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The central elements of economic freedom are personal choice, protection of private property, and freedom of exchange. The goal of this study is to construct an index that is (a) a good indicator of economic freedom across countries and (b) based on objective components that can be updated regularly and used to track future changes in economic freedom.

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This well-documented analysis traces the effects of Ontario's 10-year liberalization of welfare benefits and eligibility. The liberalization was intended to give recipients a sense of independence, thereby helping them move into the workforce. However, as Welfare-No Fair demonstrates, rather than reducing caseloads and encouraging independence, Ontario went from being the province with the fewest recipients per capita to the province with the most. As caseloads grew dramatically, more and more families became entangled in the so-called safety net.

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This revised edition of Poverty in Canada is a provocative challenge to current approaches to defining and measuring poverty. It includes an update section with new data for all the key tables along with an accompanying commentary. Like the first edition, it argues that prevailing estimates greatly exaggerate the number of poor; that Statistics Canada's low income cut-off - the standard tool used in virtually all studies measuring poverty - is badly flawed and that social assistance, in almost all cases, is perfectly adequate in covering all basic needs.

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The distinguished authors in this volume address key issues facing policymakers in the Americas since the advent of NAFTA - the most important of which is to bring about monetary stability so that market reforms can proceed. Economic liberalization under NAFTA is being threatened by monetary instability in Mexico. If that instability spreads to other Latin American countries, the opportunity for economic integration in the Americas will be weakened.

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For the past two decades Canadian politicians of all stripes have told us that it's time to stop "mortgaging our future." They've talked about the unfairness of saddling future generations with a massive public debt, and they've talked about the need to correct the deep flaws inherent in our welfare state entitlements.

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The current Critical Issues Bulletin is the Institute's fifth attempt to document the extent to which queues are being used as a means of adapting to the conflict between limited budgetary allocations and potentially unlimited demand for free health care.

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It is orthodox ideology today that overpopulation is a problem. We regularly hear dire warnings about the dangers it poses. But the term overpopulation is never defined. Exactly what is it? How do we know if a country is overpopulated? If overpopulation exists, is there such a thing as underpopulation?