Cutting Square Deals: Drug Prices, Regulation, and Patent Protection
Canada’s Efforts to Reduce Drug Prices Should Avoid “Free Riding” Canada’s efforts to reduce pharmaceutical prices should not come at the cost of contributing our fair share to developing new treatment innovations, and should rely more on negotiations with manufacturers than regulation, according to a new paper released by the C.D. Howe Institute. Authors Åke […] Robson, Wu – The April Budget’s Upbeat Growth Forecast Won’t Happen Without Stronger Business Investment
From: William B.P. Robson and Miles Wu To: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland Date: June 22, 2021 Re: The April Budget’s Upbeat Growth Forecast Won’t Happen without Stronger Business Investment The backdrop to the long-term fiscal projections in your April budget – real economic growth averaging 2.1 percent annually – was remarkably optimistic. We certainly hope […] Beugin, Shaffer – The Climate Policy Certainty Gap And How To Fill It
From: Dale Beugin and Blake Shaffer To: Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna Date: June 4, 2021 Re: The Climate Policy Certainty Gap and How to Fill It Canada now has a pan-Canadian carbon price that is due to rise to $170 per tonne by 2030. Yet some firms appear to be holding off on investing capital in expensive, long-lived, […] Anti-big populism threatens Canadian economic success – Financial Post Op-ed
In a Post op-ed earlier this spring, “Why Canada’s toothless Competition Bureau can’t go after Big Tech,” Vass Bednar and Robin Shaban argued that Canada’s competition authorities are unable to “protect consumers from the dominance of Big Tech firms like Google and Facebook.” They advocated turning the Competition Bureau, a law enforcement agency, into an agency that investigates, and may even impose penalties or remedial action for conduct that has the potential to be anti-competitive. And they proposed giving the Bureau the power to seize data or compel production of business documentation for “market studies” from entities that are not even being formally investigated. As a 2017 report from…
Canada risks becoming house-rich and everything else-poor – Financial Post Op-Ed
Canada’s buoyant housing market, with lots of new construction, booming renovations, and a torrid pace of transactions, has been a good news story in a year that had too few. But as underlined in a recent FP article called “The housing boom that never ends,” the news on housing has been a little too good.
Meanwhile, other business investment – in non-residential structures, machinery and equipment, and intellectual property – has languished. We ended 2020 in a troubling place: recent GDP numbers from Statistics Canada showed that private residential investment almost equaled all other types of private investment in the fourth quarter. In other words, almost half of all private non-consumption spending was on housing.…
Robert Asselin – Canada Needs An R&d Powerhouse Modelled On The Successes Of Darpa
From: Robert Asselin To: Federal Budget Decision-Makers Date: March 22, 2021 Re: Canada Needs an R&D Powerhouse Modelled on the Successes of DARPA When considering Canada’s long-term economic health, it is wishful thinking to assume Canada’s economy can thrive on deficit spending, booming real estate and household consumption. To be sure, post-pandemic we will experience short-term growth through pent-up demand. But soon enough […] S3 E4: Industrial Policy for Industry 4.0
Governments are increasingly using industrial policy to give their Industry 4.0 economies a competitive edge. How should Canada respond after past failures in guiding the invisible hand of the markets? C.D. Howe Institute VP of Research Daniel Schwanen and Fellow-in-Residence Dan Ciuriak on lessons learned, and why we can’t fear the future. Robson, Wu – Our Capital Investment Crisis
From: William B.P. Robson and Miles Wu To: Canada’s Business Leaders Date: February 18, 2021 Re: Our Capital Investment Crisis The C.D. Howe Institute has long tracked Canada’s performance in business investment compared to the United States and other developed countries. Our motive is straightforward: Private-sector investment that boosts Canada’s stock of machinery, buildings, engineering infrastructure and intellectual property […] Marcel Boyer – Government Support For Business Would Benefit From Auctions
From: Marcel Boyer To: Canadians Concerned about Business Grants Date: February 4, 2021 Re: Government Support for Business Would Benefit from Auctions Business support programs from governments are numerous, offered by every level, generally somewhat opaque and costly. They take many forms: a direct grant, a loan at a low (zero) interest rate, a loan guarantee, a reduced […] From Chronic to Acute: Canada’s Investment Crisis
Canada Badly Lags US, OECD in Business Investment After improving against international competitors during the 2000s and early in the 2010s, business investment in Canada has slipped badly, lagging investment in the United States and other advanced economies. New investment per available worker in Canada in 2020 was about 58 cents for every dollar of […] Robert Asselin – A New Innovation Mandate For A New Innovation Minister
From: Robert Asselin To: François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Date: January 13, 2021 Re: A New Innovation Mandate for a New Innovation Minister You are taking on your new role at a challenging time. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing a brighter economic future for all Canadians will require a long-term plan and strategic investments in our productive […] Rosalie Wyonch – The Robots Are Still Coming, But Not For Everyone’s Job
From: Rosalie Wyonch To: Canadians Concerned about Automation Date: December 9, 2020 Re: The Robots Are Still Coming, but Not for Everyone’s Job Technological change is a driving force behind economic growth. It can improve productivity for existing goods and services, meaning the same output can be achieved with fewer inputs, or more can be produced with the same […]