To what extent should the canadian governement intervene in the market economy?

[Lilly T]

It's for a grade 9 social essay.
I'm having trouble understanding the question in general.
pros and cons?

[john]

For an economics question you would have to first discuss a few issues with government intervention, I would recommend you find 3 topics.
Firstly define government intervention and what a market economy is, in Economics "Government intervention is when the Government intervenes to solve problems caused by the market, this is known as market failure. " (My definition is a bit rough I haven't been learning my definitions in awhile).
Then choose a topic, something like Government policies to stop negative externalities caused by the market. Lets say this negative externality is pollution, there are many policies such as Cap n Trade and Carbon Offsetting, you should look into this yourself. Firstly explain what the policies are and then explain why they are good and why they are bad, and then evaluate relating it to the Canadian government. Maybe in after explaining Carbon offsetting saying why its good you can evaluate saying "However, despite carbon offsetting giving the incentive to firms to reduce pollution and invest into more environmentally friendly methods this is less significant for large firms that make bigger profits who can simply pay off their pollution levels." or "Carbon offsetting may cause firms to reduce their polllution levels but there is no real way of measuring the level of pollution and therefore it is ineffective".
You could either evaluate saying why it can be done or why its not good ... and relate it to real life.
Remember, choose a few topics, explain them, evaluate.

[William Hartanto]

Since it is a grade 9 question, I'll keep it simple.

Market economy is where the producer is free to produce whatever they want and the supplier is free to buy whatever they want, and the market (i.e. the supply and demand) determine the price and the product being created.

This is opposed to planned economy where the government tell the producer what to make and the consumer get allocated the goods and services based on their allocation system (e.g. Soviet regime between 1920s to 1990)

Now, in the world, there is no 100% market economy (and its unlikely that there is 100% planned economy, even Russia has its black markets). There are "free market economists" out there who believe that a good government is a small government. Why? Because they believe that the market will be able to allocate resources better than any government can. They believe if let alone, market will produce the needed goods and services in the most efficient way.

But while this is often true, this is not always the case. The market is very efficient at creating needed goods and services, but it is not very efficient at distributing wealth. USA is a prime example. The wealth gap in that nation is the largest in any developed nation. It becomes the nation of the have and have not. But it is, "on average", a very wealthy nation.

Now we come to part of economy that you shouldnt tell your economics teacher (unless he's an open minded liberal): Free Market economists are wrong. While on theory they are sound, they lack empirical (real world data) evidence. But lets skip this for your grade 9 exam.Let's go to what government should intervene in.

Government all over the world has intervene in:
1. Education of the citizens, either by providing public schools or help in paying the fees
2. Healthcare, Transport, Maintaining "public goods" like roads and highway, some even still have national electricity and telecommunications company controlled by government.Basically if it is IMPORTANT and you don't want the private sector to provide it only to the wealthy, government should control it.
3. Income distribution (taxes, subsidies to the unemployed/poor)

Now this is highly heretical to Free market theorist, but Cambridge economic professor Ha-Joon Chang believes that government also should intervene in:
1. Tariffs (tax to import) and subsidies to "infant" economy
2. Regulations of important private sectors (like banks and finance, to prevent 2007 crisis)

Anyway, i hope that's enough starting point for your essay. Good luck.

[Jem]

To what extent: To protect that safety and well being of the citizens.

In a free market, the government does not have any say, and everything has a true value, based on what the people want and what they need.

[Anjaree]

You have to ask your politicians. Since I have known that they will take Canada to a socialist country,I would say that Canada will love achieving the level of Sweden or Norway. But in fact,it is still at the level of Great Britain like now. It might because Canada is still in NAFTA.And the US and Mexico will not go with it.