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April 2019

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Published by
  • Law
  • Politics
April 30, 2019

Rebuilding the legitimacy of the notwithstanding clause

The existence in our Constitution of a clause allowing our elected representatives to derogate — to deviate — from the individual rights guaranteed by the Canadian Charter (and Quebec’s)...

Jean Leclair
  • Politics
April 30, 2019

Le retour aux sources conservatrices en Alberta

La victoire sans équivoque du Parti conservateur uni (PCU) de Jason Kenney le 16 avril dernier ― avec 54,8 % des voix exprimées contre 32,7 % pour le Nouveau Parti démocratique...

Frédéric Boily
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
April 30, 2019

Should we publicly fund IVF in Canada?

In-vitro fertilization (IVF) has come a long way since the birth of the first test-tube baby in England in 1978. IVF is a procedure in which eggs are removed...

Francesca Scala
  • Health
  • Social Policy
April 29, 2019

Jeter des ponts entre l’expertise et l’expérience en PMA

Le retour à l’ordre du jour des questions liées à la procréation médicalement assistée (PMA), tant au Québec qu’au niveau fédéral, rappelle à quel point persiste une inadéquation entre...

Audrey L’Espérance
  • Economy
  • Social Policy
April 29, 2019

Foundations ought to be investing in infrastructure

What if there were a way government could boost investments in things like affordable housing and renewable energy without spending a cent? Ottawa could easily redirect billions of dollars...

Bill Young
  • Law
  • Policy-making
April 26, 2019

Ouvrir le débat sur la réforme du droit de la famille au Québec

De plus en plus d’enfants naissent du recours à la procréation assistée. L’encadrement de cette pratique est un domaine de compétence partagé entre les gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux. Par...

Michelle Giroux
  • Politics
April 26, 2019

Quebec poised to adopt proportional electoral system

Support for electoral reform is a potent, if latent, political force in Canada, and Quebec now seems poised to switch its electoral system from single-member plurality (SMP) to mixed-member...

James Bowden
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
April 25, 2019

How should Canadian policy react to CRISPR babies?

(This article has been translated into French.) In November 2018, a Chinese researcher made headlines with the news that he had created genetically modified babies using genome editing. The...

Jocelyn Maclure, David Hughes
  • Global Affairs
  • Politics
April 25, 2019

Make corrupt foreign officials pay

The world is facing a forced-displacement crisis. There are nearly 69 million people around the world, over half of them children, who have fled their homes because of armed...

Ratna Omidvar
  • Indigenous
  • Social Policy
April 24, 2019

Responsibility for Kashechewan’s crises lies with Crown

Bureaucrats, ministers of Indian affairs and even premiers and prime ministers have promised year after year to address the multiple, overlapping crises in the Cree Nation of Kashechewan, crises...

Pamela Palmater
  • Health
  • Law
April 24, 2019

Bébés à la carte : jusqu’où devrions-nous aller ?

Longtemps inexpliqué, le miracle de la vie s’éclaircit au fur et à mesure que nos connaissances en matière de procréation et de génétique évoluent. De l’embryon présentant les meilleures...

Joséane Chrétien
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
April 23, 2019

Caution’s needed in shaping surrogacy laws

Worldwide, commercial surrogacy services are in high demand, and Canada has become an appealing provider for international couples in search of these services. Although there are some gaps in...

Jennifer Parks
  • Law
  • Social Policy
April 23, 2019

An Africentric principle could right some wrongs

There is a conventional notion that justice should be blind. But Canada’s Constitution says the opposite: it should not be blind, and it should not be colour blind. Canadians...

Anthony N. Morgan
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
April 22, 2019

The ethical line for Down syndrome testing

Beginning in 2011, a new generation of prenatal genetic tests became available. These tests are highly accurate in determining whether a fetus has Down syndrome or a few other...

Chris Kaposy
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
April 19, 2019

Canadian citizenship in assisted reproduction

In a 2015 article I asked: “does sperm have a flag?” The answer is, as it turns out, yes. And in the context of Canadian citizenship, it seems likely...

Lois Harder
  • Law
  • Policy-making
April 19, 2019

Why aren’t we tougher on “assault-style” firearms?

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) appointed a task force in 2018, led by Regina Police Chief Evan Bray, to consider Canada’s gun laws. The task force...

Blake Brown
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
April 18, 2019

Refugee youth need tailor-made services

Today 65.8 million people are displaced around the world. Canada has long taken in refugees, including a large group fleeing the Syrian civil war who were invited to Canada...

Emily Pelley
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
April 18, 2019

The policy challenge of frozen embryos

(This article has been translated into French.) A few years ago, a pregnant friend who went through successful in-vitro fertilization (IVF) called me late at night, sobbing. She felt...

Vardit Ravitsky
  • Indigenous
  • Policy-making
April 17, 2019

Crown-Indigenous relations in Canada

The 2015 federal election was Canada’s first after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. Four years later, both the public discourse and the policy landscape have...

Marilyn Slett, Brock Pitawanakwat, Hayden King
  • Law
  • Social Policy
April 17, 2019

Can Parliament get assisted reproduction policy right?

Assisted reproduction policy in Canada hasn’t quite worked out as planned. After a 1993 royal commission recommended sweeping national legislation, Parliament passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act in 2004....

Dave Snow
  • Policy-making
  • Science & Tech
April 17, 2019

Start governing AI now, with some early limits

New technologies follow a fairly predictable cycle: First comes the hype, then disappointment, followed finally by measured and thoughtful acceptance. Artificial intelligence (AI) is still largely in the hype...

Mark Robbins
  • Media & culture
  • Politics
April 16, 2019

Government should have explained DPAs to the public

After more than two months — and a remarkable tally of political casualties — the SNC-Lavalin affair at last appears to be entering its final stages. Aside from its...

Peter Donolo
  • Politics
  • Social Policy
April 16, 2019

Mères porteuses : remboursement, compensation, indemnisation ?

Bien qu’il n’existe pas de statistiques à ce sujet, la gestation pour autrui (GPA) représenterait moins de 1 % des naissances au Canada. Cette pratique a pourtant fait couler beaucoup...

Louise Langevin
  • Health
April 15, 2019

New reproductive technology regulations don’t go far enough

The much-maligned, often-studied Assisted Human Reproduction Act is a sweeping piece of legislation that governs the regulation of reproductive technologies and embryo research in Canada. Although it was passed...

Alana Cattapan, Vanessa Gruben, Angela Cameron
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
  • Special Features
April 15, 2019

Addressing the Gaps in Canada’s Assisted Reproduction Policy

Designing a policy framework to regulate the ethically charged, scientifically complex field of assisted reproduction has been challenging for the federal and provincial governments. The 2004 Assisted Human Reproduction...

  • Economy
  • Social Policy
April 15, 2019

What’s the true cost of food when you’re poor?

The average Canadian spends about $200 per month on groceries. This varies depending on where you live. In Toronto, for example, the price is closer to $254 a month,...

John Stapleton, Yvonne Yuan
  • Law
  • Policy-making
April 12, 2019

Should corporate law shape boards of directors?

In recent months, Barrick Gold Corp. has been moving quickly to redefine itself and the highly competitive gold industry. But as it acts on its global ambitions, Barrick is...

Robert Yalden
  • Economy
  • Politics
April 12, 2019

Le projet de loi C-48 divise la population canadienne

En tant que membre du Sénat, je sais que les Canadiens ont été des milliers à se prononcer pour ou contre le projet de loi C-69, lequel prévoit la modernisation...

Elaine McCoy
  • Law
  • Politics
April 11, 2019

Making the democratic case against Quebec’s Bill 21

The Quebec government’s renewed attempt to legislate state secularism in Bill 21, An Act respecting the laicity of the State, is hostile to religious minorities. It rests on a...

Joanna Baron, Geoffrey Sigalet
  • Politics
  • Social Policy
April 11, 2019

Y a-t-il encore des personnes âgées pauvres au Canada ?

Pourquoi poser cette question ? Tout simplement parce que si nous nous fions au seuil officiel de la pauvreté que le gouvernement canadien a reconnu voilà peu, il ne saurait...

Olivier Ducharme
  • Global Affairs
April 10, 2019

Global refugee response system needs transformative change

Our world suffers not so much from a refugee crisis as a political crisis — a deficit of leadership and vision and, most fundamentally, a shortfall of humanity and...

Lloyd Axworthy
  • Science & Tech
April 10, 2019

Fundamental science needs further investment

When the Liberals unveiled their newest federal budget in March, there was a strong focus on skill development and the future of work. Notable, too, were investments in science...

Kimberly Girling, Katie Gibbs
  • Politics
  • Science & Tech
April 10, 2019

What have we learned from Google’s political ad pullout?

What happens when government tries to govern big tech? For Canada, the answer is that big tech packs up and leaves. Google recently announced it was going to ban...

Elizabeth Dubois, Fenwick McKelvey, Taylor Owen
  • Media & culture
  • Politics
April 9, 2019

What does the SNC-Lavalin affair tell us about diversity?

In a Commons speech last week to Daughters of the Vote, an event to promote women in politics, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stressed that trust among members of his...

Sharanjeet Parmar
  • Health
  • Politics
April 9, 2019

Le Canada est prêt pour un régime national d’assurance-médicaments

«Les Canadiens font partie de ceux qui doivent payer les prix les plus élevés pour des médicaments d’ordonnance au monde », admet le gouvernement fédéral dans son communiqué de presse...

Linda Silas
  • Media & culture
  • Politics
April 8, 2019

Modernization of Official Languages Act impacts all Canadians

Mélanie Joly, Minister of Tourism, Official Languages and La Francophonie, marked the 50th anniversary of the first Official Languages Act in March by launching a series of consultations that...

Jean Johnson
  • Economy
  • Social Policy
April 8, 2019

CWHL’s struggles a sign of changing non-profit landscape

The impending shutdown of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League (CWHL) in early May 2019 is not the result of a new phenomenon. In the past ten years, a number...

Vinod Rajasekaran
  • Health
April 5, 2019

Opioid crisis needs more attention and investment

“I wasn’t born to be a drug addict,” said a brave member of the audience at our recent Open Caucus meeting in the Senate on the Opioid Crisis in...

Jane Cordy, Raymonde Gagné
  • Media & culture
  • Politics
April 5, 2019

Shouldn’t we want MPs who don’t conform?

With the expulsion of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus, I began to think back on the other so-called “maverick” MPs I’ve come across over the...

Jennifer Ditchburn
  • Economy
  • Politics
April 4, 2019

Budget du Québec 2019-2020 : l’impulsion aux dépenses

Le budget 2018-2019 du Québec, présenté par le gouvernement libéral, ouvrait les vannes des dépenses publiques, après des années de croissance très faible en début de mandat. Ces hausses...

Antoine Genest-Grégoire, Luc Godbout, Suzie St-Cerny
  • Economy
  • Science & Tech
April 4, 2019

Canada is an underdog in the AI race

Canada is often touted as an early leader in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race, and in many ways this assessment is correct. We have world-leading AI researchers and...

Creig Lamb, Sarah Villeneuve
  • Environment
  • Policy-making
April 3, 2019

Climate change policy in Canada

2019 has seen huge developments in Canadian politics, and we still have months to go until the federal election. We know some of the political questions that will define...

Nancy Olewiler, David McLaughlin, Céline Bak
  • Politics
  • Social Policy
April 3, 2019

Canadians confident we can resolve regional differences

(This article has been translated into French.) The political differences across the country – on issues ranging from energy and the environment to immigration and the best way to create jobs –...

Andrew Parkin
  • Videos
April 2, 2019

A Conversation on Indigenous-Crown Relations

It was a full house for our panel on Indigenous-Crown relations, the third event in Policy Options’ Pre-election Breakfast Series, in partnership with the Max Bell School of Public...

  • Environment
April 2, 2019

Why limit pipeline choices for Alberta oil?

The federal government had three pipeline options to ship Alberta’s oil to the West Coast. It cancelled one (Northern Gateway) and is in the process of shutting down another...

Robert Hage
  • Economy
  • Environment
April 2, 2019

Time to rethink how we manage our forests

The world’s forests are being cut down in ways and at rates that make natural recovery difficult, if not impossible — to the detriment of the life, livelihoods and...

Yannick Beaudoin
  • Environment
  • Politics
April 1, 2019

Andrew Scheer’s climate opportunity

The Chinese written character for “crisis” perfectly frames the art of politics. It consists of two characters: danger and opportunity. In politics, danger to your opponent is opportunity for you....

David McLaughlin
  • Economy
  • Environment
April 1, 2019

Assessment of projects would improve under Bill C-69

Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time has been called the world’s least read, most celebrated book. In a more humble category, Bill C-69 could be Canada’s least read,...

Robert B. Gibson

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April 2019

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March 29, 2019

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