The Dairy Lobby is Souring Canada’s Reputation in International Trade and Canadians’ Bank Accounts

By: Ruolan Ma The controversy of Canada’s dairy market protectionism never ceases to spark debate in both domestic and international societies. Achieved through the supply management system, the protectionist barrier of Canada’s dairy industry is blamed for the high price of dairy products and diplomatic spats with trade partners, such as the United States. The…

Tackling Inequities in Efforts to Achieve a Low-Carbon Economy

By: Madeleine Whitestone The enormity of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP27, reflected the increasing political appetite for carbon neutrality. As of today, 196 countries have signed on to the 2016 Paris Agreement, committing to some form of reduction in carbon emissions. Under the agreement, participating countries committed to successive nationally determined…

Plastic Waste: Driving a Circular Economy

By: Lisa Alers-Hankey In today’s global economy an estimated 95 percent of the material value of plastics is lost after single-use, amounting to a value between $100-150 billion dollars annually. The Canadian economy only recycles nine percent of plastics, leading to vast amounts of economic value being lost to landfills. Furthermore, the production and end-of-life care of…

The Effectiveness of Fossil Fuel Divestment: A Historical Analysis

By: Anna Hardie On October 27 2022, University of Toronto announced its commitment to divest from all direct and indirect fossil fuel investments by 2030. Since 2017, ten Canadian universities have committed to divesting from fossil fuels with 40% of these divestment announcements made in just this past year. The increased momentum in calling for academic institutions to divest…

The CANDU Attitude: Expanding Nuclear Energy Capacity in Canada

By: Nicholas Johnstone In the summer of 2020, the province of Alberta joined with Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick in a commitment to research and eventually develop small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). These provinces did this amidst heightening social pressure to combat climate change and in light of the growing need to find energy solutions that…

Income Inequality in Canada: A Pre-Election Primer

By: Hugh Ragan and Jack Pankratz With the inequities exposed by the pandemic fresh in people’s memory, and an election looming for September 20, Canadians will be looking for their political leaders to promise progress on economic inequality in the month ahead.  Although the troubling patterns of American inequality may have spurred a worldwide reckoning on the…