Selected Canadian Social
Research Organizations (II)

Groupes de
recherche sociale au Canada (II)

Updated June 23, 2008
Page révisée le 23 juin 2008

[ Go to Canadian Social Research Links Home Page ]

NOTE : "Social Research Organizations" has been split in two to keep file sizes reasonable - there's no special significance to the placement of an organization on these pages

On this page, you'll find information about :
C.D. Howe Institute - Canada West Foundation - Council for Canadian Unity (Centre for Research and Information on Canada) - Federation of Canadian Municipalities - Fraser Institute - Institute for Research on Public Policy - Institute on Governance - Intergovernmental Committee on Urban and Regional Research - International Development Research Centre - policity.ca - policy.ca - Policy Research Initiative - Social Research and Demonstration Corporation - Frontier Centre for Public Policy

See also Selected Canadian Social Research Organizations I - there, you'll find info about and links to : Social and Enterprise Development Innovations (SEDI) - Caledon Institute of Social Policy - National Council of Welfare - Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Canadian Council on Social Development - Canadian Institute for Advanced Research - Canadian Policy Research Networks - Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy - Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) - and a few others
Related pages on this site : Non-Governmental Organizations - Ontario NGOs and Municipalities - Other Countries - Union Pages

Dramatic Decline in Welfare Dependency in Canada,
Several Factors Responsible: C.D. Howe Institute (PDF - 40K, 3 pages)
Communiqué
June 19, 2008
Canada has experienced a dramatic decline in welfare dependency since the early 1990s, according to new study by the C.D. Howe Institute, which notes that Canada’s Social Assistance (SA) dependency rate fell by approximately half from the early 1990s to 2005, taking the country’s rising population into account. In The Welfare Enigma: Explaining the Dramatic Decline in Canadians’Use of Social Assistance, 1993-2005, authors Ross Finnie and Ian Irvine provide a nationwide analysis of the factors responsible for the truly remarkable decline, and draw implications for policymakers.

Complete study:

The Welfare Enigma: Explaining the Dramatic
Decline in Canadians’ Use of Social Assistance, 1993–2005 (PDF - 548K, 32 pages)
Commentary
June 2008
"(...) Keeping people off welfare in the first instance, rather than attempting to get them off once on, is likely the most effective means of affecting caseloads and reducing longer-run welfare dependency."
Source:
C.D. Howe Institute
The C.D. Howe Institute is Canada’s leading independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit economic policy research institution. Its individual and corporate members are drawn from business, universities and the professions.

Related Link:

Review of Employment Assistance Programs in Ontario Works &
Ontario Disability Support Program (PDF file - 167K, 48 pages)
December 2004
Deb Matthews
Source:
Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services

Counterpoint:
----------------------

It's important to expose oneself to opposing views on issues as delicate as welfare reform and social justice --- it makes for healthy debate and broader perspectives. That's why, from time to time, I link to reports from organizations that have a different interpretation than mine of society's ills and how to cure them. The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver conservative think tank / lobby group, is one such organization whose site I visit occasionally.
Sometimes, though, the left-leaner in me finds it difficult to post links on my site to reports such as this one (the Ontario welfare reform report card) as if it were the Gospel Truth, without including a rebuttal or a counterpoint.

Welfare Reform in Ontario: A Report Card rates Ontario's reforms against the Fraser Institute's five "principles of effective welfare reform", all of which are focused on ending or severely curtailing welfare entitlement, on ensuring that work is always more attractive than welfare, and on putting both the administration and delivery of welfare up for competitive bidding from the non-profit and private sectors. All of these principles are consistent with the Fraser Institute's view that American welfare reforms are a model for Canada. Not surprisingly, there is not one principle that refers to adequacy of income and employment supports, nor to health or social indicators.

Two observations and a few recommended readings for folks who read the Fraser report (and perhaps even for those who wrote it):

1. Canadian and American welfare systems are different from one another, a fact that Fraser wilfully and consistently ignores in its reports. Unlike the Canadian welfare system, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program excludes both single people and childless couples, who must apply to the national Food Stamp program and to residual programs where they live (if there are any such programs, which is not always the case), as well as people with disabilities (who must apply under the separate American Social Security program. In Canada, singles and childless couples make up close to 60% of the total welfare caseload and households headed people with disabilities account for about a third of the total caseload. These are just a few of the more significant reasons why Canadian welfare shouldn't be compared with American programs under TANF.

A Short Review of the Fraser Institute Report Card: Welfare Reform in Ontario
December 2004
By John Stapleton

2. Welfare time limits are successful? - one of the Fraser Institute's principles of effective welfare reform is "Ending the entitlement to welfare". The Fraser report speaks of the success of the American welfare time limits and, to a lesser extent, the BC welfare time limits. In the case of the American time limit policy, it's still too early to determine the long-term impact of the time limits on welfare recidivism and labour market attachement (see the link to the Welfare information Network studies below), and in the case of British Columbia, perhaps someone should tell the Fraser Institute that the two-years-out-of-five welfare entitlement policy was effectively disabled back in February of 2004. On second thought, perhaps the authors should check this editorial from the Fraser Institute:

BC’s U-Turn on Welfare Reform Spells Disaster
Editorial (Vancouver Sun, February 16, 2004)
By Jason Clemens, Sylvia LeRoy and Niels Veldhuis
"In a disastrous U-turn on welfare reform, the BC Government de-legitimized what was one of Canada’s most important social welfare reforms to date; a limit that capped the amount of time employable adults could collect welfare to 2 out of every 5 years. Late on Friday afternoon, February 6th, the BC Liberals announced a series of new exemptions to the time limits, including one that exempts anyone abiding by their work plan. The policy change effectively nullifies the time limit rule and speaks more to the government’s immediate political concerns than any genuine concern for those still struggling to make the transition from a life of welfare dependence to one of self-sufficiency."
Source:
The Fraser Institute

Welfare Time Limits in British Columbia - a Canadian Social Research Links page
80+ links to welfare time limit info from BC and the U.S

Welfare Time Limits
- 60+ links from the Welfare Information Network (U.S.)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are Welfare Rates Too Low? (PDF file - 109K, 2 pages)
by Chris Sarlo
Source:
Fraser Forum - July 2004

Every so often I visit the Fraser Institute's website to see the latest bumph from the fiscal and social conservative faction of Canadian society. When I perused the table of contents of the Institute's latest issue of the Fraser Forum (the "source" link above), I found this article by Chris Sarlo, poster boy for the Fraser Institute's ongoing campaign for the wider use of absolute poverty measures in Canada (vs. the StatCan Low Income Cutoffs).

The premise of this article is that in Canada, "aside from the single employable category, recipients’ income is reasonably close to the poverty line in most cases."
My reaction: perhaps true, but only if you're using the calorie-from-starvation budget numbers of the Fraser Institute...
The National Council of Welfare's 2002 edition of Welfare Incomes is the source of some of the figures in the table that's part of the Fraser Institute article.
The source of the figures in the table is cited as "National Council of Welfare, 2002; and calculations by the author."
In fact, only the first column in the Sarlo article is from the Council, and it's from Welfare Incomes 2002.
See http://www.ncwcnbes.net/
When I compared the figures from both sources, I realized that the Fraser article had substituted its own "Basic Poverty Needs Line" for the Council's use of the StatCan Low Income Cutoff.

Mr. Sarlo and the Fraser Institute have the right to use their absolute income levels instead of the Low Income Cutoffs - their levels do, after all, show that everyone on welfare is near the poverty line except employable singles.
What I find objectionable is Sarlo's use of the absolute numbers without documenting this more precisely in the source of his table. In the entire text that accompanies the table, there is no definition of "Basic Poverty Needs Line" - in fact, the author prefers to use the short form "poverty line", as if repeating it often enough will lull people into equating the numbers in his article with the other poverty line we keep hearing about, LICO. I suspect that some people who read the Fraser article will be wondering why we need to raise welfare rates when all clients except singles are already receiving welfare rates that appear to be close to or even higher than the poverty line.
It's because Fraser switched the numbers.
They're not using the same poverty line.
And they didn't tell us.
Shame.

Fraser Forum February 2004
- articles include : The Art of Fish Management - Some Basic Insurance Concepts - The Cost of Canada's Employment Insurance System - Why We Need a Return to Experience Rating in EI - Revealing Research on Auto Insurance - The Problem with Public Health Insurance - Poverty Among Seniors in Canada - The 2004 Budget Performance Index - Exploring Potential, Results from the 2003 - 2004 Fraser Institute Annual Survey of Mining Companies - Ontario's Labour Reforms Ill Advised - New Health Reform Policy in Slovakia Reminds Canada of a Lesson it has Yet to Learn

Poverty Among Seniors in Canada (PDF file - 94K, 2 pages)
by Chris Sarlo
"The claim that almost one in five seniors in Canada is currently impoverished has as much credibility as the latest sighting of Elvis."

Complete Fraser Forum (PDF file - 542K, 28 pages)
For those with high speed connections, this PDF file contains the complete Fraser Forum (rather than broken down into the links above).

A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats (PDF file - 100K, 2 pages)
by Niels Veldhuis and Jason Clemens
"Does economic growth benefit those with the lowest incomes? Research seems to show that it does."

The National Homelessness Initiative (PDF file - 99KB)
by Chris Sarlo
"What specific successes has the National Homelessness Initiative achieved in its first three years to warrant its renewal?"

Source:
Reasons for Economic Optimism
January 2004 Fraser Forum
(Table of Contents page)
- click on the link above to access other articles in this issue of the Fraser Forum, on the Canadian standard of living compared with other advanced countries, education in Alberta, electoral reform in BC, Alberta and Ontario as models for tax reductions elsewhere in Canada, media literacy and the installation of left-wing politics into the school curriculum, after the Albert Advantage, Paul Martin's Expenditure Review Committee, and more...
Complete January 2004 Fraser Forum (PDF file - 634K, 32 pages)

The Relativity of LICO (PDF file - 82K, 2 pages)
by Chris Sarlo
"A relative line, such as LICO, may be useful as a marker of what income is required to keep from falling behind the mainstream, but is not useful at all as a measure of what income people need to avoid being 'straitened.'"
Source:
November 2003 Fraser Forum
NOTE: In the November Fraser Forum, you'll also find links to the following articles:
- Ontario's Best Education Premier (Poll says Ontarians disagree with Liberal plan to roll back education credits)
- Could Alberta's Provincial Police Return by 2012?
- A Council of the Federation (PDF file - 94K, 2 pages)
- Dismal Consequences from Canada's Regional Programs
- How Feasible is an Alberta Pension Plan?
- The Potential and the Penalty for Real Health Care Reform
- Constituting Democracy in Alberta:A Centennial Proposal
- Some Comments on Economic Freedom in Bangladesh
- The Case for Privatizing BC's Forests
- False Failures
- Revisiting Reference Pricing in BC's Pharmacare
- Florida's Proof: Testing the Effects of Competition
Click on the November link above to access links to each article, or on the link below to download the entire issue.
Complete Fraser Forum (PDF file - 489KB, 30 pages)

Welfare Reform Saves Lives (PDF file - 78K, 3 pages)
by Sylvia LeRoy, Todd Gabel
"Welfare reform helps save people trapped in dependency and poverty"
Source:
October 2003 Fraser Forum
[ The Fraser Institute ]

The Market Basket Measure of Poverty (PDF file - 93K, 2 pages)
by Chris Sarlo
"The "market basket measure" of poverty may be a victory for the basic needs approach this author developed, but celebrations are premature."
Source:
Fraser Forum - April 2003
[Fraser Institute]

Saskatchewan Welfare Reform Lacks a New Vision for Social Assistance
News Release
Fraser Institute
January 16, 2003
"Saskatchewan has failed to fundamentally reform welfare and must implement major changes to reduce caseloads, increase the employment and earnings of welfare recipients, and decrease provincial spending on social services, says a new study, Welfare in Saskatchewan: A Critical Evaluation, released today by The Fraser Institute."
NOTE: The news release contains the authors' seven recommendations for reforming the delivery of social services in Saskatchewan.
For the record, I agree with and support recommendation number six - and only recommendation number six (improvement of earnings exemption provisions).

Welfare in Saskatchewan: A Critical Evaluation
Chris Schafer and Jason Clemens
Fraser Institute
November 2002
Executive Summary -
Complete report (PDF file - 298K, 50 pages)
Source : The Fraser Institute

Ain't democracy grand?

Even though I disagree fundamentally with the Fraser Institute's view on the "success" of welfare reforms in Saskatchewan, I feel it's important to share this information about how one faction of Canadian society feels about welfare reforms and social programs in general.

The authors state that "[S]askatchewan politicians have chosen not to more fundamentally reform the welfare system, as other Canadian jurisdictions have", referring specifically to the deep welfare cuts in Alberta (1993), Ontario (1995) and BC (2002), provinces that they offer as models for Canadian welfare reform. Ironically, the National Council of Welfare (NCW) applauded the Saskatchewan government back in 1997 for exactly the same reason in Another Look at Welfare Reform : "Compared with some other provinces, Saskatchewan had done better for its welfare recipients by doing nothing." I wrote those words myself, in my role as principal researcher for the NCW's welfare reform report, and I'm sure that even the harshest social critics of the government of Saskatchewan wouldn't argue that point about welfare in their province in the mid-to-late 1990s.
Another Look at Welfare Reform (Autumn 1997) (large file - 275K - 84 pages if printed)
- looks at welfare reforms in Canada in the 1990s
Source : National Council of Welfare

I suspect that the difference in perspective is that the NCW represents the interests of disadvantaged Canadians while the Fraser Institute speaks for the rich and the corporations
Read about both organizations:

National Council of Welfare ("...advises the Minister [of Human Resources Development Canada] on the needs and problems of low-income Canadians and on social and related programs and policies which affect their welfare...")
Funding for the NCW : the federal government.

About the Fraser Institute - "Founded in 1974 at a time when many Canadians believed that government should be the principal source of growth and development in the economy, the Institute has helped bring about a considerable shift in public opinion in recognition of the importance of market competition."
Funding for the Institute: "The majority of the Institute’s revenues are derived from the donations of its members, and from research foundations."
(from the Institute's 2001 annual report - PDF file - 860K, 32 pages)

November 2002 Fraser Forum - Taming Media Myths
"Fraser Forum is a monthly review of public policy in Canada, with articles covering taxation, education, health care policy, and wide range of other topics. Forum writers are economists, Institute research analysts, and selected authors, including those from other public policy think tanks."

Here are just a few of the 16 titles in this month's Fraser Forum; click on the link above to access all articles in this issue.

November Questions and Answers (PDF file - 133K, 3 pages)
- public sector employment figures : number of employees in 1991 and 2001 in eight different areas of the public sector for all of Canada + total number of public sector employees and average wage information by province/territory for 1991 and 2001

Judges versus the Media (PDF file - 97K, B)
by Sylvia LeRoy
"Media attention to judicial decisions has increased many-fold since the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

The Media & Globalization Myths (PDF file - 105K, 3 pages)
"Even the Prime Minister isn't immune to the mythology that income disparities between rich and poor nations are widening."

Poverty and the Federal Government (PDF file - 115K, 2 pages)
by Chris Sarlo
"My own measure [of poverty] is one of so called “absolute poverty” and attempts to reveal serious material deprivation (hunger, inadequate housing, deprived living conditions)—not a lack of social comforts."

Related Links:
By coincidence, I was doing some cleanup of broken links this weekend, and I came across these two short pieces from a few years ago by David Ross, former Director of the Canadian Council on Social Development. Read the Sarlo article above, then read the counterpoint by David Ross.

Rethinking Child Poverty - David Ross,summer 1999
Child Poverty in Canada: Recasting the Issue - David Ross, April 1998
"According to the Fraser [Institute] analysis, child poverty is really only a problem among those who live in families where incomes are so low that the parents cannot even afford adequate food and shelter (...) let me remind them that Canada is not a Third World country."
Source : Canadian Council on Social Development

October 2002 Fraser Forum - "Do Judges Make Good Policy?"
"Fraser Forum is a monthly review of public policy in Canada, with articles covering taxation, education, health care policy, and wide range of other topics. Forum writers are economists, Institute research analysts, and selected authors, including those from other public policy think tanks."
Here are a few of the titles in this month's Fraser Forum (click on the link above to see all articles in this issue)
Activist Judges Attack Common Sense Revolution (PDF file - 92K, 3 pages)
-"Activist judges have used the Charter of Rights to roll back cost-cutting policy initiatives in health, welfare, and labour relations."
- "judicial attack" against the Mike Harris legacy - incl. references to the Falkiner ("spouse-in-the-house")case

The UN's Right to Welfare (PDF file - 103K, 2 pages)
- "A right-to-welfare court challenge in Quebec could affect us all."
- Ref. to the Gosselin case ("...the real legacy of this case will be that litigants may turn to documentary evidence from international human rights instruments, nowhere legislated in domestic law, to push for ever greater economic benefits and state resources. Why work when you can sue?")

Labour-saving Devices in Poor Households (PDF file - 86K, 2 pages)
"Are those defined as poor far behind the rest of society in the use and enjoyment of labour-saving devices?"
[Gilles' comment: Petty. I knew before reading the article that author Chris Sarlo would equate ownership of one kitchen labour-saving device or another with affluence - or at least non-poverty. Petty.]

Other articles in the October Forum cover topics such as the Nisga'a Treaty, the Court Challenges Program, Kyoto, drug benefit programs, government spending, democratic reform (constitutional constraints), market forces and Canada's highways, measuring the size of government and more.
Source : Fraser Institute - "Competitive Market Solutions for Public Policy Problems"

BC Welfare Reform Receives a “B” : Province Leaps to Forefront of Intelligent Welfare Reform and Sets New Standard for Canadian Welfare
The Fraser Institute
October 21, 2002
"BC’s recently announced welfare reforms have catapulted it beyond any Canadian jurisdiction and into the realm of reform-minded US states such as Wisconsin, says a new report, Welfare Reform in British Columbia: A Report Card, released today by the Fraser Institute."
News Release and Summary
Welfare Reform in British Columbia: A Report Card (PDF file - 208K, 30 pages)
Source:
Fraser Institute - "Competitive Market Solutions for Public Policy Problems"
The Fraser Institute was founded in 1974 to redirect public attention to the role markets can play in providing for the economic and social well-being of Canadians.
-----------------------------------
Wow - it's not often that the conservative Fraser Institute is on the same wavelength as the British Columbia social advocacy community, but there ya go, folks.
Here's what authors Chris Schafer and Jason Clemens say about incentives to work:
"The government should move to immediately re-instate earnings exemptions as they existed prior to the change. Furthermore, the government should consider enhancing the opportunities to “make work pay” by extending earnings exemptions further."
"Hear, hear!" say the social advocates --- but then, the Fraser report also gives the BC government high marks for being the first Canadian jurisdiction to set a time limit to welfare eligibility [max. two years out of every five years] regardless of personal circumstances or the economic situation --- definitely not a popular feature with those who work with and speak for the most disadvantaged in BC...
-----------------------------------
Re. Wisconsin:
Wisconsin Studies (W-2) - The Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) of the University of Wisconsin has a section of its Welfare Reform website that includes links to over a dozen studies on the outcomes and impacts of welfare reform in Wisconsin. Pick one or two, read them and decide for yourself how successful Wisconsin's reforms have been...
Source : Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP)
----------------------------------
Caveat :

"The welfare caseload composition of Canadian provincial welfare rolls and US state welfare rolls varies on a number of different levels. While female single- parent families comprise the bulk of US welfare caseloads, in Canada that figure is approximately 29 percent (CCSD, 1998). In addition, Canadian caseloads also consist of disabled persons, whereas in the US disabled persons fall under alternative support programs not categorized as “welfare.” - Footnote #4, page 25
There are indeed a number of differences between the current Canadian and American social safety nets - too many to cover in a newsletter, and certainly enough that the Fraser Institute should have considered posting the disclaimer/caveat just a bit more prominently. For example... - poor single people and childless couples in the U.S. can't even apply for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and states decide individually whether or not to grant residual welfare to applicants without dependants - 35 percent of the total U.S. caseload is "child-only cases", i.e., kids outside the parental home (in Canada, the vast majority of these kids are covered by child protection) - Canadian welfare is broader than TANF plus the Food Stamp Program plus Medicaid... - and so on.
Related Links (welfare in Canada and the U.S.):

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF) : Fourth Annual Report to Congress
April 2002
Source :
Department of Health and Human Services
Canadian equivalent to the 4th annual TANF report to Congress :
None. There is no requirement within the framework of the Canada Health and Social Transfer for a report by government to Parliament on the administration of the welfare portion of the CHST (or any other portion, for that matter) by provincial and territorial governments. Pity...
Other Canadian (national) welfare information resources:
Canadian Social Research Links Key Government Welfare Links Page
National Council of Welfare
Canadian Council on Social Development
Caledon Institute of Social Policy
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Canada Spends the Most on Health Care Among OECD Countries
but Ranks Low on Key Health Indicators
News Release (August 19, 2002)
"Canada spends more on health care than any other industrialized country providing universal access yet winds up near the bottom of the heap in quality of service says a new study, How Good is Canadian Health Care: An International Comparison of Health Care Systems."
Executive Summary ( PDF file - 540K, 6 pages)
Report - links to the executive summary and six sections of the report

Related Links:
The Fraser Institute loves bad health care news
Corporate lapdog Michael Walker strikes again
September 19, 2002
"Vancouver - Corporate Canada's faithful lapdog is back again. Michael Walker of the Fraser Institute has published yet another study knocking public medicare and praising corporate health care as an alternative. His "new" annual study of hospital waiting times across Canada says things are getting steadily worse for Canadians cueing up for treatment."
(...)
"...the Fraser Institute, whose sole reason for existence is to blacken the name of all things public and whitewash everything corporate"
Source : National Union of Public and General Employees

Saskatchewan blasts biased Fraser Institute study
September 20, 2002
"Regina - Saskatchewan is disputing hospital waiting-list figures compiled by the Fraser Institute, the right-wing, corporate-funded "research" outfit by Michael Walker in Vancouver. A new report by the public-sector-bashing institute says Saskatchewan has the longest surgical waiting list in the country — more than twice the national average. Dr. Peter Glynn, the chair of Saskatchewan's Surgical Care Network takes exception to the numbers released by the Fraser Institute. His group was set up to oversee waiting lists for surgery. He says the actual waiting time for most surgeries is less than half of what is cited in the Fraser Institute study."
Source : National Union of Public and General Employees

Canada ranks 17th on Index of Human Progress -- Most of the World Sees Large Gains
July 24, 2002
"Canada ranks a weak 17th on the Fraser Institute's Index of Human Progress released today, compared to its 3rd place ranking on the United Nations' often-quoted Human Development Index."

Related Link:
Human Development Report 2002 - Deepening Democracy in a Fragmented World
July 24, 2002
UN Human Development Report Website

July 2002 Fraser Forum - "Tax Freedom Day"
"Fraser Forum is a monthly review of public policy in Canada, with articles covering taxation, education, health care policy, and wide range of other topics. Forum writers are economists, Institute research analysts, and selected authors, including those from other public policy think tanks."
Here are some of the titles in this month's Fraser Forum (click on the link above to see all 16 articles in this issue)
- Canadians Celebrate Tax Freedom Day on June 28 (PDF file - 450K, 6 pages) - "Over time, Tax Freedom Day arrives earlier. But progress is very slow."
- Rising Capital Flows and Falling Corporate Tax Rates ("High tax rates are difficult to sustain in the new globalized economy.")
- The Corporate Capital Tax: Canada's Most Damaging Tax ("...by far the most destructive and growth-inhibiting tax imposed by Canadian governments.")
- Is Child Poverty Declining? (PDF file - 58K, 2 pages) - "The federal Human Resources Minister has credited the National Child Benefit with reducing child poverty. Her claim should not be taken seriously."
- Don't Tamper with Welfare Success (PDF file - 93K, 2 pages) - "There is a move afoot in the US to roll back the initial 1996 reforms that were so successful in ending welfare as Amerians knew it."
- Tug-of-War: The Security vs. Sovereignty Dilemma
- Medical Research and Media Hype
- Just Say No to Agricultural Subsidies: Ten Reasons to Dump Farm Aid
- More Guns, Less Crime? What Canada can Learn from Gun Control Around the World
- Freedom and Security not Mutually Exclusive
- Government on the Grill
Source : Fraser Institute - "Competitive Market Solutions for Public Policy Problems"

Nobel Laureates Call on G8 to Focus on Economic Freedom
June 25, 2002
"Calgary, AB - If the G8 is serious about fighting global poverty and terrorism, it needs to focus on promoting economic freedom, say Nobel Laureates in economic sciences Milton Friedman and Gary Becker"

Economic Freedom of the World: 2002 Annual Report
June 2002
"This 6th global economic freedom report, by James Gwartney and Robert Lawson, ranks 123 nations on 37 variables with data back to 1970. Economic freedom is based on personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete, and protection of the person and property. This requires the rule of law, property rights, limited government intervention, freedom to trade, and sound money."
- incl. links to eight PDF files : Introduction and notes - Economic Freedom of the World - Index of Patent Rights - International Tax Competition - Country Data Tables (Albania to Zimbabwe)

The Benefits of Globalization - May 2002 Fraser Forum*
Fifteen articles expounding the fiscal conservative views of the Fraser Institute on a variety of topics related to globalization, including : Trade Openness, Sound Policies, and Prosperity - A Child's Burden: Reducing Child Labour by Increasing Trade - Markets Should be Free to Roam the World - Economic Freedom Behind the Scenes - Regulation Without Borders - Private Clinics are Breaking Down Two-tiered Health Care - Private Property Rights Key to Forestry Impasse - Assets and Property - Tails, You Keep Your Job; Heads, You Lose It - and more.

"Fraser Forum is a monthly review of public policy in Canada, with articles covering taxation, education, health care policy, and wide range of other topics. Forum writers are economists, Institute research analysts, and selected authors, including those from other public policy think tanks."

*NOTE : On this page, you'll also find links to the following issues of the Fraser Forum : April 2002 (Environmental Questions for the 21st Century) - March 2002 (Creating a North America Frontier) - February 2002 (Government in the Medicine Cabinet)

Fraser Institute proposes an alternative to the United Nations' Human Development Index
Media Release
24 October 2001
Canada ranks sixteenth on the Fraser Institute's Measuring Development: An Index of Human Progress, released today. This new publication provides a more complete view of the recent history and current state of development throughout the world than does the United Nations' often-quoted Human Development Index. The Fraser Institute's Index of Human Progress ranks the United States first, Switzerland second, Luxembourg third, Denmark fourth, and Japan fifth. Canada ranked sixteenth in 1999 out of 128 countries.
- Measuring Development: An Index of Human Progress (PDF file - 521K, 63 pages)

Related Link :
United Nations Human Development Report 2001

Surveying US and Canadian Welfare Reform (PDF file - 838K, 68 pages)
August 2001
Executive Summary
Introduction
1. Historical development of welfare in the United States
2. PRWORA—the end of welfare as Americans knew it
3. American states—experimentation and innovation
4. The results of PRWORA and state welfare reforms
5. Welfare in Canada
6. Provincial welfare reforms
7. Recommendations for Canada
Glossary
References

Measuring Poverty in Canada - New study says poverty in Canada continues to be overstated
Fraser Institute Critical Issues Bulletin
July 23, 2001
Media Release

Measuring Poverty in Canada - Executive summary and links to the complete report (in three separate PDF files)
2001
1. Measuring Poverty in Canada - Part 1(PDF - 236KB)
2. Measuring Poverty in Canada - Part 2(PDF - 982KB)
3. Measuring Poverty in Canada - Part 3(PDF - 284KB)

The Adequacy of Welfare Benefits in Canada
by Joel Emes and Andrei Kreptul
April 1999
- Compares welfare benefits in 1998 by province with Christopher Sarlo's Basic Needs Lines. Includes information on earnings exemptions and special assistance, plus Pre-Tax Wage Equivalence charts explaining how much a working person would have to earn to end up with the same annual "net income" as an income assistance (IA) recipient.
Executive Summary
Complete Report (PDF file - 427K, 30 pages)

Canadian Living Standards 1998 Report by Christopher A. Sarlo
Executive Summary
Complete Report (PDF file, 732K, 62 pages)

Canadians Celebrate Tax Freedom Day on June 29
June 26, 2001
Canadians finally start working for themselves on June 29. According to The Fraser Institute's annual Tax Freedom Day calculations, announced today. Canadians worked until June 28 to pay the total tax bill imposed on them by all levels of government. This represents a five day improvement over last year when Tax Freedom Day fell on July 4.

But see also :

The Tax Freedom Daze
June 2001
Every year, the ultra-conservative Fraser Institute pronounces Tax Freedom Day--the day when Canadians (finally) stop "working for the government" and start "working for themselves". Tax Freedom Day is, without a doubt, a clever and media-savvy ploy. That people actually derive benefits from government services in exchange for the taxes they pay is conveniently swept under the ideological carpet. Instead, the Fraser Institute suggests that up to a certain date, the government takes all of your income, burying it in some distant mineshaft never again to see the light of day, and thus stripping away your ability to be truly free.
Source : Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Fraser Forum Online
The site redesign appears to have done a real number on the Fraser Forum. The old site had a single link where visitors could select monthly Forum issues back to 1991 - over a thousand articles. With the new site, you either select a recent issue from the right-hand side of the Fraser home page or use the search engine for older issues. I haven't figured out how far back they go in the new site. I wasn't impressed with the Advanced Search feature. Damn those database sites.

C.D. Howe Institute

"The C.D. Howe Institute is Canada’s leading independent, nonpartisan, nonprofit economic policy research institution. Its individual and corporate members are drawn from business, universities and the
professions."

<begin "nonpartisan" rant>
I have to laugh (not the genuine ha-ha laughter, but the jaundiced one) when I see the expression "nonpartisan" in the description of the Institute (from the C.D. Institute blurb in the report). They're about as non-partisan as their West Coast brothers-in-arms, the Fraser Institute. They didn't fool Wikipedia, though --- here's their take on the Institute: "The C.D. Howe Institute is a Canadian economic and social think tank based in downtown Toronto, Ontario. It is non-profit, officially non-partisan, and a registered charity with the Canada Revenue Agency. However, it is funded mainly by large corporations, and generally advocates market-oriented economic policies such as tax cuts.(bolding added)" [Source]
I like the way Wikipedia adds the word "officially" as a nuance to the Institute's own description of itself as nonpartisan...
</end "nonpartisan" rant>

- Publications List - close to 100 C.D. Howe Institute reports (in PDF format) going back to 1996. Subjects include the Social Union, the CHST, the National Child Benefit and Employment Insurance, to name but a few...

Here are links to a few samples:

Reducing Poverty:
What has Worked, and What Should Come Next (PDF file - 590K, 32 pages)
C.D. Howe Institute Commentary by John Richards
October 2007

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Related links:

Tough love gets results, lifting more Canadians out of poverty
October 19, 2007
Tough love works. True, the disconcerting images of poverty in Canada -- shabby panhandlers who camp out on upscale sidewalks, and the urban wasteland that is the Downtown Eastside -- might be more in your face than ever. But, hidden from view in homes that look a little better than they used to, the lot of most lower-income Canadians has been steadily improving for a decade or more.
Source:
Vancouver Sun

Riposte from John Stapleton*:

"The negative mention of MISWAA recommendations in Richards' paper is interesting insofar as he intimates that the recommended changes are not required in a robust economy that creates low income jobs that low income adults can easily access. One of MISWAA's central principles was that of fairness. We were not ultimately looking at what civil society and governments can get away with in a good economy - we wanted to ensure that the right programs and policies were in place for the inevitability of tougher times at the trough of economic cycles while ensuring that all members of society are able to benefit from our economy, regardless of the times."
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*John Stapleton was Research Director of the
Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working Age Adults (MISWAA)
[The C.D. Howe commentary disses the recommendations found in the final report of the Task Force (PDF file - 282K, 68 pages).]

The debate over Canada's poverty line
November 12, 2007
By Armina Ligaya
Canada is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Yet even as the nation is in the midst of an economic boom, there are still those who struggle to buy life's necessities. Past and current governments have implemented a myriad of strategies to help the country's most vulnerable. They range from boosting social assistance to, at the more punitive extreme, restricting employment insurance. Debate continues over what's the best approach to eradicate poverty, assuming that is in fact a reachable goal.
Source:
CBC News Online

The Paradox of the Social Union Framework Agreement (PDF file - 58K, 11 pages)
Backgrounder
March 2002
"The agreement is worth preserving for a further three years with the aim of strengthening its provincial principles. If it ends up providing cover for major unilateral federal spending in provincial areas, however, the agreement should be scrapped."

The Dynamics of Poverty in Canada: What We Know, What We Can Do
(PDF file, 193K, 59 pages)
Ross Finnie
Sept. 28, 2000
- explores the dynamics of Canadians’ poverty experiences from 1992 to 1996 using the recently developed Longitudinal Administrative Database. By following individuals over time, the database allowed analysis of movements into and out of poverty, including those related to changes in family status.

Perceptions of Poverty: Correcting Misconceptions about the Low-Income Cutoff (PDF, 6 pages)
Backgrounder
April 2000

The Canadian Standard of Living: Is There a Way Up?
(PDF file, 525K)
Pierre Fortin
1999 Benefactors Lecture
C.D. Howe Institute Commentary
October 19, 1999

The Dark Side of Targeting: Retirement Saving for Low-Income Canadians (PDF file,173K)
Richard Shillington
September 1999
Back to Work: Learning from the Alberta Welfare Experiment (PDF file, 668K)
"Alberta welfare reforms a model for other provinces, says C.D. Howe Institute study"
April 1997
Improving the National Child Benefit: Matching Deeds with Intentions
May 1999
Growing Child Benefits, Growing Tax Rates
February 1999
The Social Union Agreement: Too Flawed to Last
February 1999
More Than the Sum of Our Parts: Improving the Mechanisms of Canada’s Social Union
January 1999

Canada West Foundation
"The Canada West Foundation (CWF) is a [Calgary-based] non-partisan, non-profit research organization active in economic and public policy studies. Founded in December of 1970, Canada West grew out of the "One Prairie Province" Conference held in Lethbridge, Alberta earlier that year. The consensus developed at the conference was that research on western Canadian concerns should be continued and expanded. This led to the formation of the Canada West Council, which then developed the mandate for the Canada West Foundation."

Regional Approaches to Services in the West: Health, Social Services and Education
February 2002
- "provides an overview of the different approaches being used in the four western provinces for health, social services and education. The main provincial similarities and differences are also compared. Finally, due to their increasing political, economic and social importance, the large western cities are briefly considered within the context of regional approaches to provincial services."

Enhanced Urban Aboriginal Programming in Western Canada
January 2002
"Almost as many Aboriginal people live in urban areas of Canada as do not, and in every city in Canada, Aboriginal people are a visible presence – particularly in western Canada. To inform ongoing decision-making and public debate, a better understanding of the policy program landscapes for urban Aboriginal people is needed."

- Click on Publications on the main page to download full copies (PDF format) of many CWF reports, including the following :
(only the first report below is hyperlinked - use the above link to get to the rest)

Where Are They Now?: Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Former Recipients (1993-1996) - Press Release + link to PDF version - September 1997
Welfare Reform in Alberta: A Survey of Former Recipients
The Safety Net and Seniors in Alberta
Social Services for Persons With Disabilities in Alberta
Restructuring of Social Services: The Impact on Women in Alberta
Alberta's Children: Issues, Programs and Restructuring
Making Ends Meet: Income Support in Alberta
Issues and Options for Change: Social Services for the 21st Century
Income Support in Canada: A Statistical Profile

Institute On Governance (IOG)
"The Institute On Governance is a non-profit organization with charitable status founded in 1990 to promote effective governance. From our perspective, governance comprises the traditions, institutions and processes that determine how power is exercised, how citizens are given a voice, and how decisions are made on issues of public concern."
The IOG site is worth a visit if you're interested in any of the following issues:
Citizen Participation - Aboriginal Governance - Building Policy Capacity - Accountability and Performance Measurement - Information and Communications Technology and Governance - Youth And Governance
The site contains a wealth of information and many online publications, for example...
Publications: Aboriginal Governance - links to over three dozen PDF reports

policity.com (The Institute On Governance)
"policity was created [by the Institute on Governance and FreeBalance] in the spring of 1999 as a site dedicated to governance issues and practices. Its mission is to illuminate and support the processes by which citizens can be engaged in issues of community concern and in the formulation and implementation of public policy."
August 2002:
"This web site was developed as part of the Institute On Governance's past work on Citizen Participation. While it is no longer being updated, we continue to host sections of the site as a public service to fellow practioners."

Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP)
"The mission of the IRPP is to improve public policy in Canada by promoting and contributing to a policy process that is more broadly based, informed and effective."

Sample reports from IRPP:

Policy options - April 2008 issue (free online magazine)
"Policy Options is Canada's premier public policy magazine. Its goal is to encourage an informed debate on the important public policy issues of today, and of tomorrow. In each edition, short articles on the immediate issues that dominate the headlines are combined with in-depth analyses of longer-term issues that are certain to emerge on the policy horizon. Policy Options is published ten times per year."

Below, you'll find links to just two of the dozen-plus articles from this month's issue of Policy Options. Other articles in the April 2008 issue cover topics including the 2008 federal budget, NAFTA, the Castonguay Report on health care in Quebec, Canada's Afghan mission and much more. Click the April issue link above to access all articles in this issue.

Guaranteed annual income:
why Milton Friedman and Bob Stanfield were right (PDF - 172K, 6 pages)
By Hugh Segal
April 2008
[Abstract] In this article, former IRPP president Hugh Segal considers the merits of a guaranteed annual income or a negative income tax, an idea whose time may never come, but which always generates a good debate. It?s a concept where thinkers on the left and right have found some common ground, from conservative economists such as Milton Friedman in the United States, to Red Tories such as Robert Stanfield in Canada. "If it is done right," Segal argues, "instituting a basic floor income could diminish federal-provincial and labour-management tensions" and could even, "over time, reduce the net burden of state spending while increasing aid to, and the privacy and dignity, of those who fall behind."

"This just in: surpluses across the board" (PDF - 163K, 3 pages)
By Thomas J. Courchene
April 2008
[Abstract] The achievement of budgetary surpluses in Ottawa and in all provinces and territories simultaneously was 60 years in the making. This brief commentary on budgetary federalism adapts the informative charts in Budget 2008 and traces the fiscal/budgetary fortunes of the two levels of government over the past two decades. The near collapse of provincial finances in the wake of the 1995 budget has now been offset by a huge influx of federal cash transfers (Canada Health Transfer, Canada Social Transfer and equalization) and by resource revenues. When combined with federal tax cuts, the result is that the excess of provincial over federal revenues has never been larger.

Links to earlier issues of Policy options:
- this is the link to the April '08 issue of the magazine;
the links to the earlier issues appear in the right-hand margin of that page.

Links to all IRPP publications

The Canadian Immigration System: An Overview (PDF file - 283K, 21 pages)
March 2007
Workshop on German and European Migration and Immigration Policy from
a Transatlantic Perspective : Challenge for the 21st Century
By Geneviève Bouchard
- Powerpoint presentation, includes historical info, current situation, stats, policy challenges, potential solutions
Source:
Institute for Research on Public Policy

The Use of Family Friendly Workplace Practices in Canada (PDF file - 526K, 42 pages)
September 2006
The increase in two earner households has changed the structure of the labour market, presenting employees, government and firms with new challenges. These changes have spurred an increasing interest in
new workplace practices and policies that may respond to the requirements of the New Economy. Research in the area covers a variety of fields in social sciences and has mainly focused on the availability of benefits to workers with families. However, a natural question that has only received passing attention is to what extent these benefits are being used by families.
News Release (PDF file - 35K, 2 pages)

Toward Squaring the Circle: Work-Life Balance
and the Implications for Individuals, Firms and Public Policy (144K, 28 pages)
June 2006
Contents:
* Introduction
* Defining and Framing Work-Life Balance
*Demographic and Labour Market Trends
* Work Hours, Constraints on Choice and the Life Cycle
* Work-Life Balance in the Context of Labour Policy
* Conclusion

Working for Working Parents:
The Evolution of Maternity and Parental Benefits in Canada (PDF file - 218K, 42 pages)
May 2006
Table of Contents:
* Introduction
* Setting the Stage: The Changing Labour Market and Social Context for Families with Young Children, 1973-2002
* A Short History of Maternity and Parental Benefits Policy in Canada
* Sample Benefit Calculations for Five Historical Periods and the Quebec Program
* Statistical Evidence on Benefit Receipt
* What Are the Goals of the Federal Program and How Well Are They Being Achieved?
* Where to From Here? Discussion and Recommendations

Early Childhood Development and Child Care: What Do We Know?
Conference
March 27, 2006 (Vancouver)
- co-organized by the Human Early Learning Partnership of the University of British Columbia
Conference program (PDF file - 55K, 1 page)
Presentations:
NOTE: "The presentations below are the original versions as presented by the authors at the conference, and are not to be cited or quoted without the author's permission."
* Understanding Recent Research on Quebec’s Childcare Programme (PDF file - 124K, 24 pages)
by Kevin Milligan
* Child Care Services: A Major Missing Piece of the Family Benefit Package (PDF file - 992K, 23 pages)
by Paul Kershaw
* How can the latest research contribute to early learning and child care policy? What do we know – and what do we think? (PDF file - 163K, 31 pages)
by Martha Friendly
* At the Crossroads:Child Care Policy and Funding in BC and Canada (PDF file - 188K, 12 pages)
by Lynell Anderson

Source:
Institute for Research on Public Policy

Policy Options "is Canada's premier public policy magazine. Its goal is to encourage an informed debate on the important public policy issues of today, and of tomorrow. In each edition, short articles on the immediate issues that dominate the headlines are combined with in-depth analyses of longer-term issues that are certain to emerge on the policy horizon. Policy Options is published ten times per year."

Back Issues of Policy Options (back to 1997, full text of hundreds of articles)

Links to a few sample issues of Policy Options:

Social Policy in the 21st Century
August 2004 Issue
Policy Options
To read any article, click the above link and (on the next page) select the article you wish to read by clicking on its link; all files are in PDF format.
Back to the future - the rear-view mirror provides glimpses of what lies ahead for income security in the 21st century by Havi Echenberg
New century, new risks: the Marsh Report and the post-war welfare state in Canada by Antonia Maioni
'In the national interest': a social policy agenda for a new century - restore cooperative federalism, modernize medicare, put children first by Tom Kent
Social policy and the knowledge economy: new century, new paradigm by Thomas J. Courchene
Relative poverty - it can't be erased, but it must be addressed, at home and abroad by Hugh Segal
Choix politiques et solidarité sociale à l'heure de la mondialisation by Keith G. Banting
Health care markets and the health care guarantee: baking a better loaf, or baking enough bread? by Paul Jacobson
The 'other' health system: reflections on the dark side of the moon of health and health care in Canada by Hugh Scott
L'école à l'aube du XXIe siècle : retour vers le future by Louis LeVasseur and Maurice Tardif
Universities in the new millennium: heading toward a new culture by Brian Flemming
Access to degrees in the knowledge economy by Dave Marshall
Time for plain talk about social policy by William Watson

Policy Options March 2004 Issue
Realignment on the Right, Revival on the Left
Sample content (click on the link above to access the articles below that don't have links):
* Parties leaving members, members leaving parties: the realignment of Canadian politics, Right and Left (by Desmond Morton)
* Leading the united Right - from the imperative of Conservative unity to the opportunity of Liberal scandals (by Tom Flanagan)
* A Conservative opportunity to build a big policy tent for a new century (by Donald G. Lenihan and Graham Fox)
* The perils of a one-party state and the consequences of perpetual Liberal rule (by Peter G. White and Adam Daifallah)
* Paul Martin's moment of choice - Liberal opportunism or reform liberalism (by Tom Kent)
* Politics in transition - a revived opposition and a new Liberal style of governance (by Stephen LeDrew)
* Family policy and preschool child care (by Gordon Cleveland) - (PDF file - 172K, 6 pages)
* Strengthening Canada's social and economic foundations: next steps for early childhood education and child care (by Martha Friendly)
* Quebec's innovative early childhood education and care policy and its weaknesses (by Pierre Lefebvre) (PDF file - 12K, 6 pages)
* Conciliation travail-famille : quand les pays dits « libéraux » s'en mêlent (by Caroline Beauvais and Pascale Dufour) - (PDF file - 60Ko., 5 pages)
* more...

Policy Options - February 2004
- The State of Canadian Cities
"Canada's cities: ten experts assess the state of Canadian cities and what lies ahead. Plus, Rod McQueen reflects on the life of Robert Stanfield, a special dossier on trade policy, an excerpt from Roy MacSkimming's The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada's Writers and much more."

Back Issues of Policy Options (back to 1997, full text of hundreds of articles)

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Fiscal Dispute among Governments in Canada Is Damaging to the Cause of Health Care Reform
"On January 27, the IRPP and the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations released Money, Politics and Health Care: Reconstructing the Federal-Provincial Partnership, edited by Harvey Lazar and France St-Hilaire. The contributors to the volume maintain that continual federal-provincial squabbling over health care funding has hampered the process of reform needed to ensure the quality and sustainability of health care for future generations. Moreover, this inability to address the real problems in the system has in itself become detrimental to the proper functioning of the federation."
News Release (small PDF file)
January 27, 2004
Report:
Money, Politics and Health Care: Reconstructing the Federal-Provincial Partnership
Order a copy of this book
Chapter on vertical fiscal imbalance (PDF file - 625K, 54 pages)

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Paul Martin's Briefing Book - from the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP)
The December 2003 issue of Policy Options from IRPP includes (among other content) 17 articles with advice to the incoming Prime Minister on a range of issues from air quality to U.S.-Canada relations, written by a number of social policy experts from the Left and the Right.

Here are two sample articles:

Will the Prime Minister Displace the Finance Minister?
Paul Martin's Social Policy for a "New Era" (PDF file - 206K, 5 pages)
December 2003
Jane Jenson
"Many of the social policy changes that the new prime minister will have to overcome are of his own making : the emphasis on labour market participation and on children, a preference to use the tax system as the delivery mechanism, which limits the government's role to providing income transfers and has largely constrained its influence over policy, and a poisoned intergovernmental atmosphere."

Aboriginal Policy - Time to Rethink? (PDF file - 187K, 5 pages)
John Richards
"...despite some progress and large sums of money, Aboriginals' socio-economic status remains desperately worrying, 'the most serious social scar on Canadian society', and the exaggerated stress on 'otherness' at the heart of the current policy is partly responsible for the slow pace of progress."

Source:
Policy Options (December 2003)

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Windows of opportunity: social reform under Lester B. Pearson(PDF file - 568K, 12 pages)
by Jim Coutts
"...in only five years of two minority governments Pearson enacted the Canada-Quebec Pension Plan, The Canada Assistance Plan, the Guaranteed Income Supplement and Medicare, all keystones of the modern social security system."
Source:
Policy Options: November 2003 Issue
[Theme: Corporate Governance]
NOTE: in this issue of Policy Options, you'll also find links to over a dozen articles on the following topics:
- A call for a culture of values, not just rules - from the corner office to the boardroom
- From carrots to sticks: restoring investor confidence in Canada
- A road too far - compliance at the expense of performance?
- The importance of good governance for confidence in Canadian capital markets
- Une saine gouvernance pour préserver nos avoirs collectives
- The new private-sector ombudsmen
- From the blame game to accountability in health care
- Multinational governance and worker rights in the global village
- Loving the market or supporting business
- Socrates does Canadian electrical policy
- Symbolism vs. economics: the loonie vs. the greenback
- National missile defence: it is rocket science
- À propos du financement des universités et des droits de scolarité au Québec
- Performing the news - not the facts, but the story
- Ranking prime ministers of the last 50 years: IRPP's Web visitors speak
- Book Excerpt: Understanding Canadian Defence
- Book Review: Geoffrey Kelley reviews Understanding Canadian Defence by Desmond Morton
- Will Martin touch our new economic Constitution?
[ Institute for Research on Public Policy ]

Council of the Federation Series
October 15, 2003
"As part of a joint initiative with the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal, the Institute of Intergovernmental Relations is launching a series of twelve commentaries on the Council of the Federation. The series title is “Constructive and Co - operative Federalism? A Series of Commentaries on the Council of the Federation”. The papers, prepared by leading federalism and public policy experts across Canada, can be downloaded in PDF format."

2003 Special Series on the Council of the Federation - on this page, you'll find links to all reports released to date in this series, including:
- Getting Things Done in the Federation: Do We Need New Rules for an Old Game?
- The End of a Model? Quebec and the Council of the Federation Alain Noël
- Counsel for Canadian Federalism: Aboriginal Governments and the Council of the Federation
- Some Personal Reflections on the Council of the Federation Bob Rae
- A Convention on the Canadian Economic and Social Systems
- Council of the Federation Founding Agreement Provincial and Territorial Premiers
- Intergovernmental Councils in Federations
- The Council of the Federation: From a Defensive to a Partnership Approach
- Expanding the Partnership: The Proposed Council of the Federation and the Challenge of Glocalization
- Managing Interdependencies in the Canadian Federation: Lessons from the Social Union Framework Agreement
- The Council of the Federation: Conflict and Complementarity with Canada’s Democratic Reform Agenda
- Quebec and Interprovincial Discussion and Consultation
- The Health Council of Canada Proposal in light of the Council of the Federation
- Council of the Federation: An Idea Whose Time has Come
Source:
Canadian Network of Federalism Studies
Institute of Intergovernmental Relations [IIR] (Queen's University)
Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP)

Related Links:
Go to the Canadian Social Research Links Council of the Federation page - http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/council_fed.htm

IRPP Study: Child Tax Benefit Ineffective in Addressing Child Poverty
June 10, 2003
"An exhaustive examination of Canada’s family policy concludes that recent federal and provincial government initiatives are misguided and have not efficiently addressed the problems of child poverty. 'The Child Tax Benefit is a dead end'assert Pierre Lefebvre and Philip Merrigan in 'Assessing Family Policy in Canada: A New Deal for Families and Children,' released today by the Institute for Research on Public Policy."
News Release (small PDF file)
Summary (small PDF file)
Complete Study (PDF file - 395K, 100 pages)

Policy Options"Canada's premier public policy magazine"
This link offers short summaries of the articles in the current issue, ordering information and links to back issues. You can access the complete text of all articles in every issue of Policy Options in PDF format back to 1997 by clicking Back Issues (near the top of the Policy Options page), then on a particular year and month

Sample content from a few recent issues:

February 2003 Issue
Includes the following five analyses of the Romanow report:
- "Romanow-A Defence of Public Health Care, But is There a Map for the Road Ahead?" by Antonia Maioni
- "Le défi de la santé dans un contexte électoral : redonner aux Québécois unsystème public de santé à la hauteur de leurs attentes" by Jean Charest
- "L' « épineuse » question d'André Burelle et le rapport Romanow" by John Richards
- "He Said, She Said: The Debate on Vertical Fiscal Imbalance and Federal Health-Care Funding" by France St-Hilaire and Harvey Lazar
- "Health Care as a Commodity" by Joseph Heath

Dec/2002 - Jan/2003 Issue (Policy Options)
Health Care: From Reinvesting to Reinventing (PDF file - 44K, 5 pages)
An interview with Michael Kirby

Dec/2002 - Jan/2003 Issue
The Democratic Deficit (PDF file - 35K, 3 pages)

C.D. Howe Institute	.	Canada West Foundation
.	Social Research and Demonstration Corporation	.
Council for Canadian Unity (Centre for Research and Information on Canada)	.	Federation of Canadian Municipalities
.	Fraser Institute	.
Institute for Research on Public Policy	.	Institute on Governance
.	Intergovernmental Committee on Urban and Regional Research	.
International Development Research Centre	.
	policy.ca	Policy Research Initiative
Montreal Economic Institute

Selected Canadian Social Research Organizations (II)

Groupes de recherche sociale au Canada (II)

Selected Canadian Social
Research Organizations (II)

Groupes de
recherche sociale au Canada (II)