in some developing countries, most notably El Salvador. But its price in U.S. dollars — its exchange rate, if you like — is very volatile, making it too unstable for…
Paper health care records have been a danger to both patients and providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. I have been able to get my 85-year old mother’s banking and bills online to keep things up to date. I could even do her taxes and basic government functions online. I should have been able to help manage her health care information too. But I couldn’t.
This story of failure became clear to me as our team interviewed over a hundred people for my June 2021 report for Health Canada, The State of Virtual Care in Canada as of Wave Three of the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Early Diagnostique and Policy Recommendations. Two key deficits in our health-care system became evident when social distancing necessitated…
