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Smart Prosperity Institute (SPI)

Municipalities can play an important role in promoting sustainable development by pricing services correctly. How we pay for municipal services has an impact on our behaviour: how much water we consume, how much waste we generate, whether we drive to work or take transit, and other economic decisions. How we pay for services and infrastructure also affects the nature, location, and density of development. Correct pricing will improve the efficiency with which resources are used to provide the services that residents and businesses want. Moreover, if cities are interested in pursuing compact development, they need to consider the impact of other financial tools (such as property taxes and development charges) on how cities grow and develop.

Canadian Public Policy (University of Toronto Press)

Canada faces environmental problems that threaten stock of natural capital— endowment of natural resources such as water, forests, land, and atmosphere—and the flow of goods and services that natural capital generates, known as ecosystem services. Much of the literature focuses on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, but many other challenges persist, including air and water pollution, risks from oil and gas extraction, water scarcity, flooding, loss of natural areas, threatened species, and toxic spills. While regulatory responses exist, their effectiveness is questionable with relatively little use of market-based instruments. The researchers focus on the challenges associated with measuring and developing policy to sustain natural capital and ecosystem services. The authors highlight problems and identify policy options and “big ideas” that may help both to improve understanding of the linkages between natural capital, ecosystem services, and human well-being and to achieve a more sustainable future.

Canadian Public Policy (University of Toronto Press)

The paper begins with some basic innovation definitions and quickly reviews evidence of the relatively weak innovation performance of Canadian business. The core of the paper develops a thesis that explains why Canadian industry, on the whole, has not emphasized innovation in its business strategies but has prospered nonetheless. This raises the question of whether Canada's low-innovation equilibrium can persist in the face of tectonic forces related to globalization, technology, and sustainability that require innovative responses from enterprises worldwide and, not least, from Canada.

Canadian Public Policy (University of Toronto Press)

Moving to a low-carbon future will create challenges for Canada's fossil-fuel industries, but opportunities in the form of a new market for low-carbon goods and services. The challenges for the resource sector will vary across commodities. Competition in the new market for low-carbon goods and services will be tough; sustained competitive advantage will be difficult to maintain due to capital mobility. With these challenges in mind, this article proposes three questions for Canadians looking ahead to a low-carbon future. First, how large will the market for low-carbon goods and services be? Second, where are Canada's advantages likely to lie in serving these markets? Finally, what are the roles for Canada's existing natural-resource industries in a low-carbon economy, and what are the strategies to maximize the value of these resources?

Canadian Public Policy (University of Toronto Press)

This paper makes four basic points about movement toward a low carbon economy in Canada: first, that it is important for political leaders, policy analysts, and researchers to approach the issue in terms of a transition to a carbon-emission–free society; second, that in Canada the development of regional pathways to a low-carbon economy is crucial; third, that we need “green development strategies” if we are to maximize the opportunities presented by this transition; and finally, that we should think about low-carbon politics as well as low-carbon economics.