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CANADA'S PRIORITIES |
"The Canadian Priorities Agenda" by Jeremy Leonard, Christopher Ragan and France St-Hilaire In January the IRPP brought together 12 prominent public policy analysts from diverse fields to identify the principal priorities for Canada in the medium term. Here Jeremy Leonard, France St-Hilaire and Chris Ragan outline the motivations behind this project, explain how the day unfolded and sum up each participants’ priorities. "Canada's success is no accident, and it isn't a given" by Kevin Lynch Canada is a highly prosperous and successful country. That’s Kevin Lynch’s starting point. But “outcomes are not preordained, nor should they be taken for granted,” says Lynch. In this piece, written from his previous post as Canada’s executive director at the IMF in Washington before he was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council, Lynch identifies three public policy challenges for Canada: first, enhancing productivity; second, “improving our human capital through education and training”; and third, enhancing our global economic reach. “To state the obvious,” he writes, “the world matters, and matters greatly, to Canada.” "Getting budget and policy priorities straight" by Janice MacKinnon Janice MacKinnon, who balanced Saskatchewan’s books as NDP finance minister in the 1990s, argues that health care costs are growing at an unsustainable rate. Hence, the first priority, she says, is that new funding models must be examined. Health care, she writes, is crowding out funding for other priorities like poverty reduction, education and the environment. A second priority is investing in innovation and productivity. Just as governments invested in the railways, roads and canals that were the infrastructure for the 20th century economy, governments need to invest in laboratories, synchrotrons and other research facilities in this century. A third priority is addressing the demographic challenge, which will involve rethinking Canada’s Aboriginal policy and addressing the inter-generational equity of expecting young taxpayers to shoulder the main burden of funding social programs, whose costs will continue to increase as the baby boomers age. "Canada's capital challenge" by Nancy Olewiler Canada is endowed with an abundance of capital — human capital and natural capital. But we have for too long “been living off our public capital and underinvesting in it or investing ineffectively,” writes Nancy Olewiler of Simon Fraser University. On natural capital, she notes that “we don’t have good data on how much natural capital we have, let alone what we are losing.” Human capital challenges include educating a workforce to meet the demands of the labour market, such as replacing retiring baby boomers, like nurses, who will eventually need nurses to care for them. Finally, she notes the imperative of rebuilding sound relations with the United States, without abandoning Canadian social policies. “Other foreign markets help,” she concludes, “but cannot replace those of the US.” "Canada - reversing the slow slide" by Anne Golden While Canada ranks high among OECD nations in a Conference Board survey, we are slipping “relative to other top performers,” writes Anne Golden, president of the Conference Board of Canada. She outlines three top policy challenges for Canada. First, “ensuring our competitiveness in a rapidly changing global economy.” Second, “preparing for the impact of the demographic revolution.” And third, “to manage our natural resources for economic success and environmental sustainability.” "Canada's national and international challenges" by Robert Lacroix The strong growth of emerging economies such as China and their insatiable demands for energy has created a higher demand for Canadian oil and gas resources. As a result, writes Robert Lacroix, “Western Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador are experiencing major growth which, given the current state of the international economy, seems very likely to continue.” But what the emerging economies buy from us in resources they are sending back to us in low-cost manufacturing, which poses a major challenge for Canadian manufacturing and for our export-dependent economy. “This is no time for navel-gazing,” he writes. “Canada’s greatest challenges are clearly due to international developments more than to internal tensions.” "To convert economic growth into well-being" by Jim Stanford Economic growth alone serves no larger purpose unless it is converted into enhanced well-being, writes economist Jim Stanford of the Canadian Auto Workers. He suggests that there is a role for government “to shape and regulate growth — rather than simply assuming that a rising tide will indeed lift all the boats.” His three priorities begin with reducing concentrated poverty and social exclusion. Second is the need to address climate change by reducing emission of greenhouse gases and stabilizing climate change. Finally, he suggests that Canada needs “proactive strategies” to manage trade liberalization with emerging markets, notably China, to ensure that “it works to the advantage of Canadians.” "Ties that bind: nurturing the young, caring for the old" by Judith Maxwell The overriding objective of public policy choices, writes Judith Maxwell, should be “maximizing the well-being of young and old Canadians.” By 2020, baby boomers will be approaching their 75th birthdays, nearing the demogaphic called “older elderly,” when they will require more care and make more financial demands on the system. In order to look after them, “we also have to meet the needs of the younger generations who will be expected to generate the necessary surge in productivity while providing support and care for their elders.” Already, statistics indicate many working Canadians, especially women, are making major sacrifices to look after their elders. Turning to schools, the high school dropout rate is pushing young people into occupations with no way out of dependency, and many in the cities do not even qualify for employment insurance. Maxwell proposes three social policy priorities: “a system of social care for elders, comprehensive support for families with young children and alternative pathways from school to work for young adults.” "Priorities for a progressive Canada" by Tom Kent Our Founding Editor was one of the principal organizers of the Kingston Conference in 1960, which gave birth to the Liberal Party reform agenda of the Pearson years and created the modern Canadian social welfare state. Nearly half a century later, still an energetic advocate of social policy innovation, Kent’s three-point Canadian agenda includes a charter for youth, smarter work for adults and a “society of more equal opportunity, and fairer rewards.” "Modernizing the welfare state" by Ken Battle “Modernizing Canadian social policy poses a surfeit of challenges,” writes Ken Battle of the Caledon Institute. He sees the biggest one as “a comprehensive review of adult benefits.” And he identifies two others: “building strong child benefit and quality early learning/child care systems.” The child care debate promises to be a sharp political divide between the Liberal-NDP supply-side vision of “quality, affordable early learning and child care services largely financed by the taxpayer,” and the Conservative “demand-side approach that delivers direct cash payments to families to help them buy their own child care.” "Pulling apart - the growing gulfs in Canadian society" by Lars Osberg Canadian society has become “increasingly unequal in recent years,” writes Lars Osberg of Dalhousie University. “While the poor became poorer, the rich have become much richer,” he writes, citing an absolute decline in provincial welfare benefits for single parents with one child. In oil-rich Alberta, such benefits in real 2004 dollars have fallen by 38 percent since 1986, while in Ontario they have fallen by 26 percent. If our richest provinces aren’t looking after their neediest citizens, including the homeless at the extremes of society, then these people’s situation is even more precarious in the have-not provinces. Yet Alberta, he writes, “is resentful of any suggestion for sharing,” and Ontario has become a demandeur, claiming a $23 billion shortfall from Ottawa. “The policy challenge,” he concludes, “is to establish and maintain ‘winning conditions’ in which citizens in all parts of the country would prefer to be part of Canada as a political, social and economic union.” "Early childhood learning and care: the route to meeting the major challenges" by Jane Jenson Non-parental early child care “is now the norm for pre-school children in Canada,” writes Jane Jenson, a Canada Research Chair at the Université de Montréal. “With the exception of Quebec, Canada is lagging far behind its peers” in OCED countries “in providing preschol education and other developmental services.” While over half of Canada’s preschoolers are now receiving non-parental care, three-quarters are in family daycare or babysitting rather than public daycare, again, except in Quebec. The provincial premiers, she adds, “were caught off guard by Stephen Harper’s promise, during the election campaign, to revive what are essentially family allowances, presenting them as an alternative to the federal transfers promised by the agreements-in-principle. "Back to basics" by Pierre Fortin [summary non available] |
