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Canadian Environmental Indicators - —Air Quality looks at the state of air quality in Canada and examines air quality regulations. The study examines long-term monitoring data from Environment Canada’s National Air Pollution Surveillance network on five major air pollutants regularly cited as posing health risks to Canadians: ground-level ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide. The study also examines the air quality standards and regulatory mechanisms already in force in Canada to determine whether local air quality is getting better or worse, and how it compares to the clean-air targets in place across the country.

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Fraser Forum is a monthly review of public policy in Canada, with articles covering taxation, education, health care policy, and a wide range of other topics. Forum writers are economists, Institute research analysts, and selected authors, including those from other public policy think tanks.

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This study examines the costs and benefits of the official language policies of the 10 Canadian provinces and calculates how much each province spends on providing services in French to a francophone minority. In Quebec’s case, the report looked at the cost of providing services in English to the anglophone minority.

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Canadian financial regulators have introduced a new disclosure document for mutual and segregated funds called “Fund Facts.” The document is intended to provide investors with information in a simple, accessible, and comparable format.

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The Generosity Index measures private monetary generosity using two key indicators. The percentage of tax filers who donated to charity indicates the extent of generosity, while the percentage of aggregate personal income donated to charity indicates the depth of charitable giving. The jurisdictions included in the index are the 10 Canadian provinces and three territories, the 50 US states, and Washington, DC.

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This edition of Waiting Your Turn indicates that waiting times for elective medical treatment have increased since last year. Specialist physicians surveyed across 12 specialties and 10 Canadian provinces report a total waiting time of 19.0 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of elective treatment. At 104 percent longer than it was in 1993, this is the longest total wait time recorded since the Fraser Institute began measuring wait times in Canada.

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Since the early 1990s, Ontario governments of every partisan stripe have used tax dollars to subsidize private for-profit businesses. Between 1991/92 and 2008/09 (the first and last years for which comparable data are available), Ontario’s governments spent $27.7 billion on direct subsidies to corporations. For anyone who paid income tax in 2008, the cost of corporate welfare was $424 per Ontarian (or $848 per dual-income couple). By lowering taxes rates for all and offering subsidies to none, Ontario’s government could concentrate its spending and tax policy where it would do the most good.