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"From the editor's desktop" by William Watson Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. "A new IRPP research project" by André Blais, Paul Howe and Richard Johnston Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. "If I had my way..." contributions by Mordecai Richler, Brian Flemming, André Pratte, Heather MacIvor, Jennifer Stewart, Mario Dumont, Miriam Lapp, Nancy Riche, and Lysiane Gagnon Question: If you had your way and were allowed to make one change to political institutions in Canada in order to strengthen Canadian democracy, which change would you make and why? "The road to Seattle," by Alan S. Alexandroff This month's WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle is likely to set the agenda for the "Seattle Round" of trade negotiations. Just what the negotiations will end up being about has not yet been decided. One important piece of unfinished business is China's accession to the organization, which has been under negotiation since the mid-1980s. An agreement by China to submit to continuing review of its reforms, though not strictly in the WTO's traditions, would probably help. As for the uncertain leadership provided by the Clinton administration, though Canadian rhetoric suggests we should be likely candidates to fill the leadership vacuum, our reaction to a number of WTO panel resolutions suggests we are in fact deeply ambivalent about the WTO process we helped set underway in the late 1980s. "Battle in Seattle?" by Robert Wolfe The next round of world trade talks, which will be launched by the Seattle ministerial meetings of the World Trade Organization later this month, will revolve around a triangle of issues: agriculture, trade in services and the continuing integration of developing and transition economies into the world trading system. A successful WTO round, one that extends the organization's influence into new areas of trade, but only trade, is very much in Canada's interest, not least in helping to manage our economic relationship with the United States in new areas like e-commerce and old areas like wheat subsidies. But if the new round is to succeed, we need to be thinking now about how to adapt, not defend, our agricultural marketing boards. "There's gold in them there producer services" by William B. Beyers Producer services - engineering, accounting, architecture, reearch, advertising and dozens of other similar services - have been booming. Regional economics has not been keeping up with the "new economy." Research suggests that many emerging producer services are relatively footloose. In order to get a piece of these new businesses, communities and regions need to pay special attention to physical and environmental amenities, health care, and easy access to transportation and communications. "The spatial reorganization of urban Canada" by Larry S. Bourne Japan, the United States and many European countries increasingly are focused on the role of their "urban systems" in fostering international economic success. London, Frankfurt, New York and Tokyo, for instance, are all vying for world leadership in the financial sector. In Canada, however, there is almost no effort to analyze economic competitiveness and social developments at the level of the city or urban system - even though that's where much of the action is. For instance, the organization of a country's urban system, and especially of its largest metropolitan regions, is increasingly seen as a policy instrument that can contribute to improving economic growth and social integration. Canada needs a similar urban vision. "Regional Europe in the next millennium" by Manfred M. Fischer and Peter Nijkamp As the century ends, Europe has embarked on both a deepening and a widening of the European union. Old members have adopted a common currency, while prospective new members in central and eastern Europe wait to be admitted. Although the "single market" project of the early 1990s was justified by detailed study of its likely consequences, the current integration effort has received no such official examination. Both experience and theory suggest that some of Europe's regions will do better than others and that there will be losers as well as winners. Regional policies are one way to spread the benefits of changes that should be efficiency-enhancing overall. "Let in or left out? Peripheral regions in the age of globalization" by Amy K. Glasmeier and Michael E. Conroy As the Asian crisis made clear, globalization has a significant downside. The international integration of production processes that is globalization's defining characteristic has created new kinds of dependencies. Where the economies of peripheral regions used to swing with the industrialized countries' demand for their raw materials, now they are an integrated part of many manufacturing industries. Whether or not these regions are to be found in countries that are themselves peripheral, how they will fare in a globalized world depends on where they fit in the past and how they can adapt to new competition in the future. Either way, investments in infrastructure and human capital can only help them. "Globalization does not require amalgamation" by Andrew Sancton Most people seem to regard it as self-evident that every city-region needs a single municipal government. But if, as most people understand intuitively, large-scale private-sector monopolies are inefficient and inattentive to the needs of consumers, why assume that large-scale public-sector monopolies would be efficient and attentive to the needs of citizens? It is true that some public services - water supply, for instance - usually can be provided more efficiently on a large scale. But nothing prevents small municipalities from pooling their resources for specific purposes, and there are many examples, within Canada and throughout the world, of their doing so. "Genetically modified politics" by Wayne A. Hunt The emerging controversy over genetically-modified foods will be a significant test for a new political strain, the Third Way. The Third Way's apparent advantage is its ability to find common ground between impassioned extremes by borrowing from the best that each side has to offer. Among the Third Way policies that might help are government finance for labs that operate independently of biotechnology companies, and even a constituent assembly bringing together all interested groups. "Flexible regulation: a Can-con turn-on?" by Catherine Murray The CRTC's proposed new TV policy does not fully de-regulate private television but it does introduce greater flexibility into its regulatory structure. Because the commission believes that a good news service is a competitive advantage, it will no longer require local stations to provide local news. Because it believes Canadian drama and entertainment no longer are competitive liabilities, it has allowed the CTV and Global networks to be exempt from rules about how much they must spend on prime-time Canadian drama and entertainment, though they must still meet hours requirements. Whether the new policy works as planned depends on whether the commission is justified in its faith, in effect, that Can-con can be a turn-on. "A UK route to Senate reform" by Stephen L. Harris British reforms to the House of Lords suggest a way of bringing legitimacy to Canada's Senate. "A job for Mrs. Clarkson" by Paul Benoit Sorry, the summary of this article is not available. |
