Canada needs a proactive pandemic innovation strategy
The COVID-19 crisis points to a hole in Canada’s pandemic preparedness. In the wake of the 2003 SARS crisis, Canada created the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to strengthen and coordinate responses to public health threats. PHAC has exercised national leadership to safeguard Canadians during COVID-19. But responsiveness is not enough. For research and […]
Canada needs a national task force on how best to reboot the economy
Canadians remain physically distanced but the COVID-19 pandemic has tied our well-being to one another like never before. Our fellow Canadians are relying on collective effort to overcome this crisis. Indeed, we are at our best when we work together. Over the past month, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Labour Congress united […]
Why Canada needs to deepen its commitment to SGBA+ in research and policy
LONDON, ONT.—The COVID-19 pandemic has brought data limitations into sharp focus, as the high stakes of public health, social, and economic policy have become apparent. Because evidence-based policy and practice are only as good as the research evidence on which they are based, it is time for a deepened commitment to sex- and gender-based analysis […]
No exit ramps or short cuts are advisable if they endanger the lives of Canadians: Larry Kazdan
Re: “Unprecedented federal deficits sustainable in short term, say economists, but “exit ramp,” post-pandemic planning needed now,” (The Hill Times, May 4). Canada did not adequately prepare for this pandemic, and those who counselled damaging austerity should bear some responsibility. While the debt scaremongers have temporarily accepted robust government intervention, they now push their same bad […]
Investing in our scientific entrepreneurs for ‘The Great Rebuilding’
MONTREAL—As the pandemic knocks the world to its knees, ‘The Great Rebuilding’ is upon us, and it requires all of us to collaborate and rethink the fundamentals of our economy to emerge more resilient and forward thinking than ever before. With COVID-19, what becomes clear is that we have no choice but to speed up […]
Scheer is sounding more and more like Harper
OTTAWA—Andrew Scheer is sounding more and more like Stephen Harper. Who could forget former prime minister Harper’s claim that Atlantic Canadians were suffering from “a culture of defeat”? Harper claimed his comments were misrepresented and he was trying to say was that Atlantic Canadians were subject to Ottawa’s culture of defeat, “I’ve never ever suggested […]
EU-Canada research and innovation teamwork key in global COVID-19 fight
It seems like a lifetime ago that we were going about our everyday business and then, suddenly, we found ourselves in the middle of a health and human crisis of exceptional scale and speed. Despite the initial surprise, the EU and many other jurisdictions across the world have, in the last few weeks, taken measures […]
How the scientific community started its own COVID-19 response
Tara Moriarty, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Toronto, knew something bad was coming. In late December she started paying close attention to news from China of a novel coronavirus, just as the rest of the world was enthralled with the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and the potential consequences of […]
Relocating to more spacious venue for House sittings impractical, some MPs say
A move to a more spacious venue that would allow all 338 MPs to meet without coming into close contact with each other wouldn’t necessarily address all of the public health challenges of an in-person meeting, some MPs say, and had not been raised as a prospect among House leaders as of last week, says […]
The post-COVID-19 economy: financing Canada’s leadership in sustainable energy
WATERLOO, ONT.—Conventional wisdom would suggest that government budgets should alternate with economic cycles: surpluses during economic expansions and deficits during contractions. In the past, deviations from this approach have led to subsequent fiscal challenges for Canada; profligate federal and provincial spending through the 1970s and into the early 1990s led to debt in excess of […]
