The Quebec health care system has long been a target of criticism. Since the mid-1970s, newspapers have been reporting on staff shortages, emergency room overcrowding, challenges in finding family doctors, waiting lists that keep getting longer, and so on. Optimal use of resources is vital if we wish to reduce waiting times and provide better and faster service to patients. Technological innovations, including telemedicine, are a way of improving the efficiency of the health care system and increasing the choices offered to patients. Sadly, the current government monopoly in the health care sector eliminates most natural incentives to innovate and make optimal use of resources.

Supply management policies, aimed at limiting production of a good so as to inflate its price, are familiar in Canada, due in particular to the existence of agricultural quotas. It is less well known, however, that the taxi industry is also regulated in this way, with similar consequences for consumers. Just as Australia and New Zealand eliminated supply management in agriculture, a number of cities (including Kansas City, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Raleigh and San Diego in the United States) and several countries (including Ireland, New Zealand and Sweden) have done the same in the taxi sector.

In February 2004, the MEI published an Economic Note on tuition fees and their effects on access to university studies. Since then, the Quebec government announced that fees would rise cumulatively by $50 per semester from 2007 to 2012. It is still not known what policy will be adopted after 2012. To this day, Quebec tuition fees are still lower than their 1994-1995 level in real terms. This Economic Note is an update which aims to examine the university tuition fee situation in Quebec.

The pension plan crisis caused by the aging of the population is affecting all western countries, with Quebec especially hard hit by this phenomenon. The long-term financing of the Quebec Pension Plan (QPP) is a cause of concern, and experts say changes are needed to ensure its viability. As in the past, a new rise in contributions is being suggested to balance the program’s reserve. Other countries have had to reform their public pension systems in recent decades. One of them – Chile – has stood out because of its success and has inspired about 30 other governments. Can Quebec also learn something from their experience?

Quebec construction workers suffer from one sizable obstacle in comparison to their colleagues in the other provinces: a lack of flexibility that originates in the legislation governing the construction industry. Without this obstacle, Quebec construction workers could raise their productivity, enabling the government and Quebec taxpayers to save on the costs of building various facilities, especially infra structure.

After recording a current deficit of $4.5 billion in 2009-2010, the Quebec government has just announced a series of measures intended to restore public finances. At the heart of its concerns is the government's growing debt. Some people feel it has reached an alarming level, whereas others are minimizing the scope of the Quebec debt. Who is right?

This special document is Chapter 26 of the book Margaret Thatcher: A Portrait of the Iron Lady distributed in connection with the fifth edition of the Jean A. Pouliot Lecture Series. The book’s author, John Blundell, has been described by Mrs. Thatcher herself as one of the most effective champions of the free-enterprise economic model. The Montreal Economic Institute has offered Mr. Blundell its platform to address a Montreal audience and share his views on the former British prime minister’s work and heritage.

The Quebec government is currently in negotiations with the public sector unions over new collective agreements for 550,000 public employees. More than 40 years after job security was instituted in the civil service and in the health care, social service and education networks, there is good reason to look into ways of improving the productivity of government employees. With a budget coming up, and with many observers predicting tax and fee increases, taxpayers are entitled to value for their money.

Supplemental pension plans provided by employers are a key fringe benefit to bear in mind when looking at overall compensation. In the private sector, pension plans have been going through a financing crisis in recent years. In the Quebec public sector, on the other hand, the government’s ability to pay is not at issue, and pension plans remain very generous. With negotiations under way between the government and the “Common Front” of public sector unions, there is reason to look into this matter and to ask if public sector pension plans are too generous compared to those in the private sector, taking account of taxpayers’ ability to pay.

The movement promoting the purchase of locally produced food has grown in influence in recent years, in Quebec as in the rest of the world. Beyond the traditional economic arguments based on a protectionist approach, it is the environmental aspect which seems nowadays to motivate the support of groups and citizens in favour of reducing “food miles.” It is argued that by discouraging consumers from buying food transported from distant locations, less energy – and ultimately less greenhouse gas – is being expanded, thus contributing to the fight against environmental degradation.