The goal of this paper is twofold. Part I looks at the historical experience and illustrates how current "cleaner" sources of liquid fuels were anything but in the first stages of their development. Part II describes how Alberta's oil sands are being exploited and illustrates how "win-win-win" innovations are now taking place that are making this industry more efficient and more environmentally friendly.

In May 2012, after a two-year investigation, the president of the European Competition Commission (ECC), Mr. Joaquim Almunia, told Google to modify the operation of its search engine, under penalty of law. According to the ECC, Google is abusing its position in the Internet search engine and online advertising markets. Elsewhere in the world, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the United States is also studying the possibility of suing Google for abusing its market position. Other countries like South Korea, Australia and India are investigating on the same grounds.

Nearly two decades after having decided that it was not necessary to regulate the wireless telephone sector, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) decided this past April to revisit its decision and hold public consultations on the matter. It should soon announce whether or not it believes that formal regulation is required to ensure that the sector remains competitive. Wireless telephony now includes data transmission and has become a competitive factor for businesses in an environment in which communications technologies are developing rapidly.

In order to promote a change of agricultural policy, we briefly review the cases of countries that have abolished or are in the process of abolishing quota systems: the buyback and abandonment of milk quotas in Australia, of tobacco and peanut quotas in the United States, the elimination of milk quotas in Switzerland and the beginnings of a process of abandonment of milk quotas in Europe. Canada could follow these examples by abandoning mandatory membership in marketing boards and by imposing a temporary tax to buy back farming quotas.

The president and CEO of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Hubert Lacroix, stated recently that the crown corporation had to "be something for, and mean something special to, every Canadian." In accordance with the mandate described in the latest version of the Broadcasting Act, adopted in 1991, Mr. Lacroix wants a wide range of programming that informs, enlightens and entertains. Yet the technological context and the Canadian broadcasting sector have undergone significant changes since 1991. Shouldn't the mandate of the CBC do likewise?

The shortage of injectable drugs that Canada has been experiencing in recent months is an ongoing headache for health professionals and hospital administrators. Many surgeries had to be postponed recently and clinical treatments had to be suspended due to certain essential drugs, in particular painkillers and anaesthetics, being out of stock. The phenomenon has become so serious that last March, the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health called in the main participants and specialists in the pharmaceutical field for special hearings in order to take stock of the situation.

When a public administration takes charge of services for citizens, it has a responsibility to provide them at the lowest possible cost. It is taxpayers, after all, who pay for these costs, which include in particular the working conditions governed by the collective agreements of the public sector employees who provide these services. In the case of the City of Montreal, $2.9 billion will be collected this year in municipal taxes, while the overall remuneration of its employees will total $2.4 billion.

The federal equalization program will distribute over $15 billion to the relatively "poorer" Canadian provinces in 2012-2013. The formula used to calculate the amounts to be paid out was significantly modified in 2007. In recent months, numerous criticisms have been expressed, which may be a sign of more contentious debates to come until the revision of the equalization formula in 2014.

With the Quebec hospital network's difficulties continuing to make headlines, especially when it comes to wait times, calls to reform the way hospitals are funded have become increasingly common in recent months. At the beginning of the year, the director general of the McGill University Health Center and the Quebec Association of Health and Social Services Institutions each in turn proposed that hospitals should from now on be financed according to services provided, as is done in many countries.

The "Occupy Wall Street" movement, which spread to many cities around the world last fall, once again brought the never-ending question of income inequality to the forefront of public debate. Concerns about this issue have also been fed by studies that have appeared over the past year, especially those from the Conference Board of Canada and the OECD. However, even though these studies present data showing that income inequality in Canada has been tending to increase, the interpretation of their conclusions is not as obvious as it might appear at first glance.