Senate delays are just another urban myth
Everyone knows that the Senate delays government legislation — don’t we? Well, no, we don’t. In fact, the House of Commons tends to take almost three times as long...
Do you believe in peacekeeping?
On November 15, speaking at the Vancouver meeting of defence ministers from countries participating in United Nations peacekeeping, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reiterated his message: “We believe in peacekeeping.”...
What would proportional representation mean for Canada?
Although electoral reform continues to be a live issue in Canada at both the federal and provincial levels (notably in British Columbia, Quebec and Prince Edward Island), there has...
How to realize Ontario’s promise
What will Ontario look like in 20 years? Will the province evolve into a harmoniously diverse and talented society that has embraced the opportunities and jobs of the fourth...
Palliative care is misunderstood and often forgotten
Society equates palliative care with end-of-life care. However, the definition should go further: palliative care should be about reducing suffering for patients with serious or life-threatening illness and improving...
An effective education for the future
In their article “Uncaging adolescent creativity,” Phil Jarvis and Jennifer Fraser offer a perceptive critique of Canadian education systems, pointing to characteristic failures that seem evident in many other...
Go public and perish? Supporting the engaged scholar
As a front-line health care worker in Nova Scotia, Josephine Etowa noticed that what nursing schools were teaching students about evaluating a newborn’s health (did the baby have bluish...
COP23 and the plodding pace of addressing climate change
If we look beyond rhetoric, it is clear that French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and all the other Western leaders are not delivering on their...
Acupuncture and the placebo problem
When the advocates of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) push back against critics, they often point to the big CAM “successes.” The argument usually goes as follows: the heartless...
Short-sighted commitments on women in peacekeeping
One of the highlights of the UN peacekeeping conference that Canada hosted recently was the announcement of a five-year pilot fund worth $15 million, which will be used to...
Une éducation internationale pour nos étudiants
Le plus gros client du Canada, les États-Unis, se réoriente vers le protectionnisme. Les puissances émergentes transforment l’économie mondiale. L’intolérance s’accroît, y compris au Canada. La technologie révolutionne la...
Toward the responsible use of bots in politics
One of the most active Twitter accounts during the 2012 Quebec election tweeted 11,000 times to support the nascent Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). But the account named CAQBot wasn’t...
Toward a new peacekeeping approach in Haiti
On November 15, as it hosted delegates from more than 80 countries at the United Nations Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial Conference in Vancouver, Canada announced a series of new initiatives...
Gender inequality and trade
Trade liberalization has created a race to the bottom in wages and labour rights, as countries compete to host manufacturing industries. Since women around the world are concentrated in...
Vivre avec 55 % des revenus du seuil de pauvreté
Chronique d’Alain Noël
Le Comité d’experts sur le revenu minimum garanti, qui vient de présenter son rapport au gouvernement du Québec, nous a rendu au moins trois services. D’abord, il documente utilement...
Rules of engagement for NAFTA’s digital chapter
As many Americans spend this week making grocery lists and travel arrangements for family Thanksgiving gatherings, at least one cohort has put holiday plans on hold for a few...
Put the peace back into UN peacekeeping operations
Canada is rethinking the way it contributes to United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world. The federal government promised boots on the ground more than a year ago, and...
The national ripple effects of Bill 62
It seems that every few months an issue surrounding Muslims — and more often than not, Muslim women — comes up in the media. Religious texts are debated in...
Addressing “alternative facts” about Lyme disease
Lyme disease has recently gained much attention in the media, and it has become politicized in the United States and also in Canada. Vocal individuals and groups have implied...
OSFI must be independent
An event that has the potential to reshape the future of Canadian financial regulation has passed with little notice. On June 30, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial...
Canada raises the age of dependency in immigration
Canada has raised the age of dependency for immigration — the maximum age at which children can be included in their parents’ applications — from 18 to 21. The...
ASEAN: Canada wants in
In mid-November Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended the East Asia Summit, the premier security forum in the region. This was a first for a sitting Canadian prime minister and...
La complexité des interventions de l’ONU
Le maintien de la paix est fondamentalement une entreprise collective, basée sur la bonne volonté des États et la coïncidence des intérêts particuliers et internationaux. En ce sens, l’objectif...
Expanding the practice of physiotherapists
There are almost 9,000 registered physiotherapists in Ontario. Each one, regulated by the College of Physiotherapists of Ontario, is an important, though often overlooked, contributor to the wellness of...
L’opinion publique au sujet du maintien de la paix
Lors de la campagne électorale de 2015, la contribution du Canada aux opérations de maintien de la paix de l’ONU était au cœur de la plateforme libérale. Cette promesse...
The policy dilemma of aviation emissions
The news these days is rife with stories about the impending electric vehicle (EV) revolution, and for the most part, it’s a good-news story: EVs are expected to take...
Le Canada et le maintien de la paix en Afrique
Le gouvernement canadien est l’hôte cette semaine de la Réunion 2017 des ministres de la Défense des pays qui contribuent ou prévoient contribuer aux effectifs des Casques bleus onusiens....
Does Canadian federalism amplify policy clashes?
Policy disagreements in Canada are often viewed through a regional lens. This reflects — perhaps unsurprisingly — the decentralized nature of the Canadian federation and the differences in regional...
More delays or rapid deployment for peacekeepers?
We made at least a beginning then. If on that foundation we do not build something more permanent and stronger, we will once again have ignored realities, rejected opportunities...
Canada at COP23: Moving from rhetoric to leadership
Thousands have been killed in natural disasters this year. Homes and livelihoods were lost to landslides in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Colombia, Sri Lanka and the Congo. Devastation...
How Canada can support UN peacekeeping
In August 2016, Justin Trudeau’s government said it would commit up to 600 soldiers, 150 police officers and $450 million over three years to UN peace operations. Where should...
Strengthening environmental reviews of major projects
Early in its mandate, the Liberal government committed to make substantial improvements to Canada’s system of environmental assessment, in order to regain public trust in how major projects are considered...
The impossibility of Indigenous religious freedom
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) issued its ruling on the first case of Indigenous religious freedom under the modern constitutional order in Ktunaxa Nation v....
Protecting those at risk by protecting peacekeepers
This month’s UN Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial conference includes a set of thematic discussions on “protecting those at risk.” The goals for this theme are laudable and diverse, including better...
East Asian security in the Trump era
As US President Donald Trump finishes up his five-country tour of East Asia this weekend — with stops in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines — there...
Les options d’un réengagement dans le maintien de la paix
Presque deux ans jour pour jour après son arrivée au pouvoir (le 19 octobre 2015), le gouvernement du premier ministre Justin Trudeau n’a pas encore concrétisé sa promesse faite...
UN peace operations and Guterres’s reform agenda
After more than nine months of gestation and suspense, the new United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has put on the table a comprehensive set of reforms for the UN’s...
Aligning goals and core principles in UN peacekeeping
In the first comprehensive review of UN peace operations since the Brahimi Report in 2000, the 2015 report of the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (HIPPO...
Addressing concerns about marriage fraud
On April 13, 2017, the Trudeau government fulfilled a campaign promise from the 2015 federal election by eliminating the status of conditional permanent residency from Canada’s family reunification immigration...
How do we measure poverty?
(This article was translated from French.) Justin Trudeau’s government is currently conducting consultations on developing a federal poverty reduction strategy. In a process of this kind, before adopting concrete...
Gender and peacekeeping
Integrating a gender perspective will be one of the main objectives of the 2017 UN peacekeeping conference in mid-November in Vancouver. In a UN peacekeeping context, integrating a gender...
Donald Trump, un décideur si imprévisible ?
Chez les experts et dans les médias, c’est devenu un véritable lieu commun : Donald Trump est un décideur imprévisible, inconstant, dont on ne peut jamais connaître le coup suivant....
The five i’s of failed urban planning
Buzzwords such as livability, sustainability, mixed use and walkability are commonly used to describe the modern-day urban planning philosophy. The reality on the ground, however, is often much different...
UN peacekeeping: Canada’s back? When? How?
In the foreign policy debate of the 2015 election campaign, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau declared emphatically that peacekeeping “is something that a Canadian prime minister [Lester B. Pearson] started,...
Replacer la paix au cœur des opérations de l’ONU
Les 14 et 15 novembre 2017, le Canada accueillera à Vancouver la réunion des ministres de la Défense des pays participants aux missions de paix des Nations unies. Cette...
Is group marriage the next debate?
In July, Winston Blackmore and James Oler were convicted of polygamy. These men are former leaders of a fundamentalist Mormon community in British Columbia. James Oler is married to...
Pearson and Canada’s peacekeeping legacy
On October 20, just a few weeks before the start of the UN Defence Ministerial in Vancouver, the 60th anniversary of Lester Pearson’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...
Are investment carbon footprints good for investors and the climate?
Investors who wish to address climate change in the construction of portfolios often seek to reduce their dependence on investments connected to the fossil fuel industry. One growing response...
Peacekeeping Reimagined
It’s been 60 years since Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work during the Suez crisis and for establishing the world’s first peacekeeping operation. The...
The problem with the “nationalism” label
The election of Donald Trump, as well as the success of the Brexit referendum and populist right-wing parties in continental Europe, could be seen as a backlash, a move...
Paying tribute to a renewable energy champion
Just over 40 years ago this week, I stumbled across a sheet of paper that reshaped my life and career and should have pointed toward a future without the...
Is Canada’s population too small?
In Maximum Canada: Why 35 Million Canadians Are Not Enough, Doug Saunders provides a more sophisticated and nuanced discussion of the advantages of large-scale immigration and a larger population...
Open government: Canada’s new soft power?
Canada is at its most significant juncture in its open government initiative since its inception in 2011. Having been elected to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Steering Committee and...
The future of work and current social protection
Automation and a rise in atypical forms of employment have triggered welcome and necessary debates about how social protection systems can maintain effective support for those in need. For...
Surmédicamentation des adultes ayant une déficience intellectuelle
La prescription inappropriée d’antipsychotiques comme le Risperdal, le Zyprexa et l’Abilify chez les personnes âgées, en particulier les patients en soins de longue durée souffrant de troubles comme la...
Canada’s inequality and lessons from the UK
Contested though the long-term impact of Brexit on the UK economy may be, the overwhelming consensus among experts is that the near-term cost will be sizable. Household budgets are...
Women’s empowerment in business and the labour force
There is strong and growing evidence that women’s economic empowerment is central to the achievement of inclusive growth, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. On the one hand, greater...