Freedom Line Blog

In an open letter to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, CFIF joined a coalition of free-market organizations imploring him to promote an environment supportive of intellectual property (IP):

We the undersigned companies and organizations write to urge you to promote a public policy environment in Canada that supports innovation and intellectual property (IP).  Canada has a history of one of the most well-developed environments for promoting advancement of the arts and business through the defense of intellectual property rights, but we are concerned about current developments. Canada has begun to lag behind other developed nations in protecting and enforcing intellectual property rights, even though scholarly research shows that more than ever, the protection of such rights are key drivers for a country’s economic growth.

The letter proceeds to detail the value of IP to both the Canadian and American economies in terms of employment, investment, exports, research & development, consumer products and higher income jobs.

In addition, the letter alerts the Prime Minister to emerging threats to IP rights in Canada, including the proposed “promise doctrine.”  That misguided and potentially dangerous proposal would essentially require inventors to see into the future and itemize the various utilities of an innovation when filing patent applications.  Not only  are such predictions impossible to accurately foresee, but they add uncertainty that threatens to stifle innovative efforts and investment for fear of no future reward due to bureaucratic whim.  That is particularly true in the lifesaving pharmaceutical industry, where the effects are already being felt, as the letter details.  The promise doctrine also contravenes NAFTA, WTO rules and international IP norms.

Because Canada remains America’s most important trading partner, we therefore ask Prime Minister Trudeau to remain vigilant in protecting Canadian IP rights and resist ongoing efforts to undermine them.

In addition to CFIF , other organizations joining the letter include the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), the Small  Business & Entrepreneurship Council, American Commitment, Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), Frontiers of Freedom, Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA), the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), the National Center for Policy Analysis, Digital Liberty and the Property Rights Alliance.

The full letter, which was organized by the Property Rights Alliance, can be read here (.pdf)

Kristen Bartkiw thought she provided her two children with wholesome, filling meals when she sent them to daycare with lunch boxes filled with roast beef, potatoes, carrots, oranges and milk. The government, however, didn’t agree.

Bartkiw, who lives in rural Manitoba, Canada, was fined $10 for providing her kids with a lunch that was not a “balanced meal according to the Canadian Food Guide.”  Parents packing their children’s lunches are required to include “one milk, one meat, one grain and two fruits/vegitables.” The lunches Bartkiw packed for her children lacked the appropriate grain component.

Under the outrageous Canadian food guidelines, daycare workers were forced to supplement Bartkiw’s children’s lunch with a grain – in this case Ritz Crackers – to comply with the federal regs.

The daycare that was required to fine Bartkiw and force feed her kids a fistful of crackers finally grew so tired of serving as the food police for the Canadian government, that it stopped allowing parents to pack lunches for their children. The childcare provider is now saddled with the extra hassle and expense of cooking a hot lunch for every child in the facility.

It’s one thing to encourage child care workers to keep an eye out for instances in which children are not receiving adequate food or proper care. It’s another thing entirely for the government to command childcare workers to fine and harass loving parents for not packing the exact lunch that bureaucrats want children to have.

It’s been said by some supporters of President Barack Obama’s $787 billion stimulus spending spree that we can’t really know if it failed because we can’t ‘re-run’ the last three years to see if something else might have worked.

But according to economist John Lott, we don’t have to.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Daily Caller about his new book, , Lott compares the different approaches by the liberals in Debacle: Obama’s War on Jobs and Growth and What We can Do Now to Regain Our Future the Obama White House and the conservatives running Canada’s government.  The results aren’t pretty.

How do we know the stimulus package made the economic situation worse?

Compare the U.S. and Canada. Their unemployment rates increased in lock step from August 2008 until six months later, in February 2009, when the stimulus was passed in the United States. During those six months, the U.S. unemployment rate rose by 2.1 percentage points, from 6.1 percent to 8.2 percent, and the Canadian rate grew by 1.9 percentage points, from 5.1 percent to 7 percent (using the BLS [Bureau of Labor Statistics] measure to make the Canadian measure of unemployment comparable to the U.S. rate). The graph that we have showing this is actually stunning.

Canada adopted a much smaller and quite different “stimulus” program that emphasized cutting tax rates and regulations and that produced dramatically smaller deficits. On a per-capita basis, Canada’s stimulus was about a third that of America’s, costing $979 per person compared to our $2,730. The conservative Canadian government chose not to introduce any big programs.

Obama, meanwhile, adopted big-ticket Keynesian programs, believing that government spending for its own sake creates wealth. But Democratic emphasis on “green” energy, government-approved investments and technology and higher salaries for public-school teachers merely moved money away from where Americans and companies would have otherwise spent it.

Obama’s stimulus also raised the effective marginal tax rates that some individuals face, discouraging work; Canada, by contrast, cut some marginal rates. Obama kept the corporate tax rate stuck at 35 percent, while Canadians cut their corresponding rate from 21 percent in 2007 to 16.5 percent this year — with a further cut to 15 percent planned for next year. By last year, Canada had the lowest overall tax rate on business investment of any major industrialized country.

Canada also didn’t run the huge stimulative deficits that we ran here in the U.S. They didn’t saddle their kids with a huge debt that they were going to have to pay off.

But if Obama’s program — including a massive 21 percent hike in spending from 2008 to 2011 and corresponding massive deficits — worked so well, why has our unemployment rate risen more since those policies were adopted than have the rates of the European Union, South America, Japan, Australia or New Zealand?

In another fascinating article from Reason Magazine, three policy experts explain how governments in Canada, New Zealand and post-WWII America slashed government spending and spurred economic growth.  Each expert highlights the strategies used to achieve the respective financial miracles, but one from Canada deserves special mention:

In assembling these cuts, (Canadian Finance Minister) Paul Martin didn’t follow the usual pattern of consulting interest groups one by one. Instead, he held four televised regional consultations in which various lobbyists, experts, and ordinary citizens contended with one another. Martin also spoke directly to the public about what was needed to turn Canada’s budget around. In October 1994, his Department of Finance published a report, A New Framework for Economic Policy, showing that in order to keep the ratio of debt to GDP from rising, government had to run a substantial surplus on its program budget—that is, have revenues significantly exceeding state expenditures.

Public debates used to be a spectator sport in the civilized world.  (Remember reading about the Lincoln-Douglas debates?)  If Republicans win back control of at least one house of Congress, it would behoove their leadership to find ways to nationalize spending issues with public debates.  And, if members of Congress are too afraid to step forward and defend principles, they should consider sponsoring debates featuring lobbyists, policy wonks and activists.

We all know who votes for whom.  Let’s get them in the same room, on camera and hear their pitch.

Courtesy of Gary North’s website, here’s a video on Canada’s best – and at 11 terms, longest-serving – mayor, Hazel McCallion.

Yes, the U.S. health care system has its flaws.  The cost, payment by third parties, government involvement, and defensive medicine are all factors that limit access and drive up costs.  But, with the slice of capitalism that still exists in our system, money will always allow patients to receive care in a timely fashion.

In Canada, the government runs the single-payer system and determines what procedures are covered and who receives care.  Fortunately, capitalism still exists across the border and a firm has started to make money off of long waiting lines.

Yes, one stop to Timely Medical can drastically reduce your waiting time and allow you to leave the rationing to the bureaucrats.  One has to wonder if such a company will exist here if the U.S. goes the single-payer route.