Setting up digital ID regime could provide boost to post-pandemic recovery
If the global pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that the need for reliable and secure data is paramount as businesses, governments, and Canadians from Vancouver to Quebec City to Charlottetown and everywhere in between move online. From receiving emergency pandemic benefits to ensuring health records are correct and helping children and youth with online […]
Canada continues to delay decision on COVID vaccines IP waiver
The Canadian government maintains it hasn’t made up its mind on a waiver that potentially could allow increased vaccine production around the world, a delay some say is equivalent to opposing the initiative. The waiver was brought forward to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) last October […]
New contract keeps distance interpreting definition deemed problematic by association
New contract terms for federal freelance interpreters are out, and while one proposed aspect flagged as problematic has been reversed, a definition of distance interpreting that’s been criticized as likely to open up the workforce to greater health and safety risks has been maintained. “Because they’re putting it down in the contract for the very […]
COVID or not, Freeland’s budget doesn’t shy away from challenging Canadians on their vision for the future
OTTAWA—Despite the immediate crunch of the third wave, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government shows no signs of backing away from its plan to transform Canada into what many will see as a very different country in the post-pandemic era. In the most impactful budget in recent memory, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland looked beyond COVID-19 on […]
Ottawa earmarks $18-billion on Indigenous spending
Budget 2021 lays out expansive spending on Indigenous services, reaching $18-billion over five years, to address longstanding inequities that Ottawa says have been exacerbated by COVID-19. The largest promises, typically over a five-year time frame, are assigned to infrastructure projects ($6-billion), pandemic support ($1.4-billion), addressing the “national tragedy” of missing and murdered Indigenous women and […]
The federal government is failing BIPOC Canadians in priority city hubs
The Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences recently examined who is receiving the vaccine in Toronto and other major cities. Its findings? Wealthy neighbourhoods with low COVID-19 rates had much higher vaccination rates than lower-income communities of colour with greater risk. In Toronto, Moore Park was the highest vaccinated postal code, city-wide. I used to live […]
Infrastructure-ready talent key to recovery
In times of economic downturn, investing in infrastructure is often viewed as a way to stimulate the economy and expedite recovery. U.S. President Joe Biden just announced a $2-trillion infrastructure plan, in part to spur economic activity. Here in Canada, despite less-than-ideal progress on a 12-year, $188-billion Investing in Canada Plan, the truth is that […]
A nurse is not just a nurse
Recently, well-known health-care journalist, André Picard wrote that “a bed is not just a bed.” In the context of patient care, a bed, in and of itself, doesn’t guarantee that a patient is getting the right kind of care in the right place. The bed, and more importantly the type and location of the bed, […]
‘It’s getting worse, we’re going backwards’: Ontario MPs say constituents confused, frustrated, angry with vaccine supply issues, and partisan ‘finger-pointing’ as COVID cases skyrocket
Canada’s most populous province is facing an increasingly uphill battle in reining in the pandemic with new cases of COVID-19 hitting all-time highs last week, intensive-care units stretched to capacity, and what a number of Ontario MPs describe as confusion, frustration, and anger with the vaccine rollout among their constituents. Ontario recorded 4,250 new COVID-19 […]
If the plan is to turn Labrador or some other part of the country into a nuclear dump, the public should know why
HALIFAX—The world, and Canada with it, is inundated with emergencies. It is hard to know where to point the firehose. There is climate change, of course, where humanity has put itself at risk by discharging our pollution into the atmosphere. We have given the planet a potentially fatal fever, and fumbled most disgracefully with bringing […]
