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February 2018

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Published by
  • Policy-making
  • Social Policy
February 28, 2018

Building a policy school that has real social impact

McGill University recently launched a new school of public policy, with $10 million donated by the Max Bell Foundation. The school aims to serve as a forum for mobilizing...

Semuhi Sinanoglu
  • Global Affairs
February 28, 2018

Promote good governance but nix the word “democracy”

At the beginning of January, the Globe and Mail columnist and author Doug Saunders urged Canada to renew its efforts in global “democracy export.” He was alarmed not simply...

Marje Aksli
  • Economy
February 27, 2018

Budget 2018 analysis live from the lockup

What were the highlights of the 2018 federal budget? Policy Options Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Ditchburn, IRPP Research Director Colin Busby and Jennifer Robson, assistant professor of political management at Carleton...

Jennifer Ditchburn, Colin Busby, Jennifer Robson
  • Global Affairs
  • Social Policy
February 27, 2018

Make spousal sponsorships work to reunite families

On February 14, 2018, Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), announced that the processing time for spousal sponsorship applications had been reduced from 26 months...

Steven Meurrens
  • Economy
  • Science & Tech
February 27, 2018

Cluster development will make us global leaders

While the world focuses on “whither Amazon HQ2,” the federal government has made a far more important and long-lasting decision about the future of clusters in Canada. Clusters are...

Jamison Steeve
  • Science & Tech
  • Social Policy
February 26, 2018

Shedding light on confusion around AI and work

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) — and particularly machine learning (ML) — are impressive, and there is increasing awareness of the potential impacts of these new technologies on...

Dominic Martin
  • Education
  • Social Policy
February 26, 2018

Toward a détente with Saskatchewan’s teachers

So Saskatchewan has a new premier, and with him a new minister of education, Gord Wyant. Only last fall, Wyant was the new premier’s competitor in a campaign to...

Eric Neudorf
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
February 23, 2018

Trump’s economics on NAFTA are not all wrong

In a recent interview, Steve Bannon — Donald Trump’s onetime campaign strategist — outlined his political thinking in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. After Mitt Romney lost...

Jordan Brennan
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
February 23, 2018

An end to taxpayer-funded subsidies, under NAFTA

When Amazon announced last year that it was seeking proposals from North American cities interested in being the base for the company’s second headquarters, politicians across the continent were...

Aaron Wudrick
  • Economy
  • Environment
February 23, 2018

Using emissions intensity to price CO2 emissions

In January, as part of the federal government’s emissions reduction program, Environment and Climate Change Canada announced that it would be imposing a carbon pricing system on any province...

Larry Hughes
  • Politics
February 22, 2018

Un débat des chefs qui inclut les minorités francophones

Selon sa lettre de mandat, la ministre des Institutions démocratiques Karina Gould doit mener à terme un processus de consultation en vue de la création d’un poste de commissaire...

Martin Normand, Linda Cardinal, Rémi Léger
  • Politics
  • Social Policy
February 22, 2018

Good reviews (mostly) for the National Housing Strategy

When it comes to housing strategies, the Liberal Party giveth, taketh away and giveth again. In 1973, then Liberal minister of urban affairs Ron Basford launched major reforms to...

Patrick Gossage
  • Law
  • Politics
February 21, 2018

Judicial reviews of political party decisions

From local nomination battles through to party leadership races, the process of political parties choosing candidates or leaders is often contentious. Patrick Brown might easily have wound up facing...

Justin Safayeni
  • Science & Tech
  • Social Policy
February 21, 2018

AI on a social mission

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to be human rights’ best advocate and its worst enemy. Either it can help us reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or,...

Valentine Goddard
  • Economy
  • Media & culture
February 21, 2018

Productivity and the performing arts

Many Canadians are pinning their hopes on the success of Justin Trudeau’s innovation agenda. There’s a good reason why. Canada is a laggard in productivity growth, making this the...

David Crane
  • Indigenous
  • Law
February 21, 2018

A place for Indigenous peoples on Canada’s top bench

As a young Indigenous child growing up in East Vancouver, I would not have thought that one day I would attend a celebration of the swearing-in of a new...

Christina Gray
  • Indigenous
February 20, 2018

Gerald Stanley and the castle narrative

A complex narrative has emerged in defence of Gerald Stanley, who was recently acquitted of second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Colten Boushie, a 22 year-old Cree man,...

Gina Starblanket
  • Science & Tech
February 20, 2018

Personal drones, AI and our privacy

Imagine sitting in your backyard and seeing a drone fly overhead. It hovers. The camera mounted underneath adjusts and seems to be looking at you. As quickly as it...

Kristen Thomasen
  • Global Affairs
February 20, 2018

The Caricaturing of UN Peacekeeping

Peter MacKay has written a provocative and useful Policy Options article about the dark side of peacekeeping. While he is mostly wrong on many levels, we should be indebted...

Robin Collins
  • Law
  • Science & Tech
February 19, 2018

L’éthique animale va-t-elle sauver les robots ?

Il y a quelques mois, l’Arabie saoudite accordait la citoyenneté à Sofia, un robot humanoïde doté d’une intelligence artificielle (IA) lui permettant de converser — plus ou moins bien...

Martin Gibert, Dominic Martin
  • Policy-making
  • Social Policy
February 19, 2018

Is experimentation just the latest policy buzzword?

The term experimentation in the public policy context can sometimes have a negative connotation – bringing to mind everything from uncertainty and risk to failed social experiments. But experimentation...

Dan Monafu, Sarah Chan, Sean Turnbull
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
February 19, 2018

Make trade work for women

Critics have not been kind to Canada’s efforts to link trade relations to action on gender equality, workers’ rights and environmental sustainability, which have been dismissed as naïve, arrogant...

Arjan de Haan
  • Indigenous
  • Science & Tech
February 16, 2018

How can Indigenous knowledge shape our view of AI?

The words we use to describe reality are not without consequence. They express how we define our realities and, as a result, how we express our values. When we...

Karina Kesserwan
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
February 16, 2018

Look to the Commonwealth to diversify trade

These are turbulent times for international trade, with an America-first president threatening to rip up NAFTA, a UK that is leaving the European Union, and a general sense of...

Richard Douglass-Chin, Imran Abdool, Kal Juman
  • Indigenous
  • Law
February 15, 2018

The real “justice” denied to Boushie

Colten Boushie died without justice, but it is also true that he lived without justice. The bulk of public attention has focused on the last moments of the young...

Veldon Coburn, Devin Zane Shaw
  • Health
  • Social Policy
February 15, 2018

Who benefits from accessible infrastructure?

It’s been a long time coming, but the federal government is expected to unveil national accessibility laws this spring. Similar legislation in other jurisdictions, such as the Americans with...

Luke Donovan
  • Global Affairs
  • Politics
February 14, 2018

Development assistance and violence against women

Canada’s report to Parliament for 2016-17 on what’s known as official development assistance, or ODA, is a 146-page tome about the government’s commitment to the world’s poor. According to...

Themrise Khan
  • Environment
February 14, 2018

Environmental assessment Bill is a lost opportunity

Windows of opportunity for transformative change are rare and can close suddenly. The saga of Bill C-69 is a case in point. The Trudeau government swept into power with...

Chris Tollefson
  • Education
  • Politics
February 14, 2018

Revoir le financement public des écoles privées : une réforme complexe

L’éducation risque d’être au cœur de la prochaine campagne électorale québécoise, alors que les principaux partis proposent tous des réformes majeures pour répondre à une insatisfaction croissante de la...

Olivier Jacques
  • Environment
  • Global Affairs
February 13, 2018

Will NAFTA parties trade away environmental protections?

Among its publicly announced objectives for a renewed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Canadian government says it hopes to “ensure no NAFTA country weakens environmental protection to...

Hugh Benevides
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
February 13, 2018

Learning from the 2017 softwood lumber dispute

A day after the US Thanksgiving holiday in November 2016, the US Lumber Coalition filed petitions for countervailing and antidumping duties against Canadian lumber imports. Five months later, the...

Zara Liaqat
  • Health
  • Social Policy
February 13, 2018

The rise of food policy councils in Canada

Food plays an important role in the health of all Canadians. Our food systems are closely intertwined with our economy, environment and physical, social and cultural wellbeing. Yet in...

Celine Cooper
  • Politics
  • Social Policy
February 12, 2018

Pour un développement plus égalitaire de l’IA

Les progrès récents de l’intelligence artificielle (IA) reposent sur deux facteurs clés : l’augmentation de la capacité de calcul des ordinateurs, qui autorise le développement d’algorithmes d’apprentissage de plus...

Hugo Cyr, Sébastien Gambs, Marie-Jean Meurs
  • Policy-making
  • Social Policy
February 12, 2018

Can government fix the loneliness problem?

British Prime Minister Theresa May recently appointed a minister of loneliness. Her announcement last month represented a watershed moment in raising public awareness on an emotional pain that most...

Heather Campbell
  • Politics
  • Science & Tech
February 9, 2018

How cities can shape the future

Artificial intelligence is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is seen as a boon that will propel us, Jetsons-like, into a century of self-driving cars, drones and perpetual...

Jerry Edling
  • Economy
  • Social Policy
  • Videos
February 8, 2018

Precarious work and the changing nature of employment

What does precarious work look like in Canada today, and what is driving it? How should decision-makers address the loss of employment stability? With the help of a panel...

  • Science & Tech
  • Social Policy
February 8, 2018

Values-based AI and the new smart cities

Sidewalk Toronto’s high-tech and futuristic waterfront proposals for the city of Toronto are mired in controversy, even though Canadian cities have relied upon state-of-the-art technology and artificial intelligence for...

Tracey Lauriault
  • Global Affairs
  • Social Policy
February 8, 2018

Allow Salvadorans to make a safe claim in Canada

The Trump administration’s contempt toward immigrants and refugees is no longer a surprise, but it seems Canadian decision-makers haven’t got the memo. In what has now become classic fashion,...

Deborah Mebude
  • Law
  • Politics
February 7, 2018

La version française de la Constitution canadienne vue du Québec

Dans leur excellent article en date du 1er février 2018, les professeurs Linda Cardinal et François Larocque plaident pour l’adoption officielle, dans les meilleurs délais, de la version française...

Jean-Maurice Arbour
  • Environment
  • Indigenous
February 7, 2018

Indigenous consultation and environmental assessments

In August 2016, the federal government established a panel of four specialists to review how government conducts environmental assessments on proposed projects with significant impact on the environment, such...

Rebeca Macias Gimenez
  • Politics
  • Social Policy
February 7, 2018

A few modest amendments to the Constitution

As Canada’s 7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2016-17), I never accepted Plato’s notion that poets should not be entrusted with any say over statecraft. Nor have I ever been satisfied...

George Elliott Clarke
  • Policy-making
  • Science & Tech
February 6, 2018

Deploying AI responsibly in government

In an era of continuous social and technological change, how can an institution like the federal government stay relevant? How can we as public servants stay up to date...

Michael Karlin
February 6, 2018

A snapshot of precarious work in Canada today

The nature of work in Canada is changing. With the onset of the so-called “fourth industrial revolution” careers are becoming a patchwork of impermanent contracts and “gigs,” which often...

Francis Fong, Sunil Johal, Wendy Vuyk, Jennifer Ditchburn
  • Indigenous
  • Law
February 6, 2018

“White settler revisionism” threatens Métis-Crown reconciliation

The 2016 census revealed explosive growth in the self-identified Métis population in Canada. The 51.2 percent growth of self-identified Métis from 2006 to 2016 easily surpassed the growth of...

Jesse Donovan
  • Economy
  • Global Affairs
February 6, 2018

CETA and procurement: opening an open market?

Getting access to provincial and municipal government procurement contracts was one of the primary objectives for the European Union in negotiating the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with...

Dmitry Lysenko, Ata Muhammad, Elizabeth Schwartz, Saul Schwartz
  • Politics
February 5, 2018

Moderation, the “elusive virtue”

An old friend of mine used to make a habit of interjecting the phrase “moderation in action and attitude,” always in an ironic tone of voice, at appropriate moments...

Kenneth C. Dewar
  • Health
  • Science & Tech
February 5, 2018

Why AI needs nursing

Computer science and nursing science may not be a common pairing now, but as digital health evolves, nursing will be an essential partner in the effective integration of artificial...

Tracie Risling
  • Politics
February 5, 2018

Active bystanders can stop abuse in the halls of power

People who work with abuse victims are much, much better humans than I am. They don’t judge. They educate, they help, they focus on healing and they try to...

Michele Austin
  • Environment
  • Policy-making
February 2, 2018

Environmental assessment policy must be based on science

It’s a new year, and it is time for the federal government to turn over a new leaf on the environment. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, and the Conservatives before them,...

Aerin Jacob, Alana Westwood, Petr Komers, Katie Gibbs, Sarah (Sally) P. Otto
  • Environment
  • Politics
February 2, 2018

Modernizing financial regulation to address climate-related risks

In an important step toward updating financial regulation to maintain relevance in the era of climate change, Ontario’s Ministry of Finance is reviewing the need for new policy on...

Keith Stewart
  • Media & culture
  • Science & Tech
February 1, 2018

Artificial intelligence and journalism

Readers of 20 regional newspapers in the UK have been unwittingly involved in what was called a first for journalism. At the end of 2017, a bunch of stories...

Alfred Hermida
  • Indigenous
  • Politics
February 1, 2018

Indigenous voters and the 2019 election

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde was recently quoted as saying, “If you want to become an MP, you better listen to us. You better focus on...

Andrew Griffith
  • Law
  • Politics
February 1, 2018

Le projet inachevé de la Constitution bilingue du Canada

Depuis 150 ans, la fédération canadienne tire sa légitimité d’une constitution dont la majorité des textes, notamment la Loi constitutionnelle de 1867, ne sont pas officiels en français. En...

Linda Cardinal, François Larocque

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February 2018

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