Pharmacare bound to be an animating issue in forthcoming federal budget
Pharmacare is bound to be an animating issue in the forthcoming federal budget Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the subsequent election campaign. It raises the question: are there analogous issues from the past that can help us think about the impending debate about drug coverage and the role of public policy? The closest comparison may […]
Prescription for savings: how the feds can make pharmacare work for households and employers
Recent polling has revealed a growing proportion of Canadians are $200 or less away from financial insolvency at month-end, inching up six percentage points to 46 per cent in the last quarter of 2018. An additional 45 per cent of those surveyed by Ipsos on behalf of insolvency firm MNP Ltd. indicated that, to pay […]
Health Minister Petitpas Taylor says new Canada Food Guide creators were not influenced by industry groups
Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor says she was lobbied by industry groups on the newly-released Canada Food Guide, but says the people who created it were not. “The people who put together the Food Guide did not receive any meetings from lobby groups at all,” Ms. Petitpas Taylor (Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe, N.B.) said in a wide-ranging sit-down interview […]
Investing in Indigenous conservation delivers major social and environmental benefits
Australia may be half a world away and as hot and dry as Canada is cold and snowy, but when it comes to looking after the land, our two countries have plenty in common. Both are committed to protecting vibrant landscapes, restoring species at risk and addressing the impacts of climate change. And both recognize […]
Dental care in Canada: it’s time
When Tommy Douglas came to Ottawa as the Member of Parliament for Burnaby-Coquitlam, B.C., he understood that medicare was a project that would transcend his own lifetime. Although he successfully secured universal coverage for hospital and physician services, he knew that the task of expanding and improving medicare would fall to future generations. That’s why, […]
Personalized medicine is the future of health care
More than 90 per cent of new pharmaceutical compounds don’t make it out of clinical trials. The stratospheric failure rate, plus the need for rigorous safety regulations, makes drug development expensive—more than $2.8-billion for each new drug, according to some research. It’s small wonder that buying drugs is expensive. The federal government is consulting on […]
Could Canada’s health-care system be healthier?
Medicine is not my area of expertise, but I have often joked that I almost feel ready to take some of the med-school exams. Why? I have taken ownership of and responsibility for my health and in the process, I have learned so much. Having struggled with serious health problems since a rather ominous diagnosis […]
The other story about Venezuela
When Canada convenes the Lima Group on Feb. 4, which since August 2017 has been trying to find a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela, top diplomats from the participating countries will certainly have in mind the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants from Venezuela. This is indeed an unprecedented population outflow in […]
Privacy watchdog calls for ‘incremental’ approach to digitizing government services
As the federal government looks to digitize Canadians’ access to government services, the privacy commissioner says that it should take an “incremental” approach, arguing that its experience with the problem-plagued Phoenix pay system speaks to the pitfalls of cutting corners to save time and money. “[That experience] speaks to the need to implement this incrementally,” […]
Senate Conservatives plan to ‘gut’ Liberal gun bill, and they may have the numbers to do it
The Liberals’ firearms legislation is going to get a rough ride in the Upper Chamber, according to the Conservative Senate critic, who says the opposition is planning a set of amendments to “gut” Bill C-71. A 12-member Senate committee, composed of five Conservatives and at least one unaffiliated Senator who, like the Tories, has criticized […]
