Municipalities deserve more autonomy and respect
As the order of government closest to the people, municipalities are vital to the health of our democracy. In Canada, however, municipalities don’t always get the respect they deserve....
Provinces need to recognize First Nations authority on cannabis
Federal lawmakers ignored the call to delay cannabis legalization until First Nations could be adequately consulted on the regulation of recreational sales. Now it is provinces that must engage...
Intégrer « la perspective des personnes handicapées »
La promesse faite par les libéraux en octobre 2019, quelques jours avant le déclenchement des élections, d’intégrer la perspective des personnes handicapées à toutes les décisions du fédéral a...
Cannabis sales could jump with edibles, but industry should be prepared
Canadian Cannabis 2.0 is here! It’s been over a year since recreational cannabis was legalized for adult use in Canada, and with the edibles, extracts and topicals category recently...
Why carbon pricing remains the smartest policy tool
In the wake of the federal election, it is clear that Canadians want more action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Stronger policies will be essential to achieve our 2030...
Medical cannabis will be lost amid the gummies and suds
The next phase of legal cannabis – the arrival of edibles – is unlikely to do any good for one area of the legal market: medical cannabis. Once they...
Lessons learned from Spain’s unity crisis
In the early 20th century, Barcelona came to be known as the “rosa de foc,” the rose of fire. Public disturbances arose around the city’s harbour, where troops embarked...
Black Canadians sidelined from cannabis economy
Ten months before cannabis was legalized last October, I asked a question: Where are Black Canadians in the cannabis debate? I sought to stimulate active involvement of Canada’s Black...
Jason Kenney’s case of Quebec envy
We’re used to hearing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney attack Ottawa in his public remarks. This is simply politics, blaming the federal government during the spring’s provincial election for the...
Le commerce illicite du cannabis, un an après la légalisation
Le 17 octobre 2018, le Canada est devenu le deuxième pays ― après l’Uruguay ― à légaliser et à réglementer l’ensemble de la chaîne logistique du cannabis. Contrer le marché noir...
An epic move to protect nature could help unite the country
Of the many issues that divided Canadians in the 2019 federal election, one unifying fact is this: Canadians care about nature. Our vast forests, oceans, lakes and prairies are a key part of our...
Eliminate restrictions preventing cannabis research
Recreational cannabis markets are opening up across North America. Yet restrictions on university cannabis research remain. They prevent consumers, patients, medical professionals, the cannabis industry and policy-makers from making...
Some practical advice for new political staffers
Below is a slightly expanded version of a list of practical advice for new political staffers that I first posted on Twitter in advance of the announcement of Prime...
Quebec’s surprisingly conservative approach to cannabis
Quebec has adopted a relatively strict approach to the regulation of cannabis in the areas that fall within its jurisdiction. For example, whereas the federal law allows Canadians to...
Challenges in restoring Canadian marine biodiversity
The coastal marine environment constitutes a biological, geochemical and physical milieu without which life would not exist. Phytoplankton and other microbes, the base of food webs, transfer mass and...
Canada’s mining industry in Africa and social responsibility
Canada’s international development assistance for developing regions like sub-Saharan Africa received scant attention in the recent (2019) election. Under Justin Trudeau’s Liberals Canada’s commitment to international development has been...
To thrive, the cannabis industry needs strong brands
Cannabis edibles are here. A year after the legalization of adult-use recreational cannabis, Canada has now introduced edibles, extracts and topicals to its legal cannabis market. Anticipation of the...
Canadians can unite behind energy efficiency
Climate and energy policy news is filled with talk of regional tensions over pipelines and carbon taxes. These policy debates become regional ones because certain provinces are rich in...
Cannabis : le Québec est en train de manquer le bateau entrepreneurial
C.O.E.U.R.S. Dans les années 1980, les publicitaires québécois connaissaient bien cet acronyme, qui résumait de manière simple les différences entre Québécois et Canadiens : conservateurs, mais ouverts, émotifs et unis, plutôt...
Premiers should rally behind struggling rural Canada
The Council of the Federation meeting on December 2 will be an opportunity for provincial and territorial premiers to set aside their differences and coalesce around a set of...
Canada’s cannabis caper has markets in chaos
A year after legalization, Canada’s cannabis market is in shambles. The number of retail outlets is ludicrously insufficient; inventories are piling up in retail, wholesale and producer warehouses; the...
The Making of a Cannabis Industry: Year One
Talk about growing pains. The first full year of cannabis legalization in Canada has stumbled badly: the rollout of retail stores has been painfully slow in all provinces except...
Canada should take an insurance approach to future disruption
Poker star Jimmy Chou, who has won more than $1 million playing the game, has a new teacher. Pluribus, a new artificial intelligence program, recently defeated Chou, along with...
National compromise on carbon pricing is within reach
A national accommodation on climate change and carbon pricing is staring us in the face. Irony of ironies, it is three western, conservative premiers who are pointing the way...
The challenge of navigating our health and care systems
Canada has an aging population. When we talk about this, our discussions usually circle back to health, and in particular, to the question of how we’re going to care...
Nobel winners shine light on experiment-based policy-making
Proponents of evidence-based decision-making have a reason to rejoice. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences awarded recently to three development economists emphasizes the role research plays in crafting,...
What awaits Canada’s 43rd Parliament?
The election is over. What happens next? Yolande James (CBC/Radio-Canada), Brian Topp (KTG Public Affairs), Elizabeth Roscoe (Hill+Knowlton Strategies Canada) and Jennifer Ditchburn (Policy Options) discussed what awaits Canada’s...
Is our nostalgia around minority governments misplaced?
Minority governments in Canada are often hailed as seminal moments in Canadian public policy history. Conventional wisdom is that the compromises necessary during those periods result in more lasting...
Feminist Senators are critical actors in women’s representation
The results of the federal election have produced much scrutiny over the number of women in Canadian Parliament. The Senate is nearing gender parity, with 60 percent of Prime...
Scheer frustration
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer deserves a second chance. He did not fail to score on a “breakaway on an open net” in the recent campaign. Majority wins by a...
Will the new government do more to stop the opioid crisis?
Last month, the latest numbers on the overdose crisis in Canada confirmed that overdose fatalities are continuing unabated. Nearly 13,000 Canadians died between January 2016 and March 2019, and,...
Here’s a way for governments to buy positive outcomes
(This article has been translated into French.) Can a little-known practice called “outcomes purchasing” generate solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges? We believe the answer is yes. Through...
Conservatives need a new value proposition to present voters
Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has a rough few months ahead of him. Despite an increase in votes and seats, his election performance is being panned by many. He gained...
Canada needs a lot more people, and soon
Canada’s population reached 37.6 million people in 2019. That is more than 500,000 people over last year, the largest population increase in one year since Confederation. It represents an...
How did the polls fare in Election 2019?
Political pollsters who had predicted the outcome of the 2018 Quebec election could have been somewhat nervous as this year’s federal election approached. Their forecasts in October 2018 had...
House of Commons becoming more reflective of diverse population
How well does Canada integrate immigrants and visible minorities into political life? While the barriers to entering political life are significant, as the Samara Centre for Democracy study on...
Only a fifth of Canadian mayors are women
The idea that municipal politics are much more accessible to women is a persistent idea in Canada, despite research by scholars such as Erin Tolley and others that has...
The Trudeaus and western alienation
Like father, like son. Nearly 40 years ago, in February 1980, Pierre Trudeau won a majority government with two seats in western Canada and none west of Manitoba. A...