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The article focuses on the Canadian Northern Corridor Research Program, examining the feasibility and desirability of creating infrastructure corridors across Canada. Endorsed by the Senate of Canada, the program aims to provide informed discussion on pan-Canadian economic corridors to strengthen growth and promote a sustainable economy, with this paper specifically discussing community engagement efforts and lessons learned within the program's broader research themes.

It has become increasingly difficult in Canada to gain and sustain public acceptance of energy projects. Increased levels of protest, combined with traditional media and social media coverage of opposition, combine to suggest decreased public acceptance of energy projects. Decision-makers have responded accordingly, and a variety of energy projects have either been delayed or put on hold indefinitely. This is true for both conventional and renewable energy projects and in many different regions across the country. A number of proposed energy projects have recently faced opposition from various stakeholder groups. For instance, the decision of the Joint Review Panel for the Northern Gateway Pipeline is being challenged in Canada's court system. First Nations groups have issued an ultimatum to the Federal Government that it must choose between Site C (a proposed hydro dam) and liquefied natural gas development in B.C. Rapid expansion of wind energy projects in Ontario has engendered lengthy and costly appeals and the rise of an anti-wind social movement. In Nova Scotia, tidal energy development is being positioned as a new renewable energy option; gaining public acceptance is critical in light of recent opposition to wind energy development. As these experiences suggest, not only has the regulatory process become more contentious, but also an apparently new concept -- social licence -- has had popular appeal. This white paper reports on the results of a year-long interdisciplinary collaboration aimed at identifying and summarizing extant research regarding social licence and related concepts, with a particular emphasis on understanding its implications for public acceptance of energy projects in Canada, and their related regulatory processes. In particular, this research addressed the following questions: 1. What is the history and scope of the term 'social licence', both in the context of energy project development and more generally? What are the strengths and limitations of this term? How does it help or hinder energy policy, regulatory debates and decision-making? 2. What are the similarities and differences between the notion of social licence and established concepts and other concepts or frameworks? 3. From the standpoint of public acceptance of energy projects, is Canada's regulatory system broken? From whose perspective? And what alternatives might be considered? 4. What are barriers to, and enablers of a licence within the regulatory process -- legal, social or otherwise? 5. What role does social licence play in the larger picture: How valid is the concept of social licence? Can social licence actually stop a project, or determine the outcome of an election? Does it create a valuable dialogue about a project? When opposition to projects leads to the arrest of people breaching an injunction or violent confrontations, what role can social licence play in promoting an alternative approach? In addition to a comprehensive look at the concepts of public acceptance and social licence and their applications to Canada, this white paper arrives at certain conclusions (Section 5) and makes recommendations (Section 6) for improving Canada's regulatory systems and improving public confidence in Canada's various energy-related regulatory agencies. For instance, as the federal government embarks on its agenda to amend the regulatory process, the research presented here can inform how the government can best carry out its mandate of reform while balancing the economic, environmental, political, social, and security-related issues pertinent to regulators, federal and provincial governments, industry, First Nations, environmental groups and the general public. The appeal of the term "social licence" derives from the inclusivity and equitability that it seems to imply. But populist pressure for increased voice and regulatory or judicial intervention, arising out of a sense of disaffection or disenfranchisement, is hardly a novel phenomenon: historical context and the lessons learned therefrom are essential in evaluating the idea and situating the debate within a meaningful framework. Social licence entails an additional layer of 'regulation', albeit an amorphous one. A central lesson of the 20th century experience is that regulation comes at a cost, and that excessive regulation and intervention can lead to paralysis and 'government failure'. The implication is that regulation should be relied upon where it is necessary, and should be implemented in sensible ways. One of the conclusions of this report is that public trust and confidence can be enhanced by rationalizing existing regulatory vehicles to reduce the common perception that decisions are sometimes politically motivated and ensuring that decisions are made at the right levels of government. The institutionalization of social licence also has identifiable risks. It is likely to increase incentives for "rent-seeking behaviour." The threat of veto, or even obstruction, endows the affected group with leverage that can result in extraction of rents that are disproportionate to impacts. It also increases regulatory and political uncertainty associated with a given project, discouraging investment, or requiring returns higher than are merited by the inherent riskiness of the proposed undertaking. The term "social licence" needs to be further analyzed, and, if used, used with care. The concept originated in the mining sector as the "social licence to operate," and as the concept has migrated to the energy sector, it appears to have broadened in scope so that its meaning has become unclear, amorphous and confusing. Other terms such as "acceptance," "support" or "public confidence" may be more appropriate in the energy sphere. Regulators, policy-makers and politicians should refrain from the use of these terms without a clear understanding of their implications. Our specific recommendations include: 1. Governmental Coordination. Greater coordination of regulatory processes between the federal and provincial governments is required and should be directed towards enhancing beneficial outcomes for all affected stakeholders (Section 6.1). 2. Stakeholder Engagement. A consistent, transparent and rigorous system for identifying and reaching out to stakeholders is essential to regulatory efficiency and efficacy (Section 6.2). 3. Social Licence as a Concept. When it comes to energy development, the term "social licence" needs to be further analyzed, and, if used, used with care (Section 6.3). 4. First Nations. The federal and provincial governments should take ownership of this duty to consult and ensure that it is done in a comprehensive manner that has been set out by both domestic and international law (Section 6.4). 5. Changes to the NEB Act. An independent review of the changes to the NEB Act regarding time to consult and the list of those who can be consulted should be undertaken to ensure the NEB is unconstrained in its ability to regulate appropriately and has public confidence in its mandate and decisions (Section 6.5). 6. Make Broader Use of Information Gained during Assessment Processes. Energy regulators should consider mechanisms to report recurring concerns that are outside of the scope of their mandate (Section 6.6). 7. Compliance after Project Approval. There is a need for publicly available, timely and relevant data relating to the compliance and post-approval status of projects. Data should be placed on a government portal to increase accessibility to stakeholders (Section 6.7). 8. Cross-Examination in Regulatory Hearings. The extensiveness of permitted cross-examination, and indeed the entire regulatory proceeding, needs to be proportionate to the magnitude of the impacts of the ultimate decision (Section 6.8). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 30 years Calgary has doubled in size, from a population of 640,645 in 1985 to 1,230,915 in 2015. During that time the City has had five different mayors, hosted the Winter Olympics, and expanded the C-Train from 25 platforms to 45. Calgary's Metropolitan Area has grown too, with Airdrie, Chestermere, Okotoks and Cochrane growing into full-fledged cities, ripe with inter-urban commuters.* And with changes to provincial legislation in the mid-'90s, rural Rocky View County and the Municipal District of Foothills are now real competitors for residential, commercial and industrial development that in the past would have been considered urban. In this metropolitan system, where people live, their household structure, and their place of work informs the services they need to conduct their daily lives, and directly impacts the spatial character of the City and the broader region. In sum, Metropolitan Calgary is increasingly complex. Calgary and the broader metropolitan area will continue to grow, even with the current economic slowdown. Frictions within Calgary, between the various municipalities in the metropolitan area, and the priorities of other local authorities (such as the School Boards and Alberta Health Services) will continue to impact the agendas of local politicians and their ability to answer to the needs of their residents. How resources -- whether it is hard infrastructure, affordable housing, classrooms, or hospital beds -- are allocated over space and how these resources are funded, directly impacts these relationships. This technical paper provides my perspective as an urban economist on the efficient allocation of resources within a metropolitan system in general, with reference to Calgary where appropriate, and serves as a companion to the previously released "Reflections on Calgary's Spatial Structure: An Urban Economists Critique of Municipal Planning in Calgary." It is hoped that the concepts reviewed herein effectively expand upon and supplement the discussion in the former paper. The urban economic perspective adopted in this paper is itself not inconsistent with the public economics perspective but it pays more attention to space, and metropolitan transportation and land use policy, and less to tax policy and intergovernmental fiscal arrangements. I will explore the following sources of inefficiency within a metropolitan system: 1) local public goods, 2) externalities, and 3) economies of scale, starting with a short background on classic market failure and second-best policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Canadian Northern Corridor Research Program, which aims to explore the feasibility and benefits of establishing a connected series of infrastructure corridors across Canada. It further examine the Australian experience with resources, infrastructure corridors, and supply chains as part of the program's research on economic outcomes.

There are good reasons to expect that attributes of local public finance may impact urban land use and, specifically, sprawl. A detailed and novel investigation of U.S. metropolitan areas published in 20061 provides substantial insights into the causes of sprawl, but it overlooks the main characteristics of local public finance (taxes and user charges). Using a subset of the data matched to city public finance data, a parallel analysis gives insight into the impacts of local public finance on sprawl. There is evidence that greater reliance on local property taxes reduces sprawl. The evidence that user charges (primarily for water, sewerage and solid waste services) could have a similar effect is weak but suggestive. The combined effects of a high reliance on property taxes and user charges (compared to typical levels) might reduce sprawl by as much as one-third. For Calgary and Edmonton, this means that the current heavy reliance on property taxes in both cities reduces sprawl and that the adoption of alternative local taxes--that reduce reliance on property taxes--is expected to increase sprawl. Further analysis of the impacts of local public finance on urban sprawl is warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Representative democracy is no longer enough for day-to-day governance as citizens demand more of their elected officials' time and more attention paid to matters that concern them. Public hearings, open houses and other traditional means of engaging with citizens, especially at the municipal level, are not sufficient for true participatory democracy. Nor is going to the polls on a set date enough to satisfy citizens' desires to interact more with elected officials. Done properly, engaging with the community can enable politicians to make better decisions. It can also broaden their perspectives on issues, offer opportunities for better communication and relationship-building with a diverse public and allow new ideas to come into play in the decisionmaking process. Although an Ipsos poll has revealed that just 20 per cent of Canadians have ever engaged in community engagement, those who did said they saw it as a positive experience. This paper examines the barriers to community engagement, including failure to reach people, time and place limitations, NIMBYism and the problem of strong voices dominating and making other people feel unheard. The City of Nanaimo offers a successful model of community engagement. When preparing an Affordable Housing Strategy, officials reached out to the public through pop-up events, workshops, surveys and one-on-one conversations. Follow-up included a white paper that incorporated the engagement process, public feedback and policy options. Later, a draft of the strategy was presented to the public during an open house which offered a question-andanswer period. Engaging with the public is not a small undertaking. However, this paper shows that problems such as divergent opinions, strongly vocal activists potentially hijacking the agenda, inevitable conflicts between factions and establishing the best times and places for engagement are not insurmountable. This paper offers recommendations for community engagement that can be adapted by both large and small municipalities. The key to successful engagement is advance preparation, including deciding which projects are best suited for this approach, public communication to ensure as many people as possible know about the opportunity to engage and starting the engagement process early. Taking the process to the people by going to popular local hang-outs and talking to citizens there helps mitigate the problem of inconvenient times and structured settings for many people. In smaller municipalities, officials can set up tables on Main Street, at libraries or local clubs. Combining online engagement with other efforts could help bring together ideas and perspectives from those more likely to engage online and those who prefer traditional methods of engagement, which will help to improve the quality of the whole process. Online engagement can supplement in-person connections and can help to set out rules around behaviour and enforcement of them. Municipalities can also partner with translators and cultural organizations to ensure that no one is left out of the process because of language or other barriers. Feedback and follow-up are two important parts of the engagement process as well. Citizens need to know that their input was valuable in determining final policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on leading platform for information and analysis on the feasibility, desirability, and acceptability of a connected series of infrastructure corridors throughout Canada.

Mining operations leave behind quarries with inhospitable conditions, characterized by steep drop-offs, deep water, flooding and poor drainage, and in some cases, abandoned industrial waste. Increasingly, innovations in mine closure and ecological restoration are integrating human activities into post-project land uses. Drawing from the Bamburi Haller Park, a former limestone quarry, this study demonstrates that with suitable environmental practices and policy interventions, mine closure can lead to positive projects that spur economic and social benefits. As a policy tool, this paper examines cultural ecosystem services (CES) as part of best practices in mine closure and mine restoration. Visitation data and revenue records were collected covering the period from 2014 to December 2018. Results show that over 566 hectares are now under various land uses with 56.51 per cent of the quarry having been ecologically rehabilitated. The site attracted over 181,000 visitors annually with an average annual revenue of US$330,745 from CES, including ecotourism, recreation and sports and environmental and conservation education. CES can form a strong foundation for promoting ecosystems restoration, biodiversity conservation and sustainable land use activities while showcasing best practices in environmental social governance. The resulting ecosystem is a unique model and showcase for sustainable and responsible mine closure in the extractive industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an output of the Canadian Northern Corridor Research Program. FOREWORD THE CANADIAN NORTHERN CORRIDOR RESEARCH PROGRAM PAPER SERIES This paper is part of a special series in The School of Public Policy Publications, examining the potential for economic corridors in Canada. [Extracted from the article]

Canada has just enacted legislation to give the broadcast regulator, the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), authority to regulate online streaming platforms, both domestic and international. This legislation, known as Bill C-11 as it passed through an extensive parliamentary review process, was highly controversial. The bill empowers the CRTC to review and possibly amend the definition of “Canadian content.” It will also require that streaming services contribute financially to the production of Canadian content and will impose “discoverability” requirements on digital streaming platforms (like YouTube, Spotify, Netflix and others) to ensure that Canadian content is promoted. The CRTC will have broad leeway to issue and enforce regulations to achieve these ends. The U.S. high-tech and streaming industry does not like this legislation and has used various tactics to oppose it. Among these are arguments that C-11 violates commitments that Canada made to the United States in the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), the replacement for NAFTA, and that implementation of C-11 will result in U.S. trade retaliation. This paper analyzes the arguments to this effect put forth by the U.S. tech industry’s trade association, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), and refutes them, particularly the argument that Canada will need to invoke CUSMA Article 32.6 (the cultural exception clause) to justify its actions. At the same time, the paper cautions that the CRTC needs to be careful with respect to imposing a requirement on foreign streamers to contribute to Canadian production if at the same time it denies them the ability to acquire and exploit the production they have helped finance when no such limitation is imposed on equivalent Canadian streaming services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses “Regulatory Alignment for Multi-Modal Infrastructure Corridors” in the context of the Canadian Northern Corridor Concept (CNC). In particular, the paper reviews whether there are any existing models “for regulatory oversight and approval for multi-modal corridors and the subsequent placement of infrastructure within” that might be appropriate in developing the CNC. The paper concludes that existing models do not include certain of the elements of the CNC Concept as it has evolved to date, nor could any of the models be applied within the framework of Canada’s jurisdictional realities that would govern the CNC. The paper identifies several questions that need to be addressed in order to advance the CNC Concept to a more fully-formed proposal, which would form the basis for further examination of the need for regulatory oversight and approval and the form that such oversight and approval might take. The paper also suggests a forum that might oversee this further work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on special series in The School of Public Policy Publications and examining the potential for economic corridors in Canada and this paper is an output of the Canadian Northern Corridor Research Program. Topics include the University of Calgary is the leading platform for providing information and analysis necessary to establish the feasibility, and the Research Program will help all Canadians benefit from improved infrastructure development in Canada.

Regulators and other energy industry players must face together the new challenges associated with a maturing industry. These new challenges require that regulatory processes and philosophies used in the past must be adjusted to remain effective. The open communication policy which distinguished the ERCB from many other regulators is one which will not be compromised. However today the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) must combine that open communication with more effective enforcement. This paper outlines the reasons more effective enforcement is required, as well as the Enforcement Policy and Philosophy the EUB intends to use to ensure that industry is treated in a firm but fair manner [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the latter half of the 1980's, the severe and uncertain economic climate in Alberta's oil and gas industry focused EUB attention and concern to the escalation in the number of ownerless "orphan wells." Increases in corporate insolvencies, bankruptcies, defunct companies and reluctant licensees, coupled with rationalization activities that were shifting assets between different sectors of the industry, all contributed to growing fears of unmanageable future well abandonment liabilities. Additionally, the numbers of inactive wells were increasing dramatically raising concerns over their potential to become orphans including concerns about wellbore integrity and public and environmental safety. Industry responded by accepting the responsibility to develop and support an abandonment fund to deal with existing orphan well problems and meet future obligations. In accepting this liability, both industry and regulatory partners recognized the need to address improved control systems and processes to minimize the orphan well burden. This paper will discuss both the current support processes that have been developed as well as their future directions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we explore how the power wielded by regional incumbents has impacted subnational innovation agendas. Our findings suggest that the design of mission-oriented innovation policies should be more attentive to regional innovation policies and their relationship to how innovation may serve to bolster incumbents and not undermine them. We use a case-study of innovation in fossil fuels. Recently, innovation policy literature has explored innovation policy and global climate as a major topic. On the one hand, carbon lock-in has been used to explain why there has been such difficulty in reducing carbon emissions, in many cases, despite an increasing emphasis of mission-innovation policies. On the other hand, mission-innovation policies are believed to be a key to the development of disruptive innovations that could break this carbon intensive path dependency. Although the two literatures explore the same problem, there could be more integration. While carbon lock-in is being considered in the mission-innovation literature, it nevertheless has been largely overlooked at the mission-setting stage. On the other hand, the lock-in literature has tended to overlook the findings of mission-oriented innovation literature in offering solutions, which suggests that there is a more productive role for mission-oriented innovations in breaking free of previous constraints to serve in the low-carbon energy transition. To make our case, we argue it is important to distinguish among the various impacts disruptive innovations have on the market shares of incumbents'. We propose the following three schema: new market, market rewarding and market destroying. By variegating the potential impact of innovations, we suggest that mission-oriented innovation polices may be designed to only support certain types of innovations that do not directly undermine the market share of incumbents. Using a detailed case study of the Province of Alberta, Canada, we then explore the role of the province's mission-oriented policy in the development of technology to produce the Canadian oil sands. The case study illustrates how incumbents influenced the establishment and direction of the mission's goal. Shifts in incumbency opposition toward the province's mission-oriented innovation policy coincided with the changing impact of the innovation from being market destroying to market rewarding. We suggest that future research should be more attentive to the role of incumbents in influencing mission-oriented innovation policy and the importance of their influence at the mission-setting stage. Furthermore, we suggest that to meet the grand challenge of addressing climate change through mission-oriented innovation policies, these policies must be designed to break free of these institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food insecurity rates for Canada's Indigenous people are the worst among developed nations, demanding immediate action to prevent an impending health crisis. Food insecurity in Canada is widespread across most First Nations households (51 per cent). The highest food insecurity rates are experienced by the Inuit in Nunavut (63 per cent), First Nations without access roads (65 per cent), and Alberta First Nations (60 per cent). Indigenous peoples' food insecurity is associated with a shorter life expectancy and higher rates of physical and mental illnesses, including four times the diabetes incidence of Canada's non-Indigenous populations. This paper analyzes the impact on food insecurity of a notional trade northern corridor to reach local and global markets, considering case studies of resource and utility corridors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada’s northern and Arctic environment poses significant challenges for infrastructure development. The region is characterized by unique ecosystems, extreme climatic conditions and a sparse population, which are factors that have inhibited infrastructure development in the past. Nevertheless, various practitioners, academics and northerners have emphasized the need for reliable and safe connections between north and south and within the North. The lack of infrastructure is a major impediment to the well-being of northerners who lack access to essential services, such as clean drinking water (Patrick 2011) or safe and reliable roadways. Infrastructure Canada (2018) noted that the current southern-based “one-size fits all” northern infrastructure approach is inefficient because northern conditions and challenges often do not respond to policies that are conceived in the south. Currently, infrastructure projects are often conducted on a one-off basis without establishing broader connections in the northern region. Thus, this paper draws on the Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) concept (Fellows et al. 2020) as a solution to deliver much-needed infrastructure to northern communities. At the same time, this paper cautions that it is critical to recognize the diversity of the Canadian North and it is vital to consider northern Indigenous practices that can inform infrastructure development for a CNC. This paper offers a discussion of Canada’s northern diversity by exploring the relevance of Hamelin’s nordicity index (1979) as a policy tool to better understand and respond to the distinct challenges and opportunities across the Canadian North and Arctic. Although the CNC concept reflects a pan-Canadian approach, it strongly advocates for the recognition, participation and inclusion of all northern stake- and rights-holders to inform future infrastructure development and to avoid past mistakes. The CNC could thus offer a coherent northern infrastructure framework that addresses the shortcomings of made-in-Ottawa policies for the Canadian North and Arctic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews current climate change projections for northern Canada and considers what these mean for infrastructure development in the proposed Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC). We focus on chokepoints along the corridor's notional route and estimate future costs of infrastructure along the chokepoints. We draw upon climate change projections at the end of the century (2100) using information from several climate variables sourced on the CMIP6 and CMIP5 reports. Climate variables include means and extreme values for temperature, precipitation, wind and their indirect impacts on physical features: permafrost, freezing rain and wildfires. In terms of infrastructure costs, we investigate investment costs and the useful life of nine sectors within transportation, energy and buildings infrastructures. The findings of our analysis show that mean temperatures within the CNC area could increase by 10.9ºC, and precipitation by 45 per cent by 2100. Climate change could create chokepoints along the CNC route, affecting key areas essential for transportation flow. Central regions of the corridor are projected to have a higher probability of receiving concomitant impacts on several chokepoints, including combined threats from the increasing frequency of wildfires, freezing rain and permafrost thaw. Adding a climatic layer to investment costs within CNC chokepoints can increase infrastructure costs by more than 101 per cent. Transportation engineering infrastructure, electric power infrastructure and the institutional buildings sectors are most likely to be impacted. Just considering a climate layer to current infrastructure increases costs by more than $12 billion for several hazards such as freezing precipitation (especially Alberta and BC), $7 billion for wildfires (especially BC) and more than $400 million for permafrost (especially Alberta and BC). Infrastructure built along the CNC route will need to be designed to remain functional under different climatic conditions that predominate today. Chokepoints will dictate how buildings and transportation infrastructure should be planned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the transition from the "era of the health accords" (from 2000 to 2017) to the new regime of individual bilateral agreements between Ottawa and each of the provinces and territories, allocating federal health transfers and setting agreed-upon health-reform priorities in each jurisdiction. The paper argues that the health accords of 2000, 2003 and 2004 were essentially unsuccessful for a number of reasons. First, they tended to raise expectations among the public, health system actors and health policy experts about the ability to transform health care in Canada in a relatively short period of time. This was, in part, a result of the accords' very broad and general commitments to change, but also their lack of recognition of the barriers to change that exist within the system. Second, and related to the first, attention was paid mostly to the amount of the transfer from the federal government to the provinces and territories, rather than to how those dollars were to be spent. At best, governments bought only a modest amount of change in the system, despite the billions of dollars of new investment. Unlike other industrialized federations, Canada appears to be the only one that relies on an ongoing, highly politicized process of intergovernmental diplomacy to negotiate the fiscal relationship in health care. This, combined with a somewhat amorphous and changeable understanding of the federal government's overall role in health care, complicates the process of reform and heightens the political stakes around the negotiations. The new model of bilateral agreements negotiated under an umbrella statement of common principles around health-reform priorities may yet prove to be an improvement in both process and outcomes. Bilateralism can serve to de-escalate the political stakes inherent in the federal-provincial diplomacy around Canada's most popular social program, by moving away from the "grand bargains" that characterized the accords. In short, there will be less opportunity for the kind of political rhetoric that unduly raises expectations of rapid change. More importantly, the bilateral agreements, although far from perfect, may actually better serve to focus attention on the specific health-service organization and delivery issues the provinces and territories intend to improve, restructure or expand. Under very broad principles such as "improving access to mental health and community care," the bilateral agreements articulate some very clear plans about specific approaches, programs and policies on which the transfers will be spent. This should provide a much greater opportunity for the Canadian public to hold governments to account for progress in those areas, something the accords never really managed to do. Going forward, there is still room for improvement. Some provincial plans are decidedly vague, and governments should be urged to be more specific in their commitments and intentions. Common indicators continue to be difficult to develop, although big strides have been made in recent decades. Governments would be well advised to talk seriously and openly about the challenges and barriers to change that exist within the system and, in doing so, marshal public support to dismantle them. And the federal government itself needs to actively engage in assisting jurisdictions in learning from and adapting the successful reforms and initiatives of other jurisdictions. This could be an act of true system stewardship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The North of Canada and the North of Australia are both resource-rich, but have underdeveloped infrastructure, small, scattered populations and high proportions of inhabitants who are Indigenous. The experiences of developing Australia's North hold lessons for Canada. Experience from development of iron ore mining and gas production in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, and with coal and gas development in the Central Queensland coalfields region, can be applied usefully to development of resources and infrastructure in Canada's North, as well as in other resource-rich regions of the world. Supply chains that provide efficient transport, handling and processing of mineral and energy products in the two Australian regions, and goods and services inputs to production, have been critical to their success in becoming world-leading resources exporters. Governments and industries in the Pilbara and Central Queensland have followed contrasting pathways to developing infrastructure and supply chains. Each initial pathway had advantages and disadvantages. Approaches by governments and project operators have changed over the 60 years of resources development, in light of experience, in response to big increases in scale of production, to the need to increase efficiency, experience of existing approaches and to accommodate new industries and entrants. Governments have key roles to play in resources regions through their control of land allocation for development, and environmental and social protection. Governments also have responsibilities and unique abilities for co-ordination of development. While discussion in this paper focuses primarily on supply chains for transport of outputs and inputs, another important consideration is infrastructure for people, without which resources projects cannot be developed and operated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alberta’s history with coal development goes back to 1874, but 21st century social, economic and environmental factors demonstrate that it’s not in the public interest to pursue coal mining on the Eastern Slopes of the Rocky Mountains. This paper uses a multiple account benefit-cost analysis to compare the positives and negatives of a hypothetical coal mine in the eastern foothills of the Rockies. We provide estimates of the economic, social and environmental impacts, and evaluate how coal mining affects different stakeholders. The economic benefits — $440 million in undiscounted incremental tax revenues and $35 million in undiscounted incremental employment earnings — are overshadowed by the costs arising from the displacement of ranching, tourism and the negative environmental effects on water, vegetation, air and wildlife. Compounding these effects is the non-zero probability that the Alberta government will pick up the tab for reclamation costs, and the adverse social impacts on local communities and on Indigenous Peoples’ rights and interests. Therefore, any new coal mine development is unlikely to provide the province with a net benefit. Following on the heels of the federal government’s rejection of the Grassy Mountain coal project in southwestern Alberta, the provincial government should consider banning coal mining in the Eastern Slopes. Any future coal development policy should include a public-interest test that examines both monetary and non-monetary impacts. This paper finds an estimated undiscounted profit before taxes and royalties of $511 million to the mine developer. Discounting that value by a rate of eight per cent, which would approximate the opportunity cost of investors’ capital, shows coal mines are at best a break-even proposition from a private perspective. Only under optimistic price and activity assumptions does the mine earn a net profit. Tax revenues would be marginal and additional labour income would accrue to only a few individuals. These benefits would be vastly outweighed by the adverse effects on a much greater population, including Indigenous Peoples. Further, the Eastern Slopes already suffer the effects of current forestry, oil and gas, ranching, road development and recreational activities. Water quality and habitat for such wildlife as the Westslope cutthroat trout would be significantly compromised. With coal markets in a long-term decline due to coal’s impact on climate change and the focus on transitioning to alternative energy sources, new coal mine projects in Alberta would be counter-productive in many ways. The comparatively small economic benefits derived from a new coal mine could not possibly justify the large and possibly irreversible damage done to the environment, local communities and to the rights and interests of Indigenous Peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is well known as an export-based economy, particularly with respect to its agricultural and agri-food industries. Since the signing of the Canada-U.S. Trade Agreement (CUSTA) in 1989, the federal government has negotiated trade agreements with more than 40 international partners, providing Canadian firms with access to a multitude of foreign markets while also giving consumers at home a greater set of choices in the market for a great number of goods and services. Progress on more liberalized internal trade within the federation has not, however, kept pace with accomplishments on the international trade front. Despite the implementation of the Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) in 1995 and the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) in 2017 (along with several smaller but significant interprovincial agreements), a number of significant barriers remain to internal trade in goods and services in Canada. The focus of this paper is upon barriers that prevent the movement of goods and services among provinces, referred to as interprovincial trade barriers. There are a number of different types of these barriers; one such type is tariffs (which function similar to a sales tax) upon goods and services themselves. While tariffs are a major topic of study in international trade, they do not form a focus of this paper, which will instead focus on non-tariff barriers or NTBs. One such category of barriers to internal trade includes natural barriers such as lakes, rivers, mountain ranges and the simple distance between potential trading partners. A second type is called prohibitive barriers, which make illegal the movement of certain types of goods or services among provinces; perhaps the most wellknown of these pertains to the prohibition of the movement of alcohol or tobacco between provinces. Technical and regulatory/administrative barriers also exist, and pertain to provincial differences in requirements within specific sectors, licensing requirements, etc. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) has noted that differences in trucking regulations as well as inconsistent regulation of provincially and federally inspected meat-processing facilities are of particular concern in the agricultural and agri-food industries (CFA 2021). These barriers are costly to the Canadian economy, limiting its growth, output, efficiency and productivity. Estimates by Alvarez et al. (2019) suggest that Canadian GDP would increase by between one and four per cent if trade in goods alone were completely liberalized. This is approximately $92 billion per year, an amount that, if realized, could lead to significant job creation, increased streams of taxation revenue for government, enhanced economic growth and improved productivity. Economists have long cited the efficient and welfare-maximizing outcomes associated with unfettered markets, and removal of interprovincial trade barriers would provide significant gains for the Canadian economy. Several important drivers have led to the current situation where barriers to interprovincial trade constrict the freer flow of goods and services in Canada. One of them is federalism itself, where the duty of provincial governments is to act in the best interest of constituents, even if it means overall gains to Canada as a whole are not being realized. Related to this is a second driver, which is the balancing act that courts must strike in Canada when interpreting both federal and provincial legislation in areas where both levels of government can be argued to have jurisdiction. A third driver is the potential for stakeholders to act to prevent liberalization of trade if it is in their best interest to do so. Regulators and gatekeepers, industry associations and even governments can have vested financial or personal interest in the status quo, and be hesitant to change it even if they recognize that change would have the potential to provide greater economic benefits to others. A final driver that has led to the current system is the sheer amount of time, effort and expertise that would be required to update the current system. There are at least three plausible options for reducing interprovincial barriers to trade in Canada. The first would be to encourage courts to interpret relevant legislation in a way that would aid the freer flow of products and services internally. For example, section 121 of the Constitution Act seems to clearly require the free movement of goods among provinces, but the Supreme Court of Canada has, out of respect for provinces' rights, deferred to the notion of federalism and consistently interpreted legislation in a way that permits provinces to put limits on trade. Should the Court interpret 121 in a more constructionist way, interprovincial trade would increase. A second option is for provinces to independently negotiate more open markets in Canada. The New West Partnership Trade Agreement (NWPTA) among the four Western provinces has been successful, as have other regional agreements, at opening markets and generating economic benefits. A third option is to use the CFTA's mechanisms and resources at the federal and provincial levels to remove barriers on an industry-by-industry basis. Given the sheer number of firms and industries, it is more cumbersome to negotiate large-scale, national or multi-provincial agreements than smaller scale, industry-specific ones. There are costs and benefits associated with each of these options. Requiring courts to revise how they interpret law is beyond the power of the federal and provincial governments. Striking new trade partnerships is a time-consuming process, with no assurance of success. Negotiating improvements in specific subsectors and industries is achievable, but provides only incremental gains. From a benefits perspective, there is much to be gained: the estimated economic benefits from the freer flow of goods and services are considerable, although it is likely that those with a vested interest will see some of their current benefits transferred to others as a result of removing trade barriers. Overall, it seems obvious that previous work to liberalize trade has been fruitful, and a combination of the options proposed is likely to be worth the effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many countries reacted by relaxing environmental rules and Canada was no exception. Environmental regulators across Canada changed rules in unprecedented efforts to balance public health, economic wellbeing and protection of the environment. This briefing paper takes stock of and discusses these actions. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many countries reacted by relaxing environmental rules and Canada was no exception. Environmental regulators across Canada changed rules in unprecedented efforts to balance public health, economic wellbeing and protection of the environment. This briefing paper takes stock of and discusses these actions. Only 41 of the 61 government notices included a specific COVID-related rationale for the rule changes and the explanations lacked detail. Reasons included accommodating regulated entities' need to observe public health requirements (88), financial relief for industry (38), responding to government capacity constraints (14) and accommodating public observance of health restrictions (3). More than a third of the changes were indefinite, with no set end date. In these cases especially it is critical that government agencies be held accountable for reinstating lost protections in a timely manner. Overall, environmental regulators across Canada responded in similar ways to the pandemic. Some agencies, however, took extraordinary actions. Alberta, for example, was the only jurisdiction to completely suspend reporting requirements and did so across multiple sectors. In Ontario, the provincial government indefinitely suspended parts of the province's Environmental Bill of Rights, allowing other regulations to be approved with reduced oversight and public consultation. Newfoundland and Labrador was alone in permanently amending environmental assessment timelines. British Columbia, on the other hand, was the sole jurisdiction to change a rule to address constraints faced by the public, suspending public appeal filing deadlines to support public participation in project decisions. As the virus is brought under control, government should move swiftly to restore suspended environmental protections. Agencies must now be held to account for ensuring, at minimum, a timely return to the status quo. Where regulators are practicing enforcement discretion, fair and transparent enforcement decision-making is critical. Further, agencies have the opportunity to learn and adapt as a result of this experience, leading to smarter, more resilient environmental regulation in Canada. An important question warranting further inquiry, especially, is whether regulator actions were justifiable, ex post. What were the environmental, social and economic costs and benefits of these rule changes? The comprehensive database of rule changes presented in this paper could aid such future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two years ago, the Alberta government put in place a temporary oil-production quota. However, the quota's impact could well be felt in the province's oil production for years to come. The quota applied only to firms producing more than 10,000 barrels of oil per day and was instituted as a response to pipeline constraints that caused Alberta oil prices to be much lower than prices elsewhere. Production from both oilsands mines and oil wells dropped as soon as the government announced the quotas. The media warned that the quotas would force production to transfer to Saskatchewan, but the research for this paper found that this never occurred. The quota policy was announced in December 2018 and a week later, the price of Alberta oil had jumped from $29.09/bbl to $50.08 bbl, a 72 per cent rise. When the quota policy actually took effect the first of January 2019, the price increased again, but by much less. The anticipation of the quota alone was enough to create the desired price increase. The quota, which set limits for the total combined crude oil and bitumen permitted to be produced, was assigned to individual operators and designed to provide an 8.5 per cent reduction in oil production. The total quota was fixed at 3.56 million barrels a day in January 2019, but individual quotas could be traded across eligible operators, minimizing the overall costs of achieving the total goal. However, total production continued falling even when the quota was eventually relaxed; the market and a low world price created a scenario in which production fell below the amount permitted by the quota. All the oil companies reduced their production regardless of whether they fell within the quota's guidelines or not; however, the firms that were subject to the quota reduced their production more than the others. The quota was lifted in December 2020 when export capacity again became sufficient. While curtailing production had the desired result of raising Alberta oil prices and resolving the differential between local prices and the world benchmark, its ripple effects may well be felt in the longer term. This paper finds that fewer wells are being drilled and more wells are suspending production. Tradition dictates that when a well becomes inactive, it is rarely returned to a productive state. Those firms that resorted to low levels of drilling in order to meet the quota have created a situation that could affect Alberta oil production in the years ahead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an ambivalent twist of foreign policy, the Trump administration reordered Washington’s stance towards Beijing. In the wake of its tense relationship with China, the United States has abandoned much of its international leadership. There were high hopes of renewed American commitment to the international order when Joe Biden was elected in November 2020. The prospect for a greater international guidance from the Biden administration has yet to lead to a cohesive policy. In contrast, under the strong hand of Xi Jinping, China has taken a more decisive role in international affairs. It remains to be seen, however, if the rest of the world is ready to follow in China’s footsteps. This state of affairs leaves us in the uncomfortable situation where we must assess two daunting traps facing the future of the international system. On one hand, reminiscent of Thucydides’ trap, we face the possibility of an escalation of tension that could inexorably lead to a direct confrontation between the two superpowers. On the other hand, an even less appealing scenario would take the form of a rudderless world bringing back painful memories of the 1930s. In this paper, we assess these two eventual consequences of the Sino-American confrontation, as well as possibilities of escaping those traps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pan-Canadian Framework was implemented in 2016 to help meet emission reduction targets set out by the Paris Agreement. Carbon pricing is at the foundation of this framework, where Alberta has used a carbon-credit market to reduce emissions from large-scale emitters. Agricultural producers voluntarily participate in these markets through agricultural carbon offset protocols; regulated emitters can purchase agricultural carbon credits to meet their emission reduction requirements. The main goal of these agricultural protocols is to reduce on-farm emissions through the adoption of best management practices (BMPs), alongside providing producers with the potential benefit of earning additional revenue by selling carbon credits on the market. While producers have participated in the market for quite some time, the impact of the market on Alberta agricultural producers is unknown. The main objective of this paper is to understand this impact by analyzing two considerations: 1) emission reductions (or removals) from agricultural protocols; and 2) economic benefits to producers from participating in the carbon offset market. After a case study of current agricultural carbon offset protocols, the results suggest producers are mainly participating for the economic benefits stemming from the adoption of BMPs, rather than the potential revenue from selling carbon credits on the market. Results also show protocols have high emission reduction potential, but this analysis was limited due to a lack of publicly available data. The most significant observation is that the majority of protocol emission reductions come from one protocol, the Conservation Cropping Protocol. The remaining agricultural protocols have seen minimal uptake in participation, specifically from livestock producers, which is concerning given the retirement of the Conservation Cropping Protocol on December 31, 2021. The main consideration will be addressing current protocol shortcomings to ensure producers are willing and able to participate in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaningful incorporation of Indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) in climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts is key to accelerating effective action plans. This study argues that community-based environmental monitoring (CBEM), if done properly, can be more effective in incorporating ILK than environmental impact and monitoring based only on Western science. The paper examines successful elements, benefits, challenges and limitations in the existing CBEM studies that incorporate ILK to recognize how to design comprehensive CBEM policy for large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Canadian Northern Corridor (CNC) concept. Based on a proposed framework for CBEM implementation (CBEM-IF), the study examines three Canadian CBEM case studies: berry pollution monitoring (AB), water quality monitoring (AB, BC, NWT, NT, SK and YT) and caribou monitoring (QC and NL), to evaluate lessons learned and to inform future CNC policy development. This study illustrates how knowledge co-production provides more opportunities for actions in sustainable development and incorporates emotional and spiritual components that entail different conceptualizations of human-nature connectedness. CBEM facilitates the incorporation of ILK and science, engages community members in the monitoring process and produces research outcomes which stakeholders perceive as more legitimate and relevant. CBEM can be a powerful tool in land-use conflict resolution, and it represents an inexpensive approach to monitoring the Arctic and near-North. Indigenous leadership, technology incorporation and equal partnership with communities, and availability of institutional guidelines were identified as required to enable the proper implementation of CBEM programs within the CNC. However, certain limitations of CBEM include lack of policy and guidelines; high reliance on volunteers; lack of standardized methods; focus on specific types of a landscape; general issues with TEK incorporation into science; and policy issues due to the incommensurability of Western science and the ILK epistemologies. Such challenges can be generalized as technical, organizational, financial and environmental issues and can be addressed by applying successful elements from previous international and Canadian CBEM studies. The authors suggest a series of policy recommendations to enable the implementation of CBEM as a means for meaningful incorporation of ILK on sustainable development projects and the CNC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived constraints on getting Canadian commodities to global markets have generated renewed interest in a cross-country infrastructure corridor, a concept that was initially conceived several decades ago. Consideration of the corridor concept exists in a broader context of fast-evolving jurisprudence in relation to the rights of Indigenous peoples in Canada. The Canadian legal landscape pertaining to those rights has evolved significantly in the years since the northern corridor concept was conceived, particularly with respect to Crown consultation obligations. Crown obligations in relation to the proposed corridor would be significant with respect to the rights and interests of Indigenous peoples. A cross-Canada corridor would, by its linear nature, directly and indirectly affect many diverse Indigenous communities that are situated in non-treaty, modern treaty and historical treaty contexts across the country. For example, the assessment and approval process for the Northern Gateway project involved more than 80 Indigenous communities and territories in Alberta and British Columbia, and the now-cancelled Energy East project would have crossed the traditional territory of 180 Indigenous communities on its route from Alberta to the Maritimes. Similarly, the review and approval process for the Trans Mountain Expansion project (TMX) involved at least 120 Indigenous communities along its route from the Edmonton area to Vancouver. In today's legal context, the Crown (i.e., federal or provincial governments, or both) must consult, and in some situations accommodate, Indigenous communities in situations where the Crown has actual or constructive knowledge of the existence or potential existence of Aboriginal rights or title and contemplates conduct that might adversely affect those rights or title, such as approval of major infrastructure projects. Pursuit of the corridor project, to the extent that it involves Crown action that may adversely affect established or asserted Aboriginal rights or title, would trigger the Crown's duty to consult, as would review and approval of specific infrastructure projects that may eventually fall within the corridor. The duty to consult doctrine emerged from the 2004 landmark cases of Haida and Taku, and courts have been engaged in an exercise of clarifying the nature and contours of the legal landscape in the years since. A primary focus of this research paper is on "meaningful consultation," a notion that is central in judicial decisions on the duty to consult in relation to major projects. Significant clarity now exists in the case law with respect to the duty to consult, including what constitutes meaningful consultation. As the Federal Court of Appeal recently stated in Coldwater First Nation v. Canada (Attorney General), the "case law is replete with indicia" of what constitutes meaningful consultation. In practical terms, meaningful consultation includes, for example, the Crown consulting in good faith, the existence of two-way dialogue, the opportunity to participate in the process and to make submissions, open-mindedness by the Crown about accommodation of Indigenous rights, demonstrable integration of Indigenous communities' concerns, substantive responses to information requests (including translation in some contexts), participation funding, and a view to accommodation of conflicting interests. However, as stated in Haida and the many duty to consult cases since, consultation obligations are highly context-dependent, driven by the nature of the proposed activity (e.g., a pipeline, a hydro dam, a road, regulatory or licensing regime changes, etc.), the potential impacts that such activities would have on a specific Indigenous community, and the nature of the asserted or existing rights of that Indigenous community. Thus, Crown consultation duties would vary widely along the corridor route. Consultation and accommodation that may satisfy the Crown's obligations in one context may not be sufficient elsewhere. For example, while consultation obligations in a modern treaty context would largely flow from relatively clear and explicit treaty provisions, such duties may be far less clear in a historical treaty or non-treaty context where the rights at issue may themselves be disputed or unclear. This diversity across Indigenous rights and interests would generate significant complexity in the pursuit of the corridor concept. This context-dependent nature of the duty to consult presents challenges for consultation in relation to the corridor because it is a relatively abstract undertaking. Even if eventually put forward as a concrete proposal, presumably premised as a legislated right-of-way that follows a specific route, it would be very difficult to anticipate all specific potential impacts and then have the Crown consult on all of them. Such difficulty would be exacerbated by the reality that the specific infrastructure projects to follow would be primarily private-sector driven, and it would be extremely difficult to predict which projects with which attributes privatesector actors will pursue. While it is conceivable that the corridor consultation process employs some kind of envelope approach and attempts to consult on the corridor's most likely uses (e.g., road, rail, pipeline, electrical transmission and communication networks), significant additional consultation would almost certainly be required as each specific project is proposed. Ultimately, however, under contemporary Canadian law and notwithstanding prevalent critiques from Indigenous communities, legal scholars and others, the duty to consult is primarily procedural in nature and provides legal authority for the Crown to proceed without the consent of Indigenous communities. So long as the duty to consult is satisfied, the Crown may proceed (though, as noted in this research paper, there are ensuing legal complexities to consider with respect to infringement of rights and associated justification by the Crown, which warrants further analysis in a subsequent study). Thus, there is a possible legal pathway to follow in pursuit of the corridor, but it is a complex one wherein the highly contextdependent Crown consultation obligations would have to be fulfilled with respect to the many diverse, affected Indigenous communities. In this context, Canadian history offers at least one model: the Berger Inquiry. The 1970s Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry, typically referred to as the Berger Inquiry, was a broad-based assessment of proposed major pipeline projects to transport oil and gas from the western Arctic region to southern Canada. It employed many features that today's courts point to as necessary for achieving meaningful consultation, such as community hearings, opportunities to ask questions and provide evidence, and participation funding. The new federal Impact Assessment Act may also have significant roles to play. For example, the minister could designate the corridor as a physical activity and it would undergo a full assessment under the act. The Crown could rely on the significantly increased legal responsibilities and authorities set out in the act for consulting Indigenous communities and incorporating their knowledge and input. Also, the corridor could be the focus of a regional assessment under the new act, wherein the government studies an area of anticipated development to inform planning and management of cumulative effects and uses that study to inform subsequent project-specific impact assessments. Such regional assessments could serve as an opportunity to engage in consultation with affected and potentially affected Indigenous communities. Notwithstanding these potential legal forums and the current state of Canadian law that permits Crown action without Indigenous consent so long as the duty to consult is discharged, the jurisprudence continues to evolve in ways relevant to the corridor. Most notably, in 2016 the federal government announced Canada's "full support" of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), including the declaration's reference to the concept of "free, prior and informed consent" (FPIC). The government has also committed to legislating the implementation of UNDRIP, a step already taken by the government of British Columbia. What implementation of UNDRIP means in today's Canadian legal context is evolving. To date, however, the federal government has largely adopted the view that UNDRIP and the notion of FPIC require only a good-faith effort to obtain consent, and not actually obtain consent in every instance. This is consistent with contemporary duty to consult case law indicating that consent is not required and there is no duty to agree. However, it is certainly foreseeable that this area of the law will continue to change. While the law is increasingly clear with respect to Crown consultation and accommodation obligations, the context-dependent nature of the legal framework presents significant challenges for pursuit of the corridor project, given its linear and relatively abstract natures. Further, this area of the law is evolving, particularly as governments move toward implementing UNDRIP. This article succinctly presents the diverse contexts of Indigenous rights and interests present in Canada today, provides clarity with respect to the concept of "meaningful consultation" in contemporary Canadian jurisprudence, and relates this body of law to the corridor concept. Critiques, complexities and points for further research are noted throughout, including with respect to future legal developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With federal political parties increasingly interested in new options for dental services, it's worth exploring two policy solutions to expand dental care into the public realm. Denticare would be a universal dental program for all Canadian residents. Denticaid would be a public dental insurance program for all Canadian children and uninsured adults. This paper estimates the costs of each option through micro-costing, which identifies the likely resources patients would use in each program and sums each unit cost in a given year to generate the estimated annual clinical cost. With no dental record-level information available for academic research, these estimates rely on survey data on oral health collected from across Canada. In particular, this paper uses the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) and the Canadian Health Measures Survey (CHMS), both released by Statistics Canada. When neither survey contains the necessary data to inform assumptions and costing, data from similar high-income jurisdictions are used. Denticare's costs are estimated using four key variables: the expected number of Canadians using dental services in a given year, the expected number of visits per year, the probability of dental treatments used per visit and the expected price of dental treatments. The first variable is based on Statistics Canada's 2016 census data, multiplied by their 2019 overall provincial population estimates. The second relies mostly on the CCHS question "when was the last time you visited the dentist?" The third variable uses Australian data and the fourth integrates data from a variety of provincial dental fee guides. High, low and baseline cost scenarios are included, with each province and territory's clinical costs projected five years after implementation in all three scenarios. To project future changes in service costs, the rate of price increase is calculated from changes between the 2015 and 2019 suggested fee schedules. Methods for micro-costing the denticaid program are similar to the denticare model and the variables are mostly treated similarly. However, the population variable is manipulated to account only for individuals without private dental insurance. There are limitations to this approach. The CCHS is only a telephone survey and does not collect dental data from across every province. The lack of pan-Canadian service-level use data meant that data from an Australian survey was used in its place. This model could not account for the effects of income on the frequency with which any particular dental treatment category is accessed per visit. Australia also covers most dental treatments for children, so use of dental services could be higher than what could be expected in Canada. To obtain a more exact picture, provincial governments should try to collect service-level data on dental use and dental practice activity. However, this paper does provide Canadian policy-makers interested in exploring some sort of public dental care program with a rigorous estimation of the reimbursement of clinical costs for the options of both denticare and denticaid programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite numerous national and international climate conferences, meetings and workshops leading to various greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets and agreements since the 1970s, total GHG emissions in Canada continue to increase. They reached 729 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2 eq) in 2018, with the Canadian agricultural sector contributing approximately 10 per cent of total GHGs emitted. Different regions of the country contribute different levels, face different challenges and have different capacities to address their GHG emissions. Designing climate guidelines, programs, policies and adopting best management practices (BMPs) that promote relevant local and regional adaptation and mitigation efforts is important. Mechanisms such as setting a carbon price, cap- and-trade systems and tax-based policies contribute to decreased GHG emissions. GHG emissions in Canada are regulated at the federal level via a national carbon pricing policy and provinces have set limitations on GHG emissions via pricing or taxation. Agriculture has the potential to mitigate GHG emissions by applying BMPs that reduce emissions and increase carbon storage in soils. Meanwhile, the pressure is increasing on the agricultural sector to increase production, both for local commodities and those destined for export, to feed a growing population. This paper explores agricultural policies and measures that encourage farmers and producers across Canada to reduce their GHG emissions. Specifically, national and provincial measures and implications are presented and compared to international measures and outcomes. Finally, recommendations are made for future climate policy research and adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infrastructure corridors are among the most complicated transactions in Canada. Establishing a pre-determined corridor and completing linear infrastructure projects within it requires transactions related to property rights, infrastructure planning, design, construction, financing, operation and maintenance, securing public support or social licence, and because of the long overdue recognition of Indigenous rights and title, informed support from affected Indigenous communities. This paper uses a comparative systems analysis to identify specific transaction costs in four areas -- historic, infrastructure development process, fiscal and economic systems. We argue these transaction costs can be significantly reduced by systematically implementing Indigenous fiscal, infrastructure and lands jurisdictions because this will permanently ensure that Indigenous communities and people are able to receive similar fiscal and economic benefits generated from infrastructure corridor projects as those enjoyed by other Canadians and other governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has not been left untouched by a new authoritarian, or ordered, populism that has seen the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union. Based on measurements of public opinion and other means developed to assess the phenomenon, this paper finds that populism in Canada is a significant political force, replacing the traditional left-right political spectrum. Not only has northern populism created a heightened partisan polarization in Canada, but it also proved to be a strong predictor of the outcome of the 2019 federal election. The authors' research shows that 34 per cent of Canadians maintain a populist outlook. Older, less-educated, working-class Canadians are the most likely to sympathize with ordered populism, and it is more prevalent in Alberta and Saskatchewan. It is also more closely aligned with Canadians whose political sympathies lie with conservative political parties. A number of factors have contributed to the rise of ordered populism. These include economic stagnation, the growing disparity between the wealthy and the middle and working classes, a sense that society is headed in the wrong direction and a backlash against the loss of traditional core values. Ordered populism rests on the belief in a corrupt elite, and the idea that power needs to be wrested from this elite and returned to the people. Oriented toward authoritarianism, ordered populism emphasizes obedience, hostility toward outgroups, a desire to turn back the clock to a time of greater order in society, and a search for a strongman type to lead the return to a better time. Nothing about ordered populism serves the public interest. Instead, its anti-democratic nature makes it incapable of solving the problems that spawned its rise in the first place. Ordered populism is xenophobic, mistrustful of science and journalism, and unsympathetic to equality and gender issues. Arising out of fear and anger, ordered populism is ultimately unhealthy for Western democracies and their societies and economies. Canada has yet to accord the rise of ordered populism the attention it deserves, although this paper explains why it is a critical force in this country that needs to be addressed. Currently, attitudes toward ordered populism are generally limited to sneering, derisiveness and denial, all of which do nothing to address the problem. Solving it requires understanding its roots. And if its origins lie in the collapse of the middle-class dream, then policy-makers will need to focus on creating a new economics of hope. Ordered populism is at the heart of stark divisions in Canada, and the 2019 federal election did little, if anything, to mend the rupture. Dissatisfaction with the election's results could forecast an even worse polarization in the near future, and increase the appeal of authoritarianism, if populism is left unaddressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper assesses the impact of the International Labour Organization's 1989 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention (ILO C-169) since it entered into effect in 1991. It compares advances on Indigenous Peoples' rights in key Latin American states that have ratified the convention (Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru) with two which have not (Australia and Canada). It analyzes each country's constitutional order, legislative and jurisprudential developments, as well as policy developments concerning Indigenous Peoples and their rights. In particular, the paper examines the Indigenous right to political participation and autonomy or self-government, as well as the right to land, territories and natural resources in each context. It also assesses the right of Indigenous Peoples to prior consultation and to free, prior and informed consent, as well as to participating in the benefits provided by resource extraction on their lands and territories. While important gaps and substantial differences in the implementation and current status of these rights can be identified among the states analyzed, all of them have made progresses since ILO C-169 came into effect. While ILO C-169 has directly and deeply influenced relations between Indigenous Peoples and states in Latin American countries that have ratified it, it has also had an indirect but nevertheless decisive impact in Australia and Canada. This can be seen in legal developments, jurisprudence and policies that concern Indigenous Peoples in these two countries. In this sense, ILO C-169 cannot be understood in isolation. Rather, it is part of a broader international legal corpus that has emerged in recent decades, and which has strongly influenced legal and jurisprudential transformations concerning Indigenous peoples' rights in both signatory and non-signatory countries, including Australia and Canada. This legal corpus has expanded in recent years, especially through the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which Canada and Australia initially did not adopt, but later endorsed. In addition, the convention has not only influenced states, but also discourses and strategies of Indigenous Peoples and the business community in these two countries, which have in turn also shaped their legal and policy developments concerning Indigenous rights. ILO C-169 represents a key step in the recognition and protection of Indigenous Peoples' rights. Whether directly or indirectly, and notwithstanding the many gaps still left to address, its impact demonstrates that there is no going back on Indigenous Peoples' rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Now, more than ever, governments and the public are recognizing the importance of health innovation. Precision health (PH) is the next frontier in medicine, enabling individually tailored ways to diagnose, treat and prevent disease in place of today's one-size-fits-all approach. Exploring new opportunities for economic growth is a priority in Alberta given the roller-coaster in recent years from reliance on hydrocarbon royalties coupled with resource-based economic divestment. PH offers Alberta the chance to diversify its economy by developing technology, attracting investment and creating a new health-care industry. As discussed in greater detail in a policy communiqué released alongside this research paper, PH comes with tremendous benefits. Foremost among these benefits is the ability to narrow health disparities among population groups and support social services in times of crisis. Plus, an Alberta-grown PH sector will fuel economic growth, innovation and lasting prosperity. Opportunities are expanding as the global PH market is forecast to grow by 11.3 per cent annually, reaching $141 billion in value by 2026. With a unified health system and many clinical and research strengths, Alberta is well placed to make great strides in PH. Government and universities are already working on PH strategies. However, success is not assured. The province is already dealing with severe fiscal constraints, especially in health care. This paper identifies several other policy issues, based on interviews with leaders in the public and private sectors. There are four main areas where Alberta faces challenges: innovation networks; facilitating discovery; governance and decision- making; and risk and procurement. Alberta's innovation networks are too fragmented, with too much competition and not enough collaboration. There is also a lack of supports and commercialization channels; entrepreneurs don't know where to turn or whom to talk to. Motivating researchers to develop and commercialize products is an especially contentious problem. Projects range from those with high commercial potential to theoretical concepts providing the foundation for future discovery. The interviews for this paper revealed a powerful divide between academics, who want the freedom to research their interests, and government and funding agency participants, who want specific goals and health-care challenges to receive the bulk of the dollars. Executing and co-ordinating a provincial PH strategy is another area where change is necessary. Governance is unclear and many participants are worried about the vagaries of politics affecting funding decisions. Research incentives are often misaligned or structured to produce impacts within one election cycle. This doesn't mean a single authority is required, since that likely would not align with existing structures in place. However, a central group charged with making high-level decisions about priorities might be a valuable resource. Finally, there's procurement and the tolerance of risk. AHS as a single service provider is beneficial in that it cuts down on duplication and overspending. But the system is also rigid and risk-averse, so it's not the ideal customer for SMEs or early-stage ventures. PH is far from a mature industry, meaning results are not guaranteed. There's a need to expand the comfort zones of the powers that be, so they are more willing to bet on innovations. There's also a need to bring promising products to their attention. Health care is not a traditional market with individual consumers, and administrators remote from clinical practice may not grasp the value of new technologies. This paper summarizes the findings of many interviews with decision-makers in health care, academia, government circles and the innovation sector. Much like PH, it presents solutions to specific problems confronting Albertans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 2019 MacKinnon report, commissioned by the Alberta government, recommended ending fee-for-service (FFS) as the model for paying primary care physicians because of its significant and inherent inefficiencies. Since then, the COVID-19 pandemic has also demonstrated the value of moving Alberta's family physicians to an alternative payment (APP) model. While the MacKinnon report was in favour of enacting legislation to change the compensation model, this paper instead recommends offering physicians a choice of alternative payment programs as an incentive to move on voluntarily from an FFS system. Other provinces have attempted to reform physicians' pay using a quadruple aim model for health-care improvement, which identifies the major points policy-makers must examine in instituting a replacement for FFS. The quadruple aim model is four-pronged and encompasses patient experience, population health, care team wellbeing and cost reductions. Alberta Health Services already uses the quadruple aim model to improve patient care and quality outcomes, although the MacKinnon report focused primarily on reducing costs. However, reforming doctors' compensation is not just about the amount they should be paid; it must also consider that the method of compensation has a profound impact on both cost and quality of care received. Meanwhile, the self-isolation and social distancing measures for both doctors and patients, established with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, have put Alberta's doctors on a policy roller-coaster. Applying the FFS compensation model during the pandemic has resulted in the use of virtual care codes such as telehealth billing and in-person limited assessment codes. However, these codes were immediately problematic because they do not adequately account for complex patient care that requires longer visits, after-hours premiums and the Rural Remote Northern Program. During a pandemic is not the right time to embark on physician compensation reform. This gives the government time to reconsider the controversial approach taken prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The need for compensation reform in Alberta is driven by the reality that Alberta has the highest proportion of physicians on FFS along with some of the highest FFS payments per physician in Canada. Meanwhile, family physicians in other provinces are now more likely to be covered by an APP rather than the former FFS system. The problem with FFS is that it tends to encourage physicians to create volume in number of patients seen per day, in order to increase compensation. Thus, it also encourages more diagnostic testing, which increases costs to the health-care system. In general, physicians compensated under FFS have much less incentive to consider costs when treating patients. The argument for legislating pay reform is poorly justified. No other province has legislated physicians out of the FFS system, and that is not a route Alberta should take, either. Nova Scotia has brought in a one-size-fits-all APP, while Ontario implemented a menu of higher paying APPs that produced greater downstream cost savings, making APPs an increasingly attractive payment option to family physicians. Ontario's approach would be better for Alberta because it improves patients' overall experience with primary care, their care outcomes and the wellbeing of those who care for the patients. Alberta should offer a menu of APP models tailored to primary care so that the family doctors themselves can choose the best model for their own practices. As this paper has demonstrated in its comparison of the experiences of other provinces, and as the COVID-19 affirms, the menu approach is the model most strongly aligned with the goals of quadruple aim. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the various structures used throughout the world to grant petroleum licences to industry players wishing to develop an oil and gas resource. It describes the various structures that are used, such as concessions, production-sharing agreements and joint ventures, among others. The paper goes on to describe the various economic obligations that governments impose on industry in return for granting rights under their petroleum licensing systems. Finally, it describes the various processes used by governments to grant these rights, such as public auctions of generic rights, public requests for proposal and negotiation, restricted invitations and negotiations. As a general theme, the paper concludes that no one petroleum licensing system or process for granting rights can be used in all cases. Rather, it suggests that these concepts should be tailored to the type of oil and gas resource to be developed. The paper's Schedule I also describes the petroleum licensing systems and award processes used by several countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is centred on the use of legislation as a tool of public action in health policy. We suggest that, as with the Canada Health Act (CHA) of 1984, this option should be considered to direct future reform efforts and pursue our collective aims of health and wellness. The CHA is the legislative expression of the federal government's exercise of its spending power, serving to consolidate key national agreements governing the circumstances under which the federal government contributes to the costs of medically necessary health services delivered by the provinces and territories. Two features of the CHA merit highlighting. The first is that its core provisions -- in particular, the five criteria often referred to as Canada's "national standards" for health care -- were not new or original to the CHA. The CHA was nonetheless an important step in the development of Canada's health system because it enshrined together, in one statute, longstanding commitments. A second feature of the CHA worth highlighting is that it does not stand alone. The CHA is one of 13 statutes across the country, including one in each province and territory, that serve together to establish the basic legal infrastructure of Canada's health insurance system. The CHA's powers to make regulations and issue policy interpretation letters offer important potential to achieve needed health system reforms without needing to "open" the act. Even where these powers are unrestricted by an express requirement for consultation with the provinces and territories, however, this would undoubtedly be required, given the fundamentally consensual nature of the CHA. Finally, the federal government's legislative options are not limited to the CHA. Jurisdiction over health and health care in Canada is shared between the federal and provincial and territorial governments. The various federal powers with health aspects allocated by the Constitution Act, 1867 are significant, including the residual "federal health power" to make laws "for the peace, order and good government of Canada" It therefore makes good sense to consider federal policy objectives in the health domain with regard for the full spectrum of federal legislative competence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health workers are the foundation of health systems. The alignment of health workforce structures and processes to achieve the quadruple aim outcomes is central to any learning health system. This requires robust data and evidence. A key problem is that Canada lags behind comparable OECD countries in terms of health workforce data and digital analytics. As a result, health workforce planning and decision-making tend to be ad hoc, sporadic and siloed by profession or jurisdiction, generating significant costs, inefficiencies and risks for all involved. 2 Health workers in Canada account for more than 10 per cent of all employed Canadians and over two-thirds of all health-care spending, which amounted to $175 billion in 2019, or nearly eight per cent of Canada's total GDP. 3 Recognizing these facts and supporting strategic health workforce planning, policy and management ought to be key priorities for federal and provincial/ territorial governments and other health-care organizations. Across all the different stakeholders that make up the complex, adaptive health workforce system in Canada, we lack a centralized and co-ordinated data, analytics and strategic planning infrastructure, a neglect that has been readily acknowledged for over a decade. COVID-19 has exposed the significant gaps in our knowledge about the health workforce, causing critical risks for planners to manage during a health crisis. The time is ripe for the federal government to take on a co-ordinating leadership role to enhance the data infrastructure that provinces, territories, regions and training programs need to better plan for and support the health workforce. Efforts should centre on three key elements that will improve data infrastructure, bolster knowledge creation and inform decision-making activities: • A minimum data standard and enhanced health workforce data collection across all stakeholders; • More timely, accessible, interactive and fit-for-purpose decision-support tools; • Capacity building in health workforce data analytics, digital tool design, policy analysis and management science. This vision requires an enhanced federal government role to contribute resources to co-ordinate the collection of accurate, standardized and more complete data to support analysis across occupations, sectors and jurisdictions, with links to relevant patient information, health-care usage and outcome data, for more strategic fit-forpurpose planning at all levels. This paper presents a vision for enhanced federal support of data-driven and evidence-informed health workforce planning, policy and management. First, two data infrastructure and capacity-building recommendations include: 1. The federal government should create an initiative dedicated to enhancing standardized health workforce data, purpose-built for strategic planning and associated decision-making tools for targeted planning, through a specially earmarked contribution agreement with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI). 2. In addition to the need to build better data, digital tools and decision-support infrastructure, there is a parallel need to build the human resources capacity for health workforce analytics. Through a special Canadian Institutes of Health Research-administered fund, this could include a strategic training investment in health workforce research and a complementary signature initiative to fund integrated research projects that cut across the existing scientific institutes. Building on these two necessary but insufficient building blocks, a co-ordinating national health workforce organization could include one of the following three options: 1. The federal government could create a dedicated agency with a mandate to enhance existing data infrastructure and decision-support tools for strategic planning, policy and management across Canada. 2. Through a contribution agreement, the federal government could support the creation of an arm's-length, not-for-profit organization -- a partnership for health workforce -- as a steward of a renewed strategy and to provide health labour market information, training and management of human resources in the health sector, including support for recruitment and retention. 3. The federal government could support the creation of a robust, transparent and accessible secretariat for a council on health workforce to improve data and decision-making infrastructures, and to bolster knowledge creation through dedicated funding to inform policy and decision-making and collaborate on topics of mutual interest across stakeholders. In addition to building a more robust health system for Canada's post-pandemic recovery, these actions would align with the World Health Organization's Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health (2016) which encourages all countries to have institutional mechanisms in place by 2030 to effectively steer and co-ordinate an intersectoral health workforce agenda and established mechanisms for health workforce data sharing through national health workforce accounts. Because of the importance of the health workforce to Canada's economy and pandemic recovery, building the necessary infrastructure requires a sizable and sustained investment over the course of at least 10 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strains that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on Canada's health-care system, coupled with the premiers' resultant calls for a massive expansion of the Canada Health Transfer (CHT), require improvements to health-care funding. This paper examines three potential pathways federal policy-makers could consider in drafting proposals for funding improvements. One option is to keep the status quo and preserve the CHT as it is. A second option involves incremental demographic adjustments to boost the CHT as populations age. Third, a joint federal-provincial-territorial taxation regime could be created which would transform the funding system, but could pose challenges to implement. These options offer policy-makers a means to take into consideration both citizens' concerns about the health-care system and the demands of provincial and territorial governments. None of these pathways is mutually exclusive; they can be combined in various ways as well. Nor does any new policy need to focus solely on the CHT. Decision-makers should always be open to alternative policy designs. They also need to consider that the status quo is acceptable too, as provincial and territorial governments have the necessary taxation powers and fiscal ability to cover additional health-care costs, even with a projected increase in spending from 7.5 per cent of GDP in 2019 to 9.5 per cent by 2050. While large transfers of funds from the federal government to the provinces and territories are disconnected from health program costs, they address the spillover costs between provinces created by factors such as retirees disproportionately moving to British Columbia or the Atlantic Provinces. The decade of 2009 to 2019 saw 171,000 Canadians aged 65 and over move to a different province, with one-quarter of those going to British Columbia. With average annual health-care costs of that demographic pegged at $12,000 per person, these moves created a net fiscal cost of almost $150 million annually for B.C. This could be dealt with by increasing the CHT so that it is indexed to an aging population. Making this indexing province-specific is a further option, which would mean that provinces with more rapidly aging populations, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, would see faster CHT growth. The final option, a jointly governed regime could possibly eliminate the CHT and use, for example, the 15 per cent federal corporate tax for health-care funding, distributing the revenues through an agreed-upon allocation arrangement. Apart from the status-quo option, the other two potential policies face challenges in implementation, but these challenges can be resolved through dialogue between the federal government and the provinces and territories. The premiers whose provincial health-care systems suffered the most during the COVID-19 surges want more money to shore up those systems, not only because of the demands the pandemic placed on health care, but also because of the rising costs created by the baby boomers moving into their senior years and requiring more health care. Policy-makers need to carefully consider these three options to find the best funding model which will enable governments to not only deal with the boomers' demographic bulge, but also be prepared for the next pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2018, the federal government coordinated point-in-time counts in 61 Canadian communities. These counts, all conducted over the course of a few nights during the months of March and April, revealed that 25,216 people were experiencing homelessness. Of those, 20,803 slept in emergency shelters while 4,481 slept on the streets, in cars, or in some other unsuitable place. Reviewing the data for 49 of those 61 communities, this paper examines the impact of community-level conditions on the prevalence of homelessness. The structural determinants of both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness are examined. The analysis shows that more expensive low-quality rental units have a strong positive relationship with the numbers of people staying in homeless shelters. A higher percentage of people in a community living in poverty is also related to increased numbers of people having to make use of homeless shelters. Increases in social assistance income, which undoubtedly improved the well-being of recipients, had no significant relationship with the number of people experiencing homelessness. This latter result is consistent with individuals and families with low income having a small income elasticity of housing demand. For these individuals and families, marginal additions to income are first used to relieve constraints on their budgets for food, utilities, and other necessities rather than being used to finance improvements in housing conditions. The fraction of the population that self-identifies as Indigenous is positively related to both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness, a result consistent with claims of discrimination in housing markets. Finally, a milder climate is associated with higher numbers of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. These results suggest the most effective policy response to addressing homelessness is to lower the cost of shelter, an outcome best achieved by increasing the supply of shelter that can be afforded by individuals and families with limited income. To this end, public policies directed toward reducing the cost of construction, policies that include reviewing density restrictions and land-use regulations and offering tax incentives, can be effective. Preventing the disappearance of single-room occupancy hotels, boarding houses, trailer parks and other forms of housing affordable to people with limited income are other policy responses likely to be associated with decreases in homelessness. Increasing the stock of government-owned housing is another policy option, one best suited for providing housing for people whose homelessness is caused or exacerbated by disability, mental illness, substance abuse or other health issues requiring other support services. Marginal increases in income support, while important for increasing the well-being of individuals and families with limited income, are unlikely to be associated with decreases in homelessness unless they are sufficiently large to significantly reduce rates of poverty in the community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy sector is the single largest source of CO2 emissions and reducing its carbon intensity is critical to effectively tackling climate change. A great and yet largely untapped potential to reduce its emissions lies with oil and gas companies. Cognizant of this potential, in recent years several international oil companies (IOCs), publicly traded organizations with large capital access and wide geographical reach, have looked to effectively reduce their carbon intensity by shifting their operations to non-core lowcarbon energy development. In addition to bringing about positive climate-driven outcomes, the IOCs that have embraced this energy transition strive to leverage business opportunities presented by political and social environments which are progressively more aware of the energy sector's contributions to climate change. As much as this paradigm shift has sparked great interest by an increasing number of stakeholders in the energy sector, most national oil companies (NOCs) are notoriously absent. In comparison to IOCs, not only do NOCs dominate the global oil and gas industry, but they typically enjoy more favourable industry conditions, as they benefit from improved capital access and governmental support. This is because their overall value proposition, business strategies and budgets are interlinked with, or heavily influenced by, government policies. Under a mutable business environment which favours the development of energy resources with low- or zero-carbon content, it is reasonable to anticipate that national governments will become more determined to join the energy transition through their NOCs for two main reasons: meeting their national targets under global emissions reductions commitments while sustaining shareholder value. Moreover, given the complex efforts and resources in carrying out decarbonization at a pace and scale that effectively helps mitigate climate change, it is more likely that the world will enter a stronger decarbonization pathway if the largest economies and their NOCs fully embrace such an initiative. The implementation of this initiative at a truly deep scale would eventually allow NOCs in these economies to transform themselves into no-carbon NOCs (No-C NOCs) that would strive for socially accountable sustainable growth, higher economic value and meaningful contributions in the global fight against climate change. This paper analyzes these issues and advances a proposal for the G20, which combines some of the largest oil and gas producer and consumer economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Canadian government is now openly discussing the possibility of making cyberweapons part of its official national defence strategy. The new development was revealed in a recent government white paper, entitled "Strong, Secure, and Engaged" (SSE), which outlined defence policy across a wide range of activities. Specifically, the paper discusses working toward a "more assertive posture in the cyber domain by hardening our defences, and by conducting active cyber operations against potential adversaries in the context of governmentauthorized military missions" with an explicit commitment to developing cyberattack capabilities. This direction not only opens up new possibilities for Canadian defence, it could also represent significant new risks. Without good answers to the difficult questions this new direction could raise, the country could be headed down a very precarious path. Cyberweapons do offer unique benefits. Since they tend to be far less costly to deploy than kinetic weapons - such as missiles, bombs and guns - they can level the playing field between richer, stronger states and weaker, poorer ones. Larger states may even be at further disadvantage by relying on larger, more sophisticated computer systems that could become a liability if successfully attacked. However, to date, countries have been reluctant to deploy cyberweapons in lieu of kinetic weapons. Furthermore, in those cases where cyberweapons appear to have been used by state actors, no state has accepted responsibility for using them. The Stuxnet virus used to cripple Iran's nuclear research equipment is a prime example: Israel and the U.S. remain the primary suspects, but both deny involvement. Cyberweapons also possess risks of unintended consequences that can make the unintended consequences of kinetic weapons seem trivial. Notably, cyberweapons have a much greater potential to impact targets that were not intended by the attacker. For instance, when a virus-like computer weapon is unleashed on the Internet to exploit vulnerabilities in certain system software in a target country, there is a real possibility that the virus could also infect and damage computer systems inside the attacker's own country that use the same software, or even infect the software of allies who use the software. It is also possible that the weapon could have unintended consequences within the target country, by infecting other systems that were never meant to be targeted and causing more collateral damage than expected. Launching a cyberweapon to disable an enemy's supply-chain computer systems and accidentally infecting its nuclear systems, setting off a nuclear incident, is a terrifying scenario. It might even rise to the level of a war crime. It is worth noting, however, that there are no international treaties governing the use of cyberweapons. If Canada engages in cyberwarfare without one, there will be no formal limits on what actions are acceptable and what actions are not. Indeed there are many discussions that still must be had within Canada and beyond to mitigate the risk of pursuing cyberweapons. The mere act of announcing someday that we are developing cyberweaponry (which, to be clear, Canada has not done) will already carry risk, suddenly making Canada suspect in future unattributed attacks, and perhaps enticing other countries to disguise their attacks by routing them through Canada. It is unclear even whether a prime minister or Parliament will be qualified to safely declare cyberwarfare, given its technical complexity. These are just some of the debates we need to have before Canada decides to embark on developing cyberwarfare capabilities. Now is a good time for those debates to start. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poised to implement its own Property Assessed Clean Energy program (PACE), Alberta is in an ideal position to develop regulations that address the program's main issues by learning from other jurisdictions' experiences with PACE. The goal of PACE is to help Albertans live greener by providing financing for clean energy upgrades to their properties. The funding would take the form of a loan repaid through an annual amount added to their property taxes. A 2018 survey reported that 68 per cent of Albertans believe the provincial economy would benefit by transitioning to lower carbon energy sources. Nova Scotia's experience has borne out PACE's intrinsic value - homes with PACE-financed upgrades in that province reduced their total energy consumption by 33 per cent, thus saving approximately 10 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year for each home. This paper examines the experiences with PACE in both the U.S. and Canada and offers a framework for creating an Alberta model. Still at square one with newly enacted legislation, the Alberta government must address through regulation such issues as the size of PACE loans, eligibility requirements for property owners, what types of environmental upgrades will be permitted and even the interest rate on loans funding the program. The mayors of Calgary and Edmonton along with officials of smaller Alberta municipalities have expressed their enthusiasm for a provincial PACE program. However, Alberta will face a number of unique challenges first. The downturn in the provincial economy, combined with the decline in household income, the highest personal debt levels in Canada and the highest unemployment rate in the country, may make Albertans averse to taking on more personal financial obligations. Finding trustworthy contractors, getting estimates and researching the products available for the desired upgrades can also add up to an exhaustive effort that could deter busy homeowners. Clarity around the terms of the PACE lien will be a key factor for the program's success in Alberta, as the lien has proven problematic elsewhere. The lien is supposed to be attached to the property and not the owner, but the U.S. has seen numerous instances in which buyers insisted the PACE lien be paid off before the sale closed or demanded that the seller lower the asking price to account for the loan's outstanding balance. Problems with PACE in the U.S. have also included unethical and fraudulent practices on the part of contractors who have targeted low-income homeowners and the elderly, upselling them and falsely promising them large tax refunds from the renovations. The Alberta government will need to find a way forward that combines best practices from other jurisdictions with a regulatory framework that addresses PACE's shortcomings. To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, being green may not be easy, but PACE's challenges are not insurmountable. The research in this paper offers a starting point from which the Alberta government can fashion a strong and equitable PACE program that would be a model for other jurisdictions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The federal government has pledged to update Canada's official development assistance (ODA) policy and this paper examines the potential important role of remittances in the development program. Remittances can serve as a significant form of cross-border capital flows and can have sizable effects on both the sending and receiving countries. This policy piece provides an overview of trends in global remittances and gives a context for the policy discussion on the relationship between remittances and ODA. The paper discusses the primary reasons behind global remittances and their impacts on sending and receiving countries, with a particular emphasis on Canada, the United States and Mexico. Past findings provide insight into the reasons and impacts of remittances on both developed and developing countries. Within the context of Canada, the paper also examines how remittances have been able to complement and possibly drive other development reform efforts domestically and abroad. The goal of the analysis is to help inform the policy discussion in Canada and concludes with a set of policy recommendations for the Canadian federal government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alberta does not have a land transfer tax on the sale of real property, nor should the province contemplate bringing one in. Instead, if the Alberta government seeks new tax revenue, it should institute a sales tax or raise property taxes. This paper examines previous research on land transfer taxes in Canada, Australia and Europe, and concludes that such a tax would only add its own volatility to that inherent to Alberta's resource revenue-based economy. Calculations show that a one-per-cent land transfer tax in Alberta would have yielded between $460 million and $500 million for provincial coffers in 2017. However appealing that amount of revenue sounds, the tax's benefits do not outweigh its drawbacks. Land transfer values in Alberta can undergo substantial changes from one year to the next, making a land transfer tax a highly precarious revenue source. Given the already volatile fluctuations in Alberta's fiscal situation due to its boom-and-bust economy, the volatile nature of a land transfer tax would be thrown into the mix, thus compounding the difficulty of making budget decisions. Nor would a land transfer tax benefit Albertans who are in the market for a home. Studies show that such taxes discourage residential real estate transactions because of the burden of the added fees involved. They also impose a larger welfare loss per dollar of tax revenue than do residential property taxes. Further, while placing a larger financial burden on real estate transactions, the revenue generated by land transfer taxes does not displace or exceed the revenue that property taxes bring in. If land transfer taxes are burdensome for homebuyers, they are equally so for sellers who may be compelled to lower their asking prices to make up for the extra costs the tax imposes. This leads to a drop in fair market value of homes with a negative impact on the volume and value of real estate transactions. While a land transfer tax could potentially raise a significant amount of revenue for the Alberta government it still would be insufficient to cover the province's current fiscal deficit. The situation would be made worse by a negative spin-off effect for the economy due to the reduction of transactions, and a slippage in tax revenues because of declines in the value and volume of land transfers. This paper estimates those declines to be between five and 15 per cent, based on a land transfer tax rate of three per cent, which should be the highest rate if the Alberta government ever considers creating such a tax. Meanwhile, the land transfer tax would exact a relatively high tax payment from middle-income families - as high as seven per cent of median household income in Calgary and Edmonton - which could add a substantial amount to the mortgage debt for these families. Real estate transactions in Alberta are currently subject to a land titles fee, with property taxes being the standard for raising revenue from homeowners. This system should not be revamped in favour of a land transfer tax, as such a move would only be to the detriment of the provincial economy and to individual Albertans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When considering an increase in their non-residential property tax rates, Alberta municipalities must also take into account the adverse effects such an increase will likely have on business investment in their communities. Based on data on commercial and industrial permit values for 17 Alberta cities from 1998 to 2017, this paper shows that increasing the non-residential property tax rate corresponds to a drop in businesses investment in buildings and structures. Raising the non-residential property tax rate by, for example, 10 per cent results in a seven per cent drop in business investment. Businesses have long expressed concerns about municipal government's excessive reliance on taxing commercial and industrial property. The issue has become particularly salient in Alberta since the City of Calgary increased its non-residential property tax rate, not only to replace its business tax, but also to offset the decline in the property tax base from the reduction in the assessed value of downtown office buildings. Calgary rationalized that eliminating the business tax and shifting the tax burden to the non-residential property tax would boost the city's competitiveness and attractiveness, besides contributing to improved administrative efficiency in the tax system. The business tax that the city eliminated was responsible for almost a quarter of non-residential and business tax revenues. However, the city envisioned that eliminating this tax and transferring its onus to the non-residential property tax would generate the same amount of revenue. This study finds that if the non-residential property tax rate is increased by one mill -- the tax rate per $1,000 of property value -- there is a concordant drop in annual real per capita commercial and industrial building permits by about $39.37. This then creates a boomerang effect - a decline in investment results in a lower stock of capital and a corresponding reduction in property and income tax bases in the future. With higher tax rates eroding tax bases, revenues thus cannot keep pace proportionately. Taxes on residential and non-residential property in Alberta make up about half of the total revenues for the province's municipalities. Property taxes are vital for financing local public services. While this study shows that spending more on municipal services does not significantly affect business investment, or business decisions on where to locate, increasing non-residential property taxes has a negative impact on such decisions and investments. Policy-makers in other Alberta municipalities observing the effects of the City of Calgary's recent hike in non-residential property taxes in the midst of an economic downturn should take into account the potential adverse effects on local economic growth and their municipal revenue bases. This study will contribute to informed policy-making in the province's municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving access to domestic and international markets can create large economic benefits. Multimodal infrastructure corridors of road, rail, utilities and communications can improve accessibility by reducing interprovincial and international trade costs. Depending on the geographical area they serve and the modes of transport and types of connections they promote, infrastructure corridors can create trade-offs and synergies between different kinds of economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Yet the implied effects can vary across different regions, population segments and industries. A complete review of a proposed infrastructure corridor package involves a rigorous analysis of all of these potential effects. In this paper, we focus more specifically on quantifying potential gains from reductions in trade costs on Alberta's economy and identify the importance of improved access to lower cost transportation options like rail for select commodities. We find that lowering trade costs substantially increases Alberta's real GDP through its effect on international and interprovincial trade flows. Although interprovincial tariffs on domestic goods are forbidden by the Canadian Constitution, the economic effect of internal non-tariff trade barriers is substantial. Albrecht and Tombe (2016) show that eliminating these interprovincial trade costs would increase Canada's GDP between three to seven per cent. These barriers represent additional costs on Canadian firms and adversely affect their competitiveness in domestic and international markets. High interprovincial trade costs may also pose an additional barrier to entry for foreign firms otherwise willing to enter the Canadian market. As a result of this, Canadian firms end up producing at a less efficient scale and pass the cost of these inefficiencies to consumers. Interprovincial trade costs therefore hurt both producers and consumers. Gains from improved infrastructure are also amplified by the interconnected nature of industries. Output of one industry is often an input for another industry. Shipments cross provincial and national borders as part of these supply-chain relationships which allow for more efficient production but at the same time create additional trade costs on producers. Infrastructure corridors provide one option to lower these trade costs by increasing transportation capacity, creating savings in travel time and distance, creating better quality physical transport infrastructure, simplifying the regulatory and legislative differences across provinces and territories, and improving access to information, to name a few. To quantify the potential effect of increased transportation infrastructure on trade costs, we combine rich data on interprovincial trade flows and shipment-level information on volumes, values, and transportation costs by mode. We empirically estimate the potential for increased rail shipment capacity on shipment costs between various internal trade pairs within Canada. Two key results stand out. First, we find that while distance is an important factor, a higher share of shipments by rail is associated with markedly lower trade costs. Specifically, we find a 10 percentage point increase in the share of value shipped by rail is associated with a 3.2 per cent lower aggregate cost of trade after controlling for commodity, source, and destination of shipments. Second, we also find important differences in the relevance of rail across commodities. We find larger trade costs reductions for coal, mineral products, and fuel oils. The focus on rail is an important one for Alberta since coastal or canal shipping is not a feasible alternative. As a natural next step, we then evaluate the potential gains to Alberta's economy from increased access to internal and international markets that improved infrastructure might provide. We find that lowering trade costs substantially increases Alberta's real GDP through its effect on international and interprovincial trade flows, in both the short run and the long run. The results show that, in the short run, lower trade costs by one per cent increases real GDP by roughly 0.8 per cent and lower trade costs by five per cent increases real GDP by roughly 4.4 per cent. These correspond to approximately $3 billion to $15 billion per year in additional economic activity in Alberta. We find larger gains in the long-run, equivalent to roughly a one per cent increase in real GDP for each one per cent reduction in trade costs. Gains from lower trade costs come primarily through lower cost access to imported inputs and final goods. There are also gains from increased demand by purchases outside Alberta on goods produced by Albertans. This increases real incomes and productivity, which is captured by the increase in real GDP. The combined results of lower import costs and an increase in GDP imply an about six per cent long-run increase in real personal income, equal to an extra $6,423 annually for the median Alberta family. This is a level effect and represents a persistent increase, not a one-time bump. That is, GDP is permanently higher and by extension, annual personal incomes are also permanently higher. Although we don't explore the infrastructure investment options for lowering the trade costs by these levels, the corresponding impacts on real GDP of doing so indicate how high the costs of expanding infrastructure could be while still yielding net benefits to Alberta. An infrastructure corridor could facilitate the expansion of Canada's rail shipment capacity. While many transportation modes could expand within such a corridor -- including roads, pipelines, transmission lines and so on -- our data allow us to specifically quantify the extent to which Alberta's economy could gain from more access to lower cost shipment options like rail. Rail shipment costs are lower than truck transportation when distances are sufficiently long. We find that each one percentage point increase in the share of non-air trade sent by rail is associated with a 0.32 per cent lower trade cost. This implies that if the share shipped by rail increased by 10 percentage points, then trade costs to and from Alberta would, on average, decline by 3.2 per cent. Expanding the rail capacity is particularly valuable for Alberta, since increasing the share of exports shipped by rail by ten 10 percentage points may increase Alberta's GDP by nearly 1.5 per cent in the short-run and over 2.5 per cent in the long-run -- equivalent to over $9 billion per year in economic activity. This is a relatively large increase in economic productivity -- equivalent to roughly $4,500 per household, on average, per year -- and, in addition, it abstracts from other potential sources of gains, such as increased labour migration into the province. The combined increase in GDP and lower import costs from increased rail penetration imply an increase in real personal income. It is more modest here at approximately 3.3 per cent (rather than six per cent), but still very significant and equal to an extra $3,419 annually for the median Alberta family. As before, it is important to note that this is a level effect and represents a persistent increase and permanently higher annual GDP and annual personal incomes. Our analysis is only a first step and explores only one potential effect of expanding infrastructure capacity. Overall, the potential for positive economic effects from multimodal infrastructure corridors is compelling and warrants additional investigation. Governments can play a role by supporting expanded research activities into the feasibility and potential benefits of dedicated multimodal infrastructure corridors in Canada. In addition, though we made progress using detailed shipment-level data, there are shortcomings in coverage and detail that constrain the scope for potential research. Governments should therefore increase the collection and reporting of relevant data on internal trade to facilitate research into the costs producers and consumers face, and the potential gains from internal trade liberalization. Despite the value of expanding research capacity, our analysis points clearly towards the potential gains from internal trade liberalization. Expanded transportation infrastructure capacity can lower trade costs, and therefore governments hoping to expand internal trade should explore means of increasing such capacity, especially the possibility of increased rail shipment capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada has used the same two-factor formula with a 50-50 weighting for the allocation of taxable income between provinces for 61 years. The intra-country formula allocation (FA) was developed when natural resource extraction and manufacturing were more important in economic activity than now. The FA thus may need to be updated to reflect a changing 21st century economy. Canadian provinces set their own tax rates, while most use the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to collect corporate income tax (CIT). This paper examines the differences in the provinces' CIT rates for some recent years, and what might happen if the formula were changed, particularly when companies operating in more than one jurisdiction pay taxes according to varying provincial rates. Businesses operating in more than one jurisdiction accounted for an average share of total revenue of 42 per cent in 2014-2016. In 2011, there were 23,810 such businesses in Canada, making up 2.3 per cent of the total number of businesses and 43.4 per cent of all employees. If a business operates in several provinces, then provincial governments split the taxable corporate income using the FA mechanism. There are 10 rules for the mechanism, depending on specific business sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Failures in governance can jeopardize the responsibility of regulatory authorities to protect the public. Since governments set mandates for regulatory authorities under their jurisdiction, it's up to the former to mitigate the risk with effective oversight and legislation. Effective oversight should be founded on the five core principles of good governance: accountability, leadership, integrity, stewardship and transparency. In practice, regulatory authorities need leadership, ethics and a culture committed to good governance. They need strong relationships with stakeholders, effective risk management, both internal and external compliance and ongoing monitoring, evaluation and support. Unfortunately, jurisdictions do not always follow these principles and practices. As an example, several agencies found that the Alberta Energy Regulator, significantly exceeded its mandate in establishing an affiliated consultancy. Controls and processes to protect against conflicts of interest failed, while board oversight and AER leadership did not create a healthy corporate culture and the CEO grossly mismanaged public funds and assets. The results of three investigations into the AER led to new processes for board and CEO accountability, improved staff relations, retraining, closer watch of executive expenses, and improved channels of communication between the CEO and board and the board with government. Above all, the government of Alberta learned that when pursuing new and innovative activities, it must carefully define mandates; and that effective whistleblowing processes are vital to uncovering misdeeds. While the investigations focused on wrongdoing at the top, this paper identifies three other areas of concern. First, there is a lack of co-operation among regulatory agencies. Second, Self-Regulating Professional Organizations (SRPOs) are often reluctant to engage on issues involving licensed corporate entities or professionals. Third, members often see SRPOs as clubs rather than regulators. These flaws are evident in the AER's case. Anywhere from 10-50 individuals were involved, directly or indirectly, in wrongdoing -- including public servants, licensed professionals and members of quasi-regulatory associations or societies. Many of these people were professionals bound by clear codes of conduct, but these professionals did not approach this respective SRPOs with complaints about inappropriate behaviours at their employer. To ensure regulatory bodies stay within their mandates, governments should define the limits of allowable activities and use open, competitive recruitment processes to find competent leaders. They should also consider appointing respected members of the relevant stakeholder community to the selection panel. Governments must also establish competency and experience criteria for board members and the board chair to guarantee in-depth knowledge and avoid conflicts of interest; and back this up with transparent annual reports to government and the public. Boards and governments should establish equally strict criteria for choosing a regulatory body's CEO, with an emphasis on exceptional leadership skills, openness to performance assessment and knowledge of risk management. These are crucial steps if governments are to maintain public trust and confidence in regulatory agencies. Similar accountabilities should apply to agency employees who are members of SRPOs; they should be ready to seek guidance from SRPOs if faced with possible ethical breaches. Proper governance principles and best practices should be at the heart of every regulatory agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]