The shortage of injectable drugs that Canada has been experiencing in recent months is an ongoing headache for health professionals and hospital administrators. Many surgeries had to be postponed recently and clinical treatments had to be suspended due to certain essential drugs, in particular painkillers and anaesthetics, being out of stock. The phenomenon has become so serious that last March, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health called in the main participants and specialists in the pharmaceutical field for special hearings in order to take stock of the situation.

When a public administration takes charge of services for citizens, it has a responsibility to provide them at the lowest possible cost. It is taxpayers, after all, who pay for these costs, which include in particular the working conditions governed by the collective agreements of the public sector employees who provide these services. In the case of the City of Montreal, $2.9 billion will be collected this year in municipal taxes, while the overall remuneration of its employees will total $2.4 billion.

The federal equalization program will distribute over $15 billion to the relatively "poorer" Canadian provinces in 2012-2013. The formula used to calculate the amounts to be paid out was significantly modified in 2007. In recent months, numerous criticisms have been expressed, which may be a sign of more contentious debates to come until the revision of the equalization formula in 2014.

With the Quebec hospital network's difficulties continuing to make headlines, especially when it comes to wait times, calls to reform the way hospitals are funded have become increasingly common in recent months. At the beginning of the year, the director general of the McGill University Health Center and the Quebec Association of Health and Social Services Institutions each in turn proposed that hospitals should from now on be financed according to services provided, as is done in many countries.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement, which spread to many cities around the world last fall, once again brought the never-ending question of income inequality to the forefront of public debate. Concerns about this issue have also been fed by studies that have appeared over the past year, especially those from the Conference Board of Canada and the OECD. However, even though these studies present data showing that income inequality in Canada has been tending to increase, the interpretation of their conclusions is not as obvious as it might appear at first glance.

For many Quebecers, the effects of producing and using oil and other fossil fuels are unequivocally harmful. These sources of energy are seen as relics from the past that will soon disappear. The idea that we could do without them entirely and quickly replace them with green energy sources like wind and solar power is widespread, as is the idea that all cars could soon be electric.

In its 2012-2013 Budget, the Canadian government announced its intention to gradually raise the age of eligibility for Old Age Security benefits from 65 to 67. Future generations will surely come to see this as a timid adjustment measure. If life expectancy keeps rising as expected, government policies in this area will need to be guided by a new paradigm for retirement.

In its updated 2011 Budget tabled after the last election, the federal government announced a Strategic and Operating Review of its spending, the results of which will be unveiled when Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivers his next budget on March 29.

Every year since 2009, the MEI has published a Viewpoint on the debt of the Quebec government to coincide with the tabling of the provincial budget. Continuing the tradition, this Viewpoint explains why the public sector debt increases by more than the deficit.

The Canadian health care system is an oddity among developed countries in that the public sector is not only responsible for most of the financing of the health care system, but also has a near complete monopoly on the delivery of hospital care. In Europe, where public financing is as prevalent as in Canada, if not more so, the private for-profit sector has an extensive role to play in delivering service.