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Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

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A National Energy Strategy for Canada: Current Opportunities and Challenges

In Leonardo Tovar, Public Policy on January 13, 2012 at 10:00 am

Leonardo Tovar

You’ve probably heard this argument many times. The U.S. needs energy resources. Canada has the human capital and physical infrastructure to deliver them cost-efficiently. Let the market do its job and Canada benefits from its trade surplus with its southern neighbour. What about the environment, you say? Well, according to the Federal government, Canadians want to focus on the Copenhagen and Cancun accords that are as hazy as the mechanisms currently available to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

This has been essentially Canada’s approach to energy since the 1980s.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Setting the Agenda for the Canada We Want in 2020

In Mark Stabile, Public Policy on November 24, 2011 at 12:30 pm

Mark Stabile

Today, Canada 2020 will launch a book called “The Canada We Want in 2020: A Strategic Policy Roadmap for the Federal Government.” The publication highlights some key challenges for Canada over the next decade, and provides strategic policy advice specifically for the federal government on how to tackle them.  A series of five chapters on productivity, Asia, carbon, income disparities, and health care provides some clear policy advice for a majority federal government that is now in a position to provide strong leadership for the country and aims to raise the level of public debate around these key issues. If the federal government is going to act boldly, regardless of its majority standing, it will need the public to understand and support its actions.  Each topic is supported by pieces from various authors, and I was privileged to write one of the chapters on health care. Read the rest of this entry »

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Why Canadians Should Fear Two-Tier

In Brianne Kirkpatrick, Public Policy on November 10, 2011 at 10:00 am

Brianne Kirkpatrick

Over the past few months we, as a city, a province, a state, and a people, have been distracted. We have been busied by an economic crisis. Keeping up with Rob Ford’s vision for Toronto. Swept up in the largest social movement our generation has seen in support of Occupy Wall Street. But there are other interests at work and other dialogues to which to listen. Health care, I argue, is an issue deserving constant vigilance. To look away from it for a moment is to relinquish that moment to another interested party – one that, if left unchecked, could seriously damage the quality of health care we receive in this country.

Universal health care is a symbol of Canada, both to its citizens and to its global audience. ‘Universal’ is an assumption that has become natural to Canadians. But what does universal really mean? How is the Canadian health care system universal? Read the rest of this entry »

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More Can be Done to Reduce Medical Errors

In Matt Warwick, Public Policy on November 4, 2011 at 10:00 am

Matt Warwick

Four-year-old Courtney Braund, a recovering leukemia patient in a Halifax hospital, was set to receive her last chemotherapy treatment.

On this particular April day in 1992, she was also scheduled to receive dental surgery due to side effects from the treatment. Her usual chemotherapy drug, vincristine, was a potent medication that is deadly if injected into the spinal cord.

That night, Courtney was very restless while sleeping in her parents bed. She screamed and vomited  the next morning, prompting her parents to take her back to the hospital. Although the error was identified immediately, nothing could be done to change the outcome. Courtney died a week later. Read the rest of this entry »

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Cracking down on crime: Is getting tough the way to safer streets?

In Public Policy, Tiff Blair on September 28, 2011 at 10:00 am

Tiff Blair

Mandatory minimums, extended sentences for youth offenders, harsher sentences for drug crimes and the elimination of pardons for serious crimes, are but some of the legislative changes being proposed by the 9-part omnibus crime bill introduced by the Conservative government this week.

On Tuesday Sept. 20, the Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada introduced the Safe Streets and Communities Act that aims to “target crime and terrorism and provide support and protection to victims of crime.” While the Conservatives have tried to push through various crime bills since 2006 in a minority-government situation, they now have a majority government and opposition parties have limited opportunities to challenge these forthcoming laws.

The objective of this bill, to “make our streets, families and communities safer” implicitly suggests that existing laws and policies have failed to achieve such ends. Contrary to these claims, Statistics Canada data shows that crime rates in Canada have been steadily decreasing over the past 20 years. Why then is now the time to get tough on crime? Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s About Poverty, Stupid!

In Public Policy on April 29, 2011 at 10:51 am

Earlier this year, a pair of pundits  lamented the lack of grand policy ideas in Canadian politics. To no one’s surprise, this federal election has not radically changed the tone of our political discourse and the last few weeks have been fairly devoid of entrepreneurial policy debate. In a last minute effort to spice things-up, I thought I would throw my favourite grand policy idea into the ring and see if there are any takers. Steve, Iggy, Jack, and Gilles! Listen carefully because this is a game-changer!

To build some suspense, let me first tell you that this is a 40-year old policy proposal. At least some form of this policy has been endorsed by the Liberal Senator David Croll, the infamous Royal Commission on Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, Conservative Senator Hugh Segal, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Manitoba NDP Premier and former Governor General Ed Schreyer, Martin Luther King Jr., Richard Nixon, and Milton Friedman. Amazingly, many years ago, this policy was also implemented at a trial level when the federal government and the provincial government of Manitoba partnered for five years and focused resources in Dauphin, Manitoba. This policy is sometimes envisioned as a single substitute for the myriad income security programs in Canada currently costing our government $130 billion annually. And this policy “guarantees” the elimination of poverty. Guessed what it is yet? Read the rest of this entry »

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Clean Canadian Energy: Missing the Opportunity of a Generation

In Public Policy on March 23, 2011 at 10:00 am

Throughout our history, generation after generation of Canadians have faced up to the tremendous challenges of their times. From the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway to the introduction of Medicare, we have not been afraid to take the big steps necessary to achieve our policy goals. As we drift into the 21st century, however, Canada has remained at a relative standstill in the face of what will surely be the defining issue of our generation: global climate change. In our neglect to take any serious action on climate change, we are not only setting ourselves down a potentially catastrophic path, but are missing an enormous opportunity to transform the foundation of our economy to meet this century’s needs. Canada can become a renewable energy powerhouse with the right investments and political will, but it remains to be seen if we will seize this opportunity.

As it stands right now, we’re falling behind. Countries around the globe are taking big steps toward transforming their energy systems, creating thousands of jobs and transitioning to a modern, low-carbon economy. In the past six years, world-wide clean energy investment has grown by 230 percent, with $162 billion invested in renewables in 2009 alone. Read the rest of this entry »

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Own the Podium. Bad Name, Good Policy.

In Public Policy on February 22, 2010 at 9:00 am
Taken on my way to watch the torch relay, outs...

Image via Wikipedia

I feel a little uncomfortable with Canada’s new swaggering, medal hungry, take-no-prisoners Olympic persona. In 2005 the federal government launched Own the Podium – a funding strategy to dominate at the 2010 Winter Olympics and an ambitious goal to place first in the medal count. We weren’t just hoping or striving for the podium in Vancouver, we were going to own it.

Canada, a country that normally prides itself on niceties, passive politics and weak coffee is suddenly talking smack and walking with a swagger. Except we’re about as intimidating as Kirsten Dunst in “Bring it On”. Read the rest of this entry »

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