Vol.
25, No. 4 December 1999
Articles:
The
Economic Goals of Canada's Immigration Policy, Past and Present
Alan G. Green and David A. Green
We
examine the economic goals of current immigration policy and what
role
immigration should play in overall economic policy. We proceed by
describing the economic goals of immigration policy throughout this
century.
We
then describe current economically targeted elements of immigration
policy and relate them to historical trends. Finally, we examine a
set of potential economic goals for immigration suggested by Canada's
policy history. We conclude that economic goals should not form the
defining orientation of immigration policy in the near future since
other policies are better situated to meet those goals. Immigration
should continue as a defining element in our social fabric.
Access
to Physician Services in Quebec: Relative Influence of Household Income
and Area of Residence
François Rivest, Pascal Bossé, Silviu Nedelca and Alain
Simard
The
1960s were marked by the setting up of Medicare by federal and provincial
governments in Canada. The official aim of this undertaking was to
eliminate inequality of access to medical care, and in the first instance
inequality on the basis of incomes. Governments were also concerned
with inequality in the regional distribution of medical services.
The objective of this paper is to document these two dimensions of
accessibility to medical services as present in Quebec in 1991 in
terms of household consumption of such services. Data for this study
come from administrative files, principally those of the Quebec ministry
of health. The paper reviews measures taken by the Quebec government
to attract doctors to locate in outlying regions of the province.
In spite of these measures, results obtained indicate that significant
differences existed in 1991 between outlying and central regions and
that results for intermediate regions occur between these two poles.
After controlling for age of head and household composition, differences
by income are no longer significant.
The
Characteristics of Fiscal Policy in Canada
Ronald D. Kneebone and Kenneth J. McKenzie
We
employ a methodology that distinguishes between discretionary and
non-discretionary changes in provincial and federal fiscal policy.
We find substantial variation in the discretionary policy of Canadian
governments, across both time and jurisdictions. We uncover a marked
asymmetry in the composition of discretionary fiscal stances. Fiscal
retrenchments have tended to be dominated by a "balance"
between spending cuts and tax increases, while fiscal expansions have
been largely expenditure dominant. This asymmetry suggests a historic
bias toward expanding the size of the public sector. The most recent
fiscal retrenchment at both the federal and provincial level (1993-1996)
breaks from this historical tendency by being largely expenditure
dominant.
Voting
on Abortion in the House of Commons: A Test for Legislator Shirking
Neil Longley
Using
an agency theory approach, this paper examines the tightness of the
links in the relationship between Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs)
and their respective constituents. The paper focuses on a 1988 parliamentary
free vote on the abortion issue. It finds that MP voting on this issue
did not appear to be influenced by the preferences of constituents,
but was significantly influenced by the personal ideologies of the
MPs themselves. Under an agency theory view, these results can be
interpreted as evidence of "shirking" behaviour by legislators.
Futhermore, to the extent that legislator shirking was found to exist,
this shirking was more likely in constituencies where greater constituent-legislator
slack was present. Greater constituent-legislator slack lowers the
political cost to the legislator of engaging in shirking, since such
shirking behaviour is less likely to be punished by constituents.
"Canadian"
as an Ethnic Category: Implications for Multiculturalism and National
Unity
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann
Among
English-speaking, non-aboriginal Canadians, there is such a thing
as an ethnic Canadian identity. Frequently, biological ancestry is
confused with social ethnicity, so that everyone's "true"
identity is presumed to be rooted somewhere else. Yet most people
who are born in Canada, or who immigrate to Canada at young ages,
become ethnic Canadians. Against this view of Canadianness, illiberal
multiculturalists argue for strong identification of Canadians with
ancestral ethnic groups. By contrast, the public policy of liberal
multiculturalism encourages private, individual choices of identity.
Paradoxically, this liberal policy also encourages identification
with Canada and Canadian citizenship, both vital to Canadian unity.
Canada's multiculturalism policy should not change to the illiberal,
group-oriented multiculturalism some critics demand.
The
Effect of Unemployment Insurance Benefits on Income Inequality in
the Canadian Provinces
Galen J. Countryman
This
study provides an analysis of the relative progressivity of the immediate
impact of the unemployment insurance (UI) program in Canada from 1975
to 1996 at both the national and provincial level. In addition, the
welfare gain from the reduction in income inequality was estimated
(given certain normative assumptions) to be between 1 and 2 percent
of aggregate income nationally. This estimate can be compared with
the efficiency costs from the labour market implications of the program.
Given the existing policy debate on the UI program, this should prove
to be both an interesting and important component of any future policy
discussions concerning the UI systems.
ISSUES
AND COMMENTARIES
Les
sondages moins rigoureux sont-ils moins fiables?
Sébastien Vachon, Claire Durand et André Blais
Bill
C-83 proposes to regulate the publication of polls and their methodology
during electoral campaigns. It would be necessary to determine the
type of pertinent methodological information in order to judge the
quality of the poll. This article presents results of a study on the
relation between methodology used in polls published in Quebec during
the May/June 1997 federal electoral campaign and the quality of the
estimates of voter intentions. Analysis verifies that, when the methodology
used was less rigorous, the spread between the polls and the true
voter intentions was larger and less stable even when taking account
of errors due to sample size. These results underline the necessity
to enforce requirements about the publication of the methodology of
the surveys reported during electoral campaigns and of revising Bill
C-83 accordingly.
