Licence to Capture: The Cost Consequences to Consumers of Occupational Regulation in Canada
Consumers Lose as Occupational Licensing Expands A trend toward increased occupational licensing in Canada drives up costs for consumers and inhibits competition. Authors Robert Mysicka, Lucas Cutler and Tingting Zhang explore how a growing number of occupations in Canada require members to be licensed or otherwise regulated and how, in many cases, the added costs consumers […] Accelerate Infrastructure Projects and Adapt Restructuring Processes: Crisis Working Group on Business Continuity and Trade
June 17, 2020 – Accelerating productivity-enhancing infrastructure projects could provide much-needed stimulus and help Canada’s economy recover from the COVID-19 crisis, according to a C.D. Howe Institute Crisis Working Group.
The Crisis Working Group on Business Continuity and Trade, in its most recent meetings on May 26 and June 2, 2020, also emphasized the need for adapting Canada’s bankruptcy and restructuring process to cope with the potential for widespread insolvencies.
The group of industry experts and economists, co-chaired by Dwight Duncan, Senior Strategic Advisor at McMillan LLP and former Ontario Minister of Finance, and Jeanette Patell, Vice-President of Government Affairs and Policy for GE Canada,…
Tim Brennan – Could Covid-19 Justify Competitor Cooperation?
From: Tim Brennan To: Competition policy watchers Date: June 8, 2020 Re: Could COVID-19 Justify Competitor Cooperation? As nations around the world try to cope with COVID-19, one hears calls to encourage cooperation among manufacturers and suppliers that normally compete with another. Cooperation, of course, is good if not necessary in so many aspects of our […] Through Crisis and Recovery, Enforce Competition and Safeguard Open Markets: C.D. Howe Institute Competition Policy Council
May 27, 2020 – The federal government should not legislate any ministerial “public interest” waiver for anti-competitive collaborations, according to a report from a C.D. Howe Institute council.
While government intervention in certain economic sectors may be warranted in the near term during the COVID-19 crisis, governments must be conscious of potential impacts on competition, and ensure competitors face the discipline and dynamism of market forces by outlining a clear exit plan for ramping-down support.
This is the consensus view of the C.D. Howe Institute’s Competition Policy Council, which held its nineteenth meeting on May 8, 2020.
Council members commended governments for taking an active role in economic…
Konrad Von Finckenstein – Balancing Privacy And Cellphone Tracing To Fight Covid-19
From: Konrad von Finckenstein To: All provincial governments except Alberta Date: May 14, 2020 Re: Balancing privacy and cellphone tracing to fight COVID-19 It has widely been reported that South Korea used cellphone tracing in its largely successful efforts to control the pandemic. This raises important questions of privacy, and forces governments into the difficult […] Robson, Bishop – Coronavirus Crisis Shows Value Of Robust Digital Infrastructure
To: Canadian Telecommunications Users and Regulators From: William B.P. Robson and Grant Bishop Re: Coronavirus Crisis Shows Value of Robust Digital Infrastructure Date: March 24, 2020 Like so many Canadians, we at the C.D. Howe Institute responded to the COVID-19 crisis by suspending almost all in-person activities. As in most workplaces, everyone at the Institute […] Increasing Regional Competition Drives Lower Cellular Prices Across Provinces
In a recent edition of Graphic Intelligence, we showed that prices for cellular services across Canada declined by almost 17 percent as of December 2019 from a high point in June 2017. This ongoing price decline in cellular services is at the centre of the present debate around the federal government’s aim to further reduce […] Grant Bishop – Boon Or Bane? The Mandated Broadband And Wireless Access Debate
From: Grant Bishop To: The Honourable Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Date: February 6, 2020 Re: Boon or bane? The mandated broadband and wireless access debate Two sets of present proceedings raise questions about whether Canada’s telecommunications regulator will enhance or impair market efficiency by mandating access to telecommunications facilities – specifically, to broadband and […] Talk is Cheaper: Canadian Wireless Prices on a Swift Decline
In the recent Mandate Letter, the Prime Minister directed the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry to “reduce the average cost of cellular phone bills in Canada by 25 percent” and “expand mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) in the market.” MVNOs do not operate wireless facilities themselves but purchase access from operators of wireless facilities that […] Ken Engelhart – Look, the US ended net neutrality and the sky did not fall
From: Ken Engelhart To: Canadians concerned about net neutrality Date: December 3, 2019 Re: Look, the US ended net neutrality and the sky did not fall Two years ago, I made an unpopular prediction: that the US plan to scrap network neutrality rules, which require that Internet service providers treat all data equally, would not break the Internet. Contrary to […] Choosing Canada: Canadian Cultural Policy in the Twenty-first Century
Canada should ditch Canadian content tools that are ill-suited for the digital age, says a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Choosing Canada: Canadian Cultural Policy in the Twenty-first Century” author Daniel Schwanen sets out a plan to bring Canadian content policy into step with developments such as the emergence of digital competitors […] The net neutrality fanatics were wrong – Financial Post Op-Ed
Two years ago, in another op-ed, I made an unpopular prediction. I guessed that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s plan to scrap network neutrality rules in the United States would not break the internet. In fact, contrary to the dire forecasts of pro-regulation groups, I thought the measure wouldn’t amount to much of anything: that “net neutrality” legislation was pretty pointless — and so removing it would be uneventful, and certainly not bad for U.S. broadband.
My view was received with a fair amount of hostility. One reader memorably proposed on Twitter that I have intimate relations with my own eyeball. “You are clearly flexible enough and already blind,” he wrote.
I promised to check back in, in two…