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Included in the statement released by Canada and the EU to mark the end of the legal review was the announcement that the investor-state arbitration model long entrenched in Canada’s international agreements has been replaced by a system that more closely resembles an international court. The new court-like system includes independent judges, an appeals process and, generally, more transparency and predictability. There can be little doubt that this is a significant improvement over the previous arbitration process.

Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, after referring to CETA as a gold-plated trade agreement, stated that with these changes, “Our dispute resolution process is brought up in this agreement to the 21st century democratic standards that Canadians demand.” This view begs two questions. First, why have a new international court that can override domestic courts that already meet the democratic expectations of Canadians? Second, does the rest of the agreement also reflect 21st century democratic needs and standards?

The investment chapter and its international court will still give foreign investors special rights and remedies to challenge government actions that they see as unfavourable to them. This gives one economic stakeholder a significant legal advantage over all other actors and stakeholders in the economy. It will allow this one class of economic actor to circumvent domestic courts by going directly to an international court whose role is to apply international law to protect their investor rights.

The justification for this is that these mechanisms will attract new investors to new places. However, this fails to stand up to empirical evidence developed over the past 10 to 15 years that shows these types of special rights for investors have no impact on investment flows. In short, there is no payoff for governments that put their countries at risk of exposure to international dispute settlement processes that circumvent domestic courts.

So do the other provisions of CETA reflect 21st century goals and standards? In both the TPP and CETA, it is the chapters that don’t directly relate to trade that make the agreements ‘comprehensive.’ It is these rules that are becoming increasingly broad and ever more favourable to large economic actors.

Let’s take the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) rules, for example, which go farther to favour European drug manufacturers over Canadian manufacturers, and Canada’s health care system, than any previous IPR agreement. There is also the chapter on “Domestic Regulation” that goes farther in limiting government rights to review and regulate new investments in every sector of the economy than any previous treaty has gone. The CETA also features a long list of limitations on government’s ability to maximize the value that Canadians derive from foreign investment, including such future projects as Ontario’s ring of fire for mining.

These non-trade chapters will contribute to the ongoing growth of legal and economic inequality of average citizens and small and medium-size businesses compared to the large economic actors. These chapters simply replicate and deepen provisions from 10, 15 and 20 years ago, or more, with no new assessment of their impacts in today’s world, on climate change responses, or on the needs of sustainable development.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals adopted in 2015 provide a framework to realign the goals of trade and economic agreements for the future rather than just replicate the measures of the past, measures that continue to work against sustainable development needs. With the growing concerns over TPP, the inconsistent approaches between TPP and CETA on key democratic principles, and the obvious need to prioritize climate responses over trade policy, it is time for Canada to lead in re-evaluating what type of trade agreements are needed for this century.

Canada now has a unique opportunity to step back, reflect, and then return to lead global trade-law into a sustainable development era.

Howard Mann is the senior international law adviser with the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

OECD country surveys are mainly put together by the OECD Economics Department with major input from the Canadian Department of Finance and the Bank of Canada. There is relatively little input from the social policy directorate at the OECD (DELSA) or social departments here

OECD messages tend to hue very closely to the neo liberal economic mainstream, and are tweaked by Finance to build support for desired policy shifts.

explicitly calls for cuts in health care (or at least very constrained growth of spending.)

The OECD report itself notes (p.137) that the Canadian system is the best in the OECD in terms of providing equitable access to physician and hospital services.

The report also notes (Fig. 3.6) that Medicare costs have not grown as a share of GDP since the early 1990s and are well in line with the costs of other national public health care systems.  It shows that it is in the private not the publicly insured part of our system that cost pressures have been greatest.

The OECD report similarly endorses more private delivery of hospital services

To its credit, the OECD report calls for the inclusion of pharmaceutical drugs and home care into the public part of the health care system

oronto has made little progress in the fight against poverty over the last decade and thus it's to be expected that health inequality remains stark. We find little fault in the actions of Toronto Public Health. Rather, as the science makes clear, the true guardians of our health are the policy-makers that determine whether all Torontonians - and all Canadians, more generally - are able to keep up with the costs of everyday life. What can we do? We can create widespread recognition that when our governments fail to redress inequalities, they undermine the health of our society. We can engage in civic and political action to help pass public policies that reduce the economic distance between the rich and the poor. We can also support organizations that advocate on behalf of these policies, including Toronto Public Health and the labour unions that protect the conditions of low-wage workers.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that, despite a decade of public programs intended to promote health equity, the health status of the poorest Torontonians hasn't improved. In fact, this was entirely predictable. At the heart of the issue are two important insights provided by our best available science. First, public health programs that are designed to encourage people to alter their lifestyles and behaviours simply do not address the myriad other associations between economic position and health status. Attempts to address any one problem do little to fundamentally interrupt the overall correlation. Second, because public health programs do not address the "causes of the causes," they are incapable of stemming the tide of new individuals that develop poor health-related behaviours. No sooner has one cohort been exposed to a health-promotion program than another is ready and waiting.

Health inequalities are one of the most formidable public health problems of our time. The science strongly supports Toronto Public Health's insights that public health programs are wholly insufficient to alleviate their burden. The solution lies in tackling the unequal distribution of resources that has become a defining feature of our city and our society at large. Arjumand Siddiqi is assistant professor and Faraz Vahid Shahidi is a doctoral student at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. Correspondence should be sent to Ms. Siddiqi at: aa.siddiqi@utoronto.ca

When the Harper government took office, federal tax revenues (2006-07 fiscal year) were 13.5 per cent of GDP, a bit shy of the 14.5per-cent peak in 2000-01. In the most recent fiscal year (2014-15), they are projected in the most recent federal budget to be just 11.4 per cent of GDP, which is lower than in the mid-1960s before the creation of much of the modern welfare state. With total GDP now just under $2-trillion, a seemingly small decline in federal tax revenues of 2.1 percentage points of GDP translates into foregone annual revenues of $41.5-billion. To put that in perspective, in 2014-15, federal transfers to the provinces for health care and social programs combined came to almost as much, $44.7-billion. If federal capacity were at the same level as in 2006, Canada could afford eight national childcare programs on the scale proposed by NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. Or we could more than triple the current level of federal funding of transit and municipal infrastructure.

Tax cuts have clearly been a much greater priority for the Harper government than investments in programs or services, or balancing the federal budget. Revenues continued to fall after 2008-09 when the government first ran a deficit, mainly as a result of corporate tax cuts. Almost all taxes have been reduced. The general corporate income tax rate has been cut gradually but deeply from 22.1 per cent to 15 per cent, with each one percentage point reduction costing $1.85-billion in lost revenue per year according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. The two percentage point cut to the GST introduced in the early days of the government now costs $12.8-billion per year in lost revenues.

With respect to the personal income tax, the government has brought in numerous "boutique" tax credits and deductions, a universal child tax credit, and family income splitting, which mainly benefits more affluent families with children at a cost of $2.2billion a year. While it still costs relatively little, the new system of Tax-Free Savings Accounts now allows for contributions of up to $10,000 a year with no cap on total accumulations. This will eventually all but eliminate taxation of investment income such as capital gains as the assets of the richest Canadians are gradually shifted to tax-free vehicles.

Opinions obviously differ as to the wisdom of specific tax cuts and their impact on economic growth and social justice. The government argues that lower taxes and smaller government underpin a strong economy, while the critics point to the unfair distribution of winners and losers from tax cuts, weak business investment despite corporate tax cuts and the costs of foregone public investments. One thing is clear. A progressive alternative to the Harper government and ambitious investment plans will be possible only if some part of the massively eroded fiscal capacity of the federal government is restored. Andrew Jackson is adjunct research professor in the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University, and senior policy adviser to the Broadbent Institute.

The NDP plan to hike corporate taxes could be a flashpoint in the debate as both the Conservatives and Liberals oppose it, saying it would be bad for the economy. The Conservatives are campaigning on their April budget, which cut taxes and promised balanced budgets and more infrastructure spending over the coming years. The NDP say they would balance the books as well, but would fund new programs with roughly $7-billion a year in tax increases, including raising the corporate tax rate to 17 per cent from 15 per cent.

On taxation, an NDP government led by Mr. Mulcair says it expects $3.7-billion a year from the corporate tax increase, making it the single biggest source of new revenue in the party's costing plan. "The NDP's fiscal plan that we have announced today is balanced and it is progressive," Andrew Thomson, a former Saskatchewan finance minister who is running for the NDP against Conservative candidate Joe Oliver in the Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence, told reporters at an afternoon news conference. Mr. Oliver is the Finance Minister in the Tory government. But questions quickly emerged Wednesday as to whether the corporate-tax estimate may prove optimistic, given that corporations could shift profit to countries with lower rates.

The Liberals are planning to run deficits for three years to fund major investments in infrastructure, but have not released specific spending and revenue figures for each year. The New Democrats are locked in a tight three-way battle with both the Conservatives and the Liberals as the election campaign enters its final month.

In the document, the NDP says it will rely heavily on a twopoint increase to the corporate tax rate on Jan. 1 as a key source of revenue to pay for billions in new spending on health transfers, daycare spaces and new infrastructure. The party says it can do all of this while planning for surpluses of at least $3-billion a year in each year of a fouryear mandate. The NDP says the document is not the party's full platform, as it still plans to make more detailed announcements throughout the campaign. Critics questioned the New Democrats' reliance on the April budget numbers to project surpluses given that forecasts for economic growth have since been lowered substantially, which will lead to less federal revenue.

With the economy at the top of the list of issues on the minds of voters, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair hopes to persuade Canadians that he is a prudent fiscal manager, and someone who can chart a course to prosperity without driving up debt. The seven-page document released Wednesday in Ottawa includes a chart titled "A balanced plan," but total new spending and total new revenue are not in balance. The chart lists seven sources of new revenue, which add up to $7.2-billion in 2016-17 and increase to $7.5-billion in 2019-20. The chart also lists eight categories of new spending, which add up to $5.8billion in the first year and rise to $11.3-billion in the fourth year.

Over all, the lack of detailed information provided by the New Democrats made it difficult to determine whether their numbers add up. But, it was clear that some of the promises being made by the NDP Leader have had to be modified to meet his commitment of a balanced budget. Since late 2011, NDP politicians have accused the Conservative government of planning to cut $36-billion over 10 years from health care, starting in 2017-18, by replacing the annual 6-percent increases in health transfers to the provinces with increases based on the growth in nominal gross domestic product.

The New Democrats have said they would reverse that decision. And Peggy Nash, the party's industry critic, told reporters on Wednesday that the 6-percent increases to transfers would be restored. But, she said, they would be used to pay for the slate of new health-care initiatives included in the NDP campaign platform such as a mental-health innovation fund, a half-billion dollars over four years for new clinics and to hire doctors and nurses, an Alzheimer's strategy, a seniors-care strategy and whatever other health announcements Mr. Mulcair has yet to make. Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said the Conservative decision to slash the Canada Health Transfer would result in $8-billion less for health care for Ontario over 10 years and accused the New Democrats of making health-care decisions without provincial input. Absent from the NDP document is a major pledge to increase foreign aid. Mr. Mulcair had promised in May to set a multiyear target to increase foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of GDP, a pledge that could cost more than $8-billion a year if fully implemented. The party confirmed Wednesday that the foreign-aid target will not be met during the first mandate of an NDP government.

Canada's federal corporate tax rate had declined to 21 per cent between 2000 and 2007 from 30 per cent in 1980. It has since declined gradually under the Conservatives to 15 per cent as of 2012.

And while estimates put the cost to Canadian tax coffers at $6-$7.8 billion per year, the effect on developing countries is far greater, said Haroon Akram-Lodhi an economist and professor of international development at Trent University. "The amount of capital flight from sub-Saharan Africa is absolutely huge and it's all going into these tax havens," said Akram-Lodhi, one of the signatories of the letter. "This is reducing the ability to fight poverty on a global scale." The letter, made public on the eve of this week's global anti-corruption summit in London, calls on world leaders to act against financial secrecy both in tax havens and at home. "To lift the veil of secrecy surrounding tax havens we need new global agreements on issues such as public country-by-country reporting, including for tax havens. Governments must also put their own houses in order by ensuring that all the territories, for which they are responsible, make publicly available information about the real 'beneficial' owners of company and trusts." On Monday, Transparency International Canada issued a parallel call for the Canadian government to make its own corporate registry more transparent.

There is a pressing need for the Government of Canada to take concrete steps to address the ability of some Canadians to shield themselves, and their financial activities, from Canadian authorities," said Peter Dent, president of Transparency International Canada. "That some can rig the system to hide their wealth, whether amassed legally or not, is not merely unjust. It also masks corruption and harms global development by siphoning off revenues that could be directed to education, health care and infrastructure," Dent said in a statement. While the growing movement to crack down on tax havens has been spearheaded by the richest countries through the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, the negative effects of depleted government revenues hit the poorest countries the hardest. Uganda, an East African country which has often been described as a "donor darling," remains stuck in a cycle of poverty largely due to its inability to provide state services, said Akram-Lodhi.

They don't collect enough tax (because) multinational corporations evade their fair share," he said. While the U.K. government collects 25 per cent of its GDP in tax revenue, Uganda is only able to get 11 per cent, according to World Bank statistics. Instead of having to wait longer for a new subway, low tax revenue has far graver consequences in the developing world, he said. "Tax avoidance in Canada doesn't lead to people going hungry. Tax avoidance in sub-Saharan Africa leads to people dying of hunger. It's that clear," said Akram-Lodhi. "It's criminality that ruins people's lives." Another signatory of the letter, Peter Dietsch, a professor of philosophy and economics at the Université de Montréal, said the Panama Papers have "opened a window of opportunity for action." Describing the underlying conflict over tax havens as being between people who have capital and those who don't, Dietsch said anti-tax haven forces are growing.

"There's now a growing coalition of individuals without capital who pay their taxes and small and medium enterprises who don't have resources to move their assets abroad." Canadian signatories A. Haroon Akram-Lodhi, professor of international development studies, Trent University. Peter Dietsch, professor of philosophy, Université de Montréal Hashmat Khan, professor of economics, Carleton University Kiari Liman-Tinguiri, president of IEDAS Inc., Ottawa Patricia E. Perkins, professor, faculty of Environmental Studies, York University Toby Sanger, senior economist, CUPE

As a policy under the workers' compensation insurance system, expedited fees were effective in reducing wait time to surgery. While a difference of only two weeks may not improve longer-term clinical outcomes post-surgery, it represents a reduction in the total disability duration (i.e., pain, suffering, quality of life) for the injured worker and increases the worker's likelihood of successfully returning to work; the reduced disability duration also represents a cost saving to the workers' compensation system for time-loss benefits and to employers who pay compensation premiums based on the frequency and duration of their claims experience.

the provision of surgeries "after hours" or within private clinics may result in a redistribution of finite resources (e.g., surgeons, surgeon time, surgical staff) from one insurance provider to another, favouring those associated with higher fees, thus creating inequities. An evaluation of the effect of workers' compensation policies on inequity in the provincial healthcare system was not part of this study and warrants future investigation.

the time leading up to surgery may be confounded by co-morbidities and that individuals with complications may be directed to the public system

A difference of approximately two weeks in surgery wait time associated with the expedited fee policy may have meaningful clinical and quality-of-life implications for injured workers, in addition to being cost-effective policy for workers' compensation insurance systems, but did not affect the return-to-work time post-surgery as part of total disability duration. Minimal (and not statistically significant) differences in disability duration were observed for surgeries performed in private clinics versus public hospitals.

Brett J. Skinner is founder and CEO of the Canadian Health Policy Institute and author of "How to Grow the Economy by Liberating Healthcare" (forthcoming).

Canadians spent almost $200-billion on health care in 2010, equal to about 12% of GDP

The health-care industry is also a job-creation machine.

current market demand for health care exceeds the current market supply

economic growth in the industry, is artificially constrained by limited government resources and policy barriers to private-sector funding and delivery

Canada's median age is now about 40, and heading upward. It was 26 in 1971. The median age could be worse; it's 46 in Germany and higher still in Japan. The total fertility rate (TFR) is about 1.6 children per woman. Population replacement rate is two per woman. As a result, and even after accounting for immigration, the annual population growth rate for the next half-century will be the lowest in Canadian history. More seniors means fewer people in the labour force, even if a few seniors keep working into their late 60s. The ratio therefore between those in the work force and those outside of it will change dramatically over time. What used to be a 5-to-1 ratio will slip to something like 2.5 to 1.

Both the federal Department of Finance and the Parliamentary Budget Office have alerted us to what lies ahead: Economic growth will be slower, the burden of expenditures on government for seniors programs will increase and government revenues will be stretched. It's arithmetic, not politics. The arithmetic of aging is politically uncomfortable. It's especially uncomfortable for provinces, the level of government that delivers labour-intensive services such as health, education, policing and welfare. The provinces' burden will also rise because, unless a new federal government changes the decision, Ottawa's yearly transfers to provinces for health care will increase less rapidly past 2017. The result will be a hole of some billions of dollars. Aging with its higher costs and lower growth is the context by which the electoral promises of every party might usefully be judged. They are all catering to today's middle class, fighting over which cares the most about their "anxieties." And they are fixated on seniors, too, since seniors vote.

You could say that the NDP daycare promise is future-oriented, in that if fully implemented it would encourage more women to work, which in turn would ease the ratio of those adults working to those who are not. It might up the fertility rate, which would help, as it has in Quebec. You could say that the Conservatives' decision to raise the age level for receipt of the Old Age Supplement to 67 from 65 recognizes that people are living much longer than when the OAS was implemented. (Women in the next decade are expected to have a life expectancy of 87.) All parties pledge to stoke up the engines of economic growth: in the NDP's case by lowering the small-business tax rate by two points. Except the party then proposes to raise the tax for large companies by two points, an impediment to creating more large companies of the kind Canada needs in a global economy.

Pledges to increase manufacturing are not worth much, since manufacturing has been more or less in decline in North America and Europe (except Germany) for a long time, for reasons rather outside the capacity of governments to influence, except by subsidies and other forms of direct or indirect help. Promises predictably have been pouring forth from every party, without any of them yet providing some sort of overall accounting for how they will be financed. Even when (if?) this accounting is provided, the chances are excellent it will be based on falsely optimistic assumptions about economic growth and the revenues it will provide. The demographic shift now beginning will likely mock those assumptions.

Both leaders are opposed to them, and are promising balanced budgets if elected. But when asked about deficits, separately, on the campaign trail Wednesday, they gave strikingly similar answers. Harper and Mulcair both agreed on the need for stimulus following the Great Recession of 2008-09.

"Back in 2008-2009, we faced two circumstances we do not face today, both of them are important," Harper said in North Bay, Ont., citing the drop in global output and the breakdown in the financial system. "We are nowhere near those kinds of circumstances today," he added. "I do not believe you would run a deficit on purpose if the economy is actually showing growth. Our economy will grow this year and that is why we will keep the budget in balance."

"Confident, optimistic countries are always willing to invest in their own future rather than believe that cutting is somehow the path to growth and success." Harper and Mulcair disagreed, while still taking shots at each other.

"They want to cut programs and they hope in vain that the same plan that has been in place for the last 10 years will still work and will kick-start the economy," he said in Trois-Rivieres, Que. But the Liberal leader was also forced the defend the budget-cutting that his party undertook in the 1990s when Paul Martin served as former prime minister Jean Chretien's finance minister. Martin made the right decision when he cut provincial transfer payments back then because the Conservatives left the country's books in bad shape, Trudeau said.

"Right now, we have a very different situation where for 10 years, even though we have a very good debt-to-GDP ratio, we can't seem to create growth," Trudeau said. Trudeau said only his plan to run deficits to 2019 and increase infrastructure spending will spur real growth in a slackening economy. "Mr. Harper doesn't understand that in order to grow the economy in the 21st century we need to invest in people and give them the tools they need to succeed," he said.

Speaking in Kamloops, B.C., Mulcair said: "We might recall back in 2008 when the worst financial crisis since the 1920s hit, it was obvious then that it was such a true head-on hit to the economy that spending was required and that's what was done." As for the current situation, Mulcair said: "Right now, we are in a recession that's been measured according to the definition accepted here, which is two consecutive quarters of negative growth." Trudeau, meanwhile, said Harper and Mulcair share the same future decision if they have any chance of honouring their balanced budget promises -- budget cuts.

"Proposing a deficit right now with economic growth is a recipe for permanent deficits," Harper said. "It's why we're not going to do it and why I think the country will reject that proposal from the other parties." Mulcair reiterated that the NDP will be able to deliver on its various spending promises by cutting some Conservative initiatives. "We have a plan for investing in infrastructure and housing, but it's all done within the framework of a balanced budget," he said. "Tommy Douglas balanced the budget 17 times in Saskatchewan and still brought in medicare in Canada for the first time."

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair plays street hockey during a federal election campaign stop in Kamloops, B.C.

Some provinces will be able to spend more on health care, others will bear a bigger burden of the aging population, others now have an opportunity to experiment with more private delivery.

there will now be an opportunity, as Canadian Medical Association president John Haggie puts it, “to identify how resources will be used to improve patient care across the country.”