Policy Options

Despite the uncertainty raised by the NAFTA renegotiations, seizing the opportunity to update a 23-year-old trade agreement can be a positive development. Notwithstanding the significant benefits that NAFTA has...

With the prospect of the global order collapsing amid protectionist acrimony, what can Canada do? In her June 2017 speech on Canada’s foreign policy priorities, Minister Chrystia Freeland stressed...

Nearly a quarter-century ago, the United States, Canada and Mexico concluded the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), implemented in 1994, and it included the first intellectual property (IP)...

After years of functioning in relative obscurity, the North American Free Trade Agreement is now making news, as the August start date for its renegotiation approaches. Border management is...

Behind the global chorus of G20 leaders calling for inclusive growth is the continuing concern about increasing income inequality. In Canada, two years ago, the current federal government ran...

As we get ready to enter what promises to be a very contentious renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), we should keep in mind that supply-managed...

As I read of medical aid in dying proponents’ opposition to Dr. Harvey Schipper’s referring to the treatment of people with disabilities under the Nazi regime, I was reminded...

Mexico has a highly diversified and stable economy and is one of the most open free-trading nations in the world. In 2016, it was the most open economy in...

Most people hear the term “autonomous vehicles” (AVs) and imagine a futuristic scene with robots delivering your mail and drones dropping the latest household purchase off on your front...

More and more people are beginning to learn that Canada’s Parliament Buildings squat on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabeg territory. Unceded refers to the fact that the historic treaties reached with...

Canada is a small, open economy; our prosperity depends on international trade. But as the global economic landscape changes rapidly, many are apprehensive about what the future holds. Will...

Most Canadians probably don’t know that Canada already has a tax on gas-guzzling vehicles. This isn’t surprising when you realize that the current tax applies only to luxury vehicles...

In 2016, Concordia University anthropology professor Homa Hoodfar was arrested in Iran while conducting research on feminism and security matters. During her 112 days in prison, Hoodfar reflected on...

President Trump says that if he doesn’t get the renegotiation he wants, “we will terminate… NAFTA forever.” Canadians didn’t ask for this tempest. A positive outcome for all three...

Dans The Strategy of Conflict, paru en 1960, le Prix Nobel d’économie Thomas Schelling développe une notion qui est désormais connue sous l’appellation « conjecture de Schelling ». Selon cette conjecture,...

Canada’s prosperity depends on international commerce, but recent political shifts are threatening the global trading system. Protectionist sentiment has risen, most importantly from our top trading partner, the United...

The past year featured plenty of drama in international trade. Major developments included Brexit; obstacles to the secure passage of the Canada-EU trade deal; the US withdrawal from the...

I recently visited in a university hospital in Montreal a relative who had suffered a significant cardiovascular event. After 24 hours, she was offered a meal: macaroni and cheese....

As Canadians celebrate 150 years of our history, policy-makers have set their sights on the needs of the next 150, including how to shape the infrastructure of Canada’s future...

Dear parents, I’m writing you because you may be in the dark about the amount of unhealthy food and beverage marketing your kids are viewing. This is not your...

The leaders of three national Indigenous organizations have decided to boycott the premiers’ meeting in Alberta, July 17-19. Their position is nothing short of absurd. They will not attend...

As promised, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) issued a 17-page report Monday on Washington’s negotiating goals for the upcoming NAFTA talks. The release came an...

In late June, members of the Five Eyes (Canada, the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand) intelligence alliance convened in Ottawa. Alongside their routine proceedings, reports have suggested, there...

Dans son ouvrage Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada, paru en 1990, Seymour Martin Lipset écrit que « les Américains, depuis la révolution,...

Rarely in history are epoch-making moments so clearly discernible. But we seem to have witnessed one at the G20 leaders’ meeting in Hamburg, Germany, in early July. Donald Trump...

When many Canadians hear the term “clean energy job,” they probably imagine workers designing devices in an engineering lab, manufacturing solar panels or assembling a wind turbine. Sectors like...

Donald J. Trump’s election to the US presidency triggered seismic shockwaves across the world, waves that are continuing to have deep ripples. The implications of his administration for Canada...

Forget what you have heard about a post-fact world. Facts have always been manipulated, altered and smothered. And fact-checkers, journalists, artists and others strive to find the truth. Part...

Secrecy, writes ethicist Sissela Bok, is about “deliberately withholding information.” In this respect, the antiquated 34-year-old Access to Information Act (ATI Act) has resulted in a pernicious paradox –...

I was half a century old when someone gave me a little book as a door prize. It had a bright white cover with the image of an unlit...

Before Canada dives into its mandated review of the Copyright Act, it would be helpful to refresh our understanding of some key terms essential to understanding copyright. Balance Copyright,...

Lorsqu’un enfant est malade ou blessé, notre système de santé offre généralement d’excellents soins. C’est une bonne nouvelle. Pourtant, les enfants ne sont pas des petits adultes et ont...

Health Canada makes all the regulatory decisions in the medical marijuana market. In order to procure and maintain a licence to cultivate and/or sell cannabis, marijuana producers must provide...

In the fall of 2016, the Ontario Liberals signalled they were gearing up for the 2018 provincial election. Pat Sorbara, a key strategist in Premier Kathleen Wynne’s office, was...

In the late 1980s, I went on a business trip to Denmark. At the time the organization I was working with had a business arrangement with a deep-sea shrimp...

After a lengthy consultation process, in 2012 Stephen Harper’s government passed a legislative overhaul of the Copyright Act. Titled the Copyright Modernization Act, it addressed many of the issues...

Canada’s plan to legalize cannabis could bring with it an increase in law enforcement activity, arrests and jail time — and here’s why. Cannabis is currently controlled by the...

A recent article in Policy Options by the disability rights activist Catharine Frazee claims that in current discussions surrounding end-of-life care, “the history of [Nazi] euthanasia and questions arising...

The United States and Canada are both in the middle of important national conversations about their research systems, and as a Canadian scholar based at Harvard, I am struck...

It never bodes well when a government puts out a major piece of legislation late in the day, and Bill C-58 certainly met those lowered expectations when it came...

We are living in a difficult political environment that is in flux with a speed that most of us could not imagine. Many of the rights we have taken...

Reputation has an unquestionable economic value to countries, just as it does to organizations and individual people. It is based on emotion and reason, the product of our impressions...

After a lengthy decline in its standing, Canada is attempting to reassert itself as a major centre of high-tech businesses and innovation. Bolstered by concerted efforts by the federal...

Canada 150 has gotten a rough ride lately. Francophone Quebecers are less inclined to celebrate it than other Canadians. The “Other 150” movement reminds Quebecers of the discrimination and...

Health Canada has announced new regulations that respond to the opioid crisis by making it easier to access treatments not yet authorized for sale in Canada but which are...

What would it take to ensure that every Indigenous woman in Canada has the opportunity to become an entrepreneur? Impakt, a social innovation consulting company, recently embarked on a...

Here’s a dirty secret about copyright reform in Canada: we know remarkably little about its effects. Now, that’s not to say that we know nothing about copyright reform. People...

Managing carbon emissions to mitigate climate change sometimes makes me think of poor Sisyphus moving his rock. But then I think that Sisyphus had it easy – the carbon...