Our rational researchers are experts in the manipulation of numbers and they take any opportunity to show their prowess. Sometime ago they showed us how smoking would save the Czech Republic hundreds of millions of dollars a year in health care, pensions and housing costs. Today we have Laura Jones, director of the Fraser Institute for Environment and Regulatory Studies, who is telling us that our libertine provincial and federal governments have been producing on average 4,700 regulations per year at an average cost of $103 billion per year, yet she adds that these governments don't account for the cost of these regulations. Laura Jones feels that these regulations impose undue costs to businesses and consumers and therefore she goes even into the details of showing the number of regulations and their average number of pages broken down by province and by year.

Yesterday we showed the importance of social capital (the virtues of being good citizens) as a prerequisite for economic development, and we have now the Fraser Institute preaching a lower number of governmental regulations for economic development and a lower number of related pages for saving printing cost. And you, reader, please let me know if we wouldn't be better off without the expensive advices of these economic experts who see in their numbers the solutions to our productivity growth!

Some references

Related social and economic articles published by Ensign

Tobacco company cites savings from early deaths of smokers, Ben Fenton, National Post, July 18, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010718/621806.html

Regulations cost $103B a year: Fraser. 4,700 new rules a year, Jill Vardy, Financial Post, August 11, 2001 http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010811/641664.html

Red tape costs Canadians $103 billion, News Release, The Fraser Institute, August 10, 2001 http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/media/media_releases/2001/20010810.html

Find out about Laura Jones and her role at the Fraser Institute. http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/about_us/people/laura_jones.html

Short biography of Laura Jones http://www.aims.ca/Aqua/SeasII/jones.htm

Laura Jones commentary on BC health regulations and how they are burden  http://www.abetterbc.com/news/newsr01_05_10_2.asp 

Here is a simple summary of this section of the Fraser Institute.http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/publications/csr/2000/december/section_08.html