Apr 3 2020 — Mireille Lalancette and Michel Lamy — Policy Options — We are experiencing an unprecedented situation. The crisis caused by COVID-19 has not just health, social and economic implications but also media implications, as its coverage completely overshadows all other events happening on the planet at the moment. It is a media eclipse unlike anything we have ever seen before.
Apr 2 2020 — Sadiya Ansari — Policy Options — Kids in PEI recently participated in a superhero-themed virtual hangout, where some dressed up as …. Dr. Heather Morrison. Morrison – who has also had a calf named after her – is the province’s chief public health officer. The COVID-19 pandemic has made Morrison and other chief public health officers and chief medical officers celebrities, […]
Apr 2 2020 — Jim Stanford — Policy Options — Economic policy-makers have been understandably focused on addressing the immediate economic shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic: developing new income supports for the millions who will need them, stabilizing the credit system and channelling emergency aid to hundreds of thousands of firms that will otherwise collapse in coming months.
Apr 1 2020 — Maryscott (Scotty) Greenwood — Policy Options — Changes at the moment are coming at all of us from all directions. The reality of one day is not the same as the next. The crisis of this pandemic is disrupting business models completely. Governments have shut down vast sectors of their economies. Simultaneously, governments in both Canada and the United States have released […]
Mar 31 2020 — Jane Philpott and Kim Pate — Policy Options — The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called on governments to take urgent action to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in institutions with vulnerable populations, including residential care homes, psychiatric hospitals and prisons. “With outbreaks of the disease, and an increasing number of deaths, already reported in prisons and other institutions in an expanding number […]
Mar 31 2020 — Vance Culbert and Philippe Le Billon — Policy Options — he recent collapse of oil markets is good news for those filling up at the local station, but not for oil producers or for the climate. The unravelling of the production agreement between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and Russia to sustain prices has given way to a war over market share, triggered […]
Mar 30 2020 — Sean Speer and Brian Dijkema — Policy Options — Canadian governments are moving swiftly to provide financial support to businesses and households affected by the coronavirus-induced downturn. These steps are critical and should be lauded. But policy-makers must not neglect Canada’s charities.
Mar 27 2020 — Byron Gangnes and Ari Van Assche — Policy Options — As COVID-19 spreads around the globe, its impact extends far beyond the health implications of a pandemic that has already killed more than 20,000 people in barely three months. To halt the spread of the disease, public officials and business managers have made decisions that are effectively bringing the global economy to a standstill. Several […]
Mar 25 2020 — Nicole Goodman and Aleksander Essex — Policy Options — The international COVID-19 pandemic has forced many sectors to explore online tools to ensure operational continuity during this time of crisis. Provincial governments in Canada have begun releasing online learning platforms to continue to provide students with learning resources (Ontario’s Learn at Home program, for example). In the United States, the New York Stock Exchange […]
Mar 24 2020 — Martha Friendly and Morna Ballantyne — Policy Options — Manitoba announced last week that it would be closing public schools, but leaving childcare centres open. Officials explained that childcare centres provide essential support to parents working during the COVID-19 crisis. A question soon began making the rounds on Twitter and Facebook: “Why are childcare programs in Manitoba not important enough to get adequate funding, […]
Mar 23 2020 — Danny Glenwright — Policy Options — Around 670 million people still defecate outdoors because they do not have access to toilets or sanitation infrastructure. Imagine what they would think as they watched us panic-buying toilet paper, even as manufacturers of this nonessential product reassured Canadians that it won’t run out.
Mar 20 2020 — Pamela Palmater — Policy Options — It is too early to tell what the coronavirus infection rates will be in First Nations, Inuit communities or amongst Métis people – but if we use past government practices as an indicator, we clearly have reason to worry. During the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, Indigenous peoples made up just 4.3 percent of the population, […]
Mar 19 2020 — Pedro Antunes — Policy Options — Over the past few weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases in Canada has grown, following the exponential curve that is the typical pattern of this very contagious virus. So here as elsewhere, drastic measures, imposed and self-imposed, are being adopted by governments, business leaders and households to slow its spread. If we can quickly flatten […]
Mar 19 2020 — Eugene Lang — Policy Options — C.D. Howe. Mitchell Sharp. Donald Macdonald. Charles “Bud” Drury. Edgar Benson. Don Johnston. Robert Winters. Bob Andras. Paul Martin. John Manley. Doug Young. Roy MacLaren. Anne McLellan.
Mar 19 2020 — Frances Woolley — Policy Options — One widely touted response to the COVID-19 pandemic is to “flatten the curve” — to spread COVID-19 infections over time, so that the medical system can cope with them. Yet a cold hard look at the numbers suggests our hospitals cannot cope with the most flattened of curves. Indeed, they cannot cope with any kind […]