The (in)justice system and Indigenous people
(This article has been translated into French.) The recent acquittal by a jury of Gerald Stanley, a white farmer, in the shooting death of Colten Boushie, an Indigenous man from...
Medical inadmissibility rules make Canada a laggard
Last year, between 900 and 1,000 individuals and their families were deemed medically inadmissible to Canada because of the “excessive demand” provision in section 38(1)(c) of the Immigration and...
Why misogynistic killings need a public label
The word “misogyny” is used by academics and feminists theorizing from their ivory towers – or at least that’s often the criticism. It’s true that misogyny is not a...
Will future generations reap the Alberta Advantage?
The Alberta government has long been criticized for relying too heavily on resource revenue to meet its fiscal objectives and for saving an insufficient amount of the natural capital...
On vehicle emissions standards it’s time Canada divorced the US
(This article has been translated into French.) Canada’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions regulations for passenger vehicles currently adopt by default the standards of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)....
Taking the sexual assault victim’s perspective into account
(This article was translated from the French.) It is clear that Canada’s criminal justice system is ill-equipped to deal with cases of sexual assault. Most victims do not go...
Doing justice by Black Canadians
(This article has been translated into French.) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently gave a short but significant speech on Parliament Hill announcing that the Government of Canada is officially recognizing...
Toward a national policy on AI
Governments around the world are investing in artificial intelligence (AI), preparing for the changes ahead as this new technology diffuses. French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced €1.5 billion for...
Immigration detention and newcomer communities
According to the Canada Border Services Agency, about 7,000 men, women and children are detained through the immigration detention system every year. Stephanie J. Silverman joined the podcast to...
What makes Quebec such an outlier on child care?
Several provincial governments have recently increased public funding of child care services. The Alberta government announced a modest investment in child care in December 2017, and the BC government...
Youth and criminal justice: Reflections on the legislation
(This article was translated from French.) It’s stating the obvious, and all the practitioners on the ground will tell you, serious delinquency is fuelled by a host of social and...
Could the UK stay in the EU and keep its independence?
The following is an edited version of an email exchange between British scholar Julian Lindley-French and British diplomat Anthony Cary on the subject of whether the United Kingdom could...
Restorative justice for survivors of sexual violence
(This article has been translated into French.) Over one year ago, more than 3 million people walked in the US Women’s March. It was a stunning show of solidarity...
Trump and the TPP: What should Canada do?
After trashing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during his election campaign, and following through on his election promise to withdraw the United States from the pact right after taking office,...
A youth justice system that’s more than courts and prisons
(This article has been translated into French.) The federal government has begun to look at ways of ensuring young people charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act are diverted by...
Will Canada keep up globally on R&D?
Policy discussions of research and development (R&D) and of innovation in Canada often take on a best-of-times, worst-of-times flavour. This makes the issues seem bewildering, all too often leading...
Restorative justice: rebuilding relationships with society
(This article was translated from the French.) The trial is over, the sentence was handed down months ago, but Jeanne (not her real name) still doesn’t feel the closure she...
Where does the public sit on NAFTA?
As negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) move toward a critical stage, we wondered whether President Donald Trump’s protectionist rhetoric aligns with American public opinion. Would...
Breaking the cycle for “crossover youth”
This article has been translated into French. Over the last few months, the case of Abdoul Abdi, a young Somali refugee and former Crown ward facing deportation for being convicted...
No good can come from panicking over Trans Mountain
Since early April, the concerns over the fate of the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline in the face of the British Columbia government’s objections have been elevated...
Canadian students, researchers key to ties with China
China’s growing economic and political influence continues to dominate the news, and Canada has certainly been paying attention. Now it’s time to move past the “China-is-rising” narrative and start...
How to prevent jails from serving as the new asylums
This article has been translated into French. The intersection between mental illness and criminal justice has a long history. In the past, asylums and institutionalized care focused on keeping patients...
Parliamentary privilege and #MeToo
The worldwide chorus of #MeToo has been duly noted on Parliament Hill. Many former political staffers and Hill denizens are quick to criticize the status quo. The Hill’s hallowed...
Chasing an elusive consensus on justice reform
This article has been translated into French. No one disputes that the criminal justice system is in need of major improvements. It requires fundamental change, and this requires not...
Widening the Lens on Criminal Justice Reform
The federal government says it wants to transform – not just reform – the criminal justice system, “to ensure that it is just, compassionate and fair, and promotes a...
The Trans Mountain saga as a public policy failure
Kinder Morgan’s April 8 ultimatum to Canada — clear a direct path for our Trans Mountain pipeline expansion by May 31 or we’ll down tools for good — has...
Alberta and Newfoundland: A tale of a boom and a bust
The 2018 budget season, now winding up, underscores a stunning reversal in the fiscal fortunes of Canada’s provinces. Five years ago, who would have guessed that in 2018 Quebec...
Arctic policy must embrace Indigenous knowledge and Arctic science
When the federal government announced the Canada C3 expedition last year, almost 5,000 people applied to sail through the Canadian Arctic via the Northwest Passage. But when the government...
Indigenous rights aren’t a subplot of pipeline debate
Imagine if decades from now a student of Canadian political history is digging into the Kinder Morgan pipeline saga. What kind of picture would she get from scanning the...
Canada on right side of Venezuelan crisis
The regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has spearheaded a program of mass domestic repression and humanitarian deprivation unprecedented in the country’s history. There has been an increase of...
Canada must make Bill-69 climate-safe
Canada is failing to meet its climate targets, which are already weak to begin with. Recent reports from Environment and Climate Change Canada show that the gap between national...
Mitigating harm for sexual assault complainants
Over 90 percent of sexual assaults in Canada go unreported. When survivors of sexual assault do wind up in court, law professor Elaine Craig says the trials themselves cause...
Integrity of the DFO’s science advisory process in question
Does Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFOs) science advisory process have integrity when tasked with answering questions on salmon farming? If there is any hope of changing the trajectory of...
Keep expectations high for antiracism consultations
The federal government is about to embark on nationwide antiracism consultations. The initiative is not without its naysayers. The announcement of the $23-million plan in the 2018 budget has...
Instagram, Justin Trudeau, and political image-making
Over the past decade, politicians in Canada and internationally have been increasingly turning to digital media, including social media, for political communication, mobilization and organizing, in and out of...
Canada needs a comprehensive zero-emissions vehicle strategy
This year, the federal government will release its zero-emissions vehicle strategy, one of the most anticipated and consequential proposals in the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change....
Will NAFTA 2.0 be a model for North American economic (dis)integration?
Donald Trump has been clear from the start of his presidency: the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a terrible deal (the “worst trade deal”) for the United...
On cannabis Bill Senate must defer to Canadians’ democratic will
On March 22, Parliament faced an anxious moment when Conservative senators tried to manoeuvre the defeat of Bill C-45, legalizing cannabis in Canada. There are important historical and democratic...
How to deal with the opioid crisis
As clinicians, we are bound by professionalism and our ethical responsibilities to do no harm and to do what we can to address the pain and suffering of our...
Should justice be delivered by AI?
It is conventional wisdom, repeated by authoritative voices such as the former chief justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin, that Canadians face an access-to-justice (A2J) crisis. While artificial intelligence (AI)...
Mitigating Kinder Morgan’s impact on BC’s economy and environment
The $7.4-billion Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline project would be an expansion of a pipeline that originates in Alberta and terminates in the heart of Metro Vancouver. While the...
We need a common sense climate policy
The world has always been able to count on Canada to punch above its weight on issues of global concern, including the potential impacts of climate change. However, doing...
Canadian exceptionalism in attitudes toward immigration
Xenophobic retrenchment has been evident in many societies lately. Anti-immigrant parties have made or consolidated gains in countries such as Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands and, most recently, Italy. Resentment...