This study examines and evaluates the commitments made by the BC government to welfare reform. It draws comparisons with recent welfare reforms in the United States because the US reforms have proven overwhelmingly successful at reducing welfare caseloads, increasing the employment and earnings of previous welfare recipients, and reducing poverty rates. The eight evaluation areas were selected based on research assessing successful US welfare reform. The reforms encompass two broad areas: policy and program provision. The eight evaluation areas are: Ending the entitlement to welfare, Diversion, Immediate work requirements and sanctions, Employment-focused back-to-work programs, Making Work Pay, Administrative privatization, Program delivery privatization, and Non-profit sector reform.

The federal government justifies large-scale immigration on the basis that it is essential to economic growth as well as to offset the aging of the population and the increasing proportion of retired persons to workers. These rationales, however, are not based on facts. The government's own research indicates that immigration and population increases play a role at best in economic growth.

Securities regulators, including the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), have been strongly vocal about the need for good corporate governance. But good governance is also important for securities regulators to ensure resources are directed towards socially desirable objectives, and used efficiently.

The focus of this study is a comparison of the OSC's governance structure with that of regulators in other countries responsible for securities regulation. The comparison countries are Australia, the US, the UK, and Hong Kong. The intent of the comparisons is to flush out best practices in governance for a modern securities regulator that could possibly be adopted by the OSC.