Study
| EST. READ TIME 2 MIN.Fraser Forum - May/June 2013: Value for money in health care: Varying performances across Canada
In this issue:
Balanced budget in BC comes with short- and long-term pain
by Jason Clemens, Niels Veldhuis, and Milagros Palacios
BC Liberals have put an emphasis on balancing the budget over the next year.
BC’s Prosperity Fund: A good idea if designed properly
by Jason Clemens and Niels Veldhuis
Careful attention to the details will be needed for the BC Prosperity Fund to work.
How much would Alberta’s Heritage Fund be had it followed Alaska’s or Norway’s rules?
by Robert Murphy and Jason Clemens
Alaska and Norway offer clear lessons for management of Alberta’s Heritage Fund.
Canada’s $6.4 billion corporate welfare budget
by Mark Milke
The federal budget contains a plethora of subsidies to a variety of businesses.
Comprehensive review of the Investment Canada Act desperately needed
by Niels Veldhuis
What are the regulations for foreign purchase of Canadian companies?
Return of the PST darkens the BC economy
by Charles Lammam and Hugh MacIntyre
Doing away with HST in BC will effect the competitiveness of businesses there.
Lessons for Canada from the US’s Earned Income Tax Credit experience
by Niels Veldhuis and Jason Clemens
Canadians should take note of tax credit changes occurring south of the border.
Leaving Canada for medical care, 2012
by Nadeem Esmail
How many Canadians are leaving the country to seek faster access to health care?
Overheated rhetoric
by Kenneth P. Green and Joel Wood
The Leader of the Opposition’s stance on the Kyoto protocol is misguided.
Value for money in health care: Varying performances across Canada
by Bacchus Barua and Nadeem Esmail
Do Canadians receive good value for their health care costs?
Silver lining in Afghanistan?
by Alan W. Dowd
Afghanistan’s future could lie in its vast natural resources.
Regulation review: Big gulp bans are misguided
by Joel Wood
Why a recent proposed ban for large pop servings in New York would not fight obesity.
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Jason Clemens
Executive Vice President, Fraser Institute
Jason Clemens is the Executive Vice President of the Fraser Institute and the President of the Fraser Institute Foundation. Hehas an Honors Bachelors Degree of Commerce and a Masters Degree in Business Administration from the University of Windsor as well as a Post Baccalaureate Degree in Economics from Simon Fraser University. Before rejoining the Fraser Institute in 2012, he was the director of research and managing editor at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute and prior to joining the MLI, Mr. Clemens spent a little over three years in the United States with the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute. He has published over 70 major studies on a wide range of topics, including taxation, government spending, labor market regulation, banking, welfare reform, health care, productivity, and entrepreneurship. He has published over 300 shorter articles, which have appeared in such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily, Washington Post, Globe and Mail, National Post, and a host of U.S., Canadian, and international newspapers. Mr. Clemens has been a guest on numerous radio and television programs across Canada and the United States. He has appeared before committees of both the House of Commons and the Senate in Canada as an expert witness and briefed state legislators in California. In 2006, he received the coveted Canada’s Top 40 Under 40 award presented by Caldwell Partners as well as an Odyssey Award from the University of Windsor. In 2011, he was awarded (along with his co-authors) the prestigious Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award for the best-selling book The Canadian Century. In 2012, the Governor General of Canada on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, presented Mr. Clemens with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his contributions to the country.… Read more -
Niels Veldhuis
President, Fraser Institute
Niels Veldhuis serves as President of the Fraser Institute, Canada’s most influential think tank.In his over 20-plus-year career in publicpolicy, Niels has authored six books and more than 50 peer-reviewed studies on a wide range of economic topics. In 2011, he was awarded (along with his co-authors) the prestigious Sir Antony Fisher International Memorial Award for the best-selling book, The Canadian Century.Highly regarded for his opinions and perspectives on major economic and social issues, Niels appears regularly in the media across Canada and the United States. He has written hundreds of commentaries that have appeared in over 50 newspapers, including the Globe and Mail, Wall Street Journal, National Post, and The Economist.Known for his ability to explain matters of economics and government policy in a down-to-earth and easily understood manner, Niels travels widely across North America. His speaking engagements extend to diverse audiences, including business groups, corporate gatherings, community organizations, and students.Niels has had the privilege of sharing the stage and moderating discussions with prominent business and political leaders from around the world. Notable individuals include Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and BC Premier Gordon Campbell. He has also moderated discussions with distinguished Canadian journalists such as Chantal Herbert, Andrew Coyne, and Rex Murphy, as well as diplomats such as Canada’s Ambassador to China and Israel’s Ambassador to Canada. Niels moderated a discussion between United States Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in 2011 and has facilitated conversations with impactful authors like Mosab Hassan Yousef (author of "Son of Hamas") and Lord Conrad Black.Niels Veldhuis is an alumnus of Simon Fraser University, was one of Vancouver’s Top 40 under 40 by Business in Vancouver in 2010, and is a member of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO).… Read more -
Milagros Palacios
Director, Addington Centre for Measurement, Fraser InstituteMilagros Palacios is the Director for the Addington Centre for Measurement at the Fraser Institute. She holds a B.S. in IndustrialEngineering from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and a M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Concepcion, Chile. Ms. Palacios has studied public policy involving taxation, government finances, investment, productivity, labour markets, and charitable giving, for nearly 10 years. Since joining the Institute, Ms. Palacios has authored or coauthored over 70 comprehensive research studies, 70 commentaries and four books. Her recent commentaries have appeared in major Canadian newspapers such as the National Post, Toronto Sun, Windsor Star, and Vancouver Sun.… Read more -
Charles Lammam
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Hugh MacIntyre
Senior Policy Analyst, Fraser InstituteHugh MacIntyre is a Senior Policy Analyst at the Fraser Institute. He holds an M.Sc. in Political Science from theUniversity of Edinburgh, a Post Baccalaureate Diploma in Economics from Simon Fraser University, and an Honours B.A. from the University of Toronto. Mr. MacIntyre has published over 25 studies and has written over 80 original commentaries appearing in national and regional media outlets including the Globe & Mail and the National Post. His research covers a wide range of economic policy issues including taxation, government finances, government performance, public-private partnerships, labour policy, income mobility, poverty, and charitable giving.… Read more -
Nadeem Esmail
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
Nadeem Esmail is a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute. He first joined the Fraser Institute in 2001, served asDirector of Health System Performance Studies from 2006 to 2009, and has been a Senior Fellow since 2010. Mr. Esmail has spearheaded critical Fraser Institute research including the annual Waiting Your Turn survey of surgical wait times across Canada and How Good Is Canadian Health Care?, an international comparison of health care systems. In addition, Mr. Esmail has authored or co-authored more than 30 comprehensive studies and more than 150 articles on a wide range of topics including the cost of public health care insurance, international comparisons of health care systems, hospital performance, medical technology, and physician shortages. A frequent commentator on radio and TV, Mr. Esmail's articles have appeared in newspapers across North America. Mr. Esmail completed his B.A. (Honours) in Economics at the University of Calgary and received an M.A. in Economics from the University of British Columbia.… Read more -
Kenneth P. Green
Senior Fellow, Fraser InstituteKenneth P. Green is a Fraser Institute senior fellow and author of over 800 essays and articles on public policy,published by think tanks, major newspapers, and technical and trade journals in North America. Mr. Green holds a doctoral degree in environmental science and engineering from UCLA, a master’s degree in molecular genetics from San Diego State University, and a bachelors degree in general biology from UCLA.Mr. Green’s policy analysis has centered on evaluating the pros and cons of government management of environmental, health, and safety risk. More often than not, his research has shown that governments are poor managers of risk, promulgating policies that often do more harm than good both socially and individually, are wasteful of limited regulatory resources, often benefit special interests (in government and industry) at the expense of the general public, and are almost universally violative of individual rights and personal autonomy. Mr. Green has also focused on government’s misuse of probabilistic risk models in the defining and regulating of EHS risks, ranging from air pollution to chemical exposure, to climate change, and most recently, to biological threats such as COVID-19.Mr. Green's longer publications include two supplementary text books on environmental science issues, numerous studies of environment, health, and safety policies and regulations across North America, as well as a broad range of derivative articles and opinion columns. Mr. Green has appeared frequently in major media and has testified before legislative bodies in both the United States and Canada.… Read more -
Bacchus Barua
Director, Health Policy Studies, Fraser InstituteBacchus Barua is Director of the Fraser Institute’s Centre for Health Policy Studies. He completed his BA (Honours) in Economicsat the University of Delhi (Ramjas College) and received an MA in Economics from Simon Fraser University. Mr. Barua has conducted research on a range of key health-care topics including hospital performance, access to new pharmaceuticals, the sustainability of health-care spending, the impact of aging on health-care expenditures, and international comparisons of health-care systems. He also designed the Provincial Healthcare Index (2013), co-led the creation of Comparing Performance of Universal Health Care Countries (2016) and co-authored the Fraser Institute’s annual survey of wait times, Waiting Your Turn, for over a decade (2010–2022). In 2022, Bacchus was invited to provide testimony as part of a panel of witnesses for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health (HESA). Mr. Barua is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and his articles have appeared in well-known news outlets including the National Post, Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and forbes.com.… Read more -
Alan Dowd
Senior Fellow, Fraser InstituteAlan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, Senior Editor of Fraser Insight and Managing Director ofthe Institute's EFNA Network. In addition, Dowd conducts research into defence and security issues. He co-authored the Fraser Institute report Cybersecurity Challenges for Canada and the United States; has contributed to the Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America Annual Report (EFNA); helped launch the Institute’s EFNA Network in 2014; and continues to manage and coordinate the EFNA Network, which today enfolds more than 60 member-organizations in 47 U.S. states, Canada and Mexico. An award-winning writer, Dowd is a frequent contributor to American Legion Magazine, Military Officer, The American, Landing Zone, and American Outlook. In addition, his writing has appeared in Fraser Forum, Claremont Review of Books, Policy Review, Parameters, Journal of Diplomacy & International Relations, Diplomat & International Canada, World Politics Review, World & I, National Post, Baltimore Sun, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, Sacramento Bee, Indianapolis Star, Detroit News, Vancouver Sun, Wall Street Journal Europe, Jerusalem Post, Financial Times Deutschland, and the online editions of the American Interest, National Review, and Weekly Standard. Dowd has served as an adjunct professor at Butler University and Anderson University; was a founding member of the Sagamore Institute leadership team, where he continues to hold a senior fellow post; and was director of Hudson Institute’s corporate headquarters. He earned a B.A. with departmental high honors from Butler University and an M.A. from Indiana University.… Read more -
Joel Wood
Associate Professor of Economics, Thompson Rivers UniversityJoel Wood, Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute, is an Associate Professor of Economics at Thompson Rivers University and theformer Associate Director of Environment and Risk and Regulation Policy at the Fraser Institute. He has a Masters degree in Economics and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Guelph, under the supervision of Ross McKitrick. Wood completed his undergraduate studies in Economics at the University of British Columbia. His areas of research interest include environmental economics, energy economics, natural resource economics, applied econometrics, applied microeconomics, and public policy.… Read more -
Mark Milke
Mark Milke was a senior fellow of the Fraser Institute between 2010 and 2015. Mr. Milke led the Institute’s workon Alberta-related issues as well as contributing to a broad host of national and regional studies. Mr. Milke is currently an independent analyst and consultant in Calgary.Mr. Milke has authored four books on Canadian politics and policy and dozens of studies on topics such as property rights, public sector pensions, corporate welfare, competition policy, aboriginal matters and taxes. Prior to joining the Fraser Institute, Mr. Milke was the research director for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and former B.C. and Alberta director with the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation. His work has been published widely in Canada since 1997 and in addition to the Fraser Institute, his papers have also been published in the United States by the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation and in Europe by the Brussels-based Centre for European Studies.Mr. Milke’s opinion columns appear regularly in the Calgary Herald and Globe and Mail, as well as in the National Post, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Province, and Victoria Times Colonist. Mr. Milke has a Master’s degree from the University of Alberta where his M.A. thesis analyzed human rights in East Asia; he also has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Calgary where his doctoral dissertation analyzed the rhetoric of Canadian-American relations. Mr. Milke is president of Civitas, and a past lecturer in Political Philosophy and International Relations at the University of Calgary.… Read more