En se privant d’un milliard cette année pour défendre sa compétence en santé, le Québec se retrouve une fois de plus dans le rôle de gardien du fédéralisme.

Without additional funds, the move could lead to reduced course choice and the replacement of specialists with French teachers, harming the quality of education.

Social inequalities have shown no sign of receding in Canada or worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the persistence of deep-seated inequalities along racialized and gendered lines. Meanwhile, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice has called into question the weight that power and privilege continue to hold in our society. Although policymakers continue to attempt to address the many dimensions of inequality, economic, racial and gendered disparities remain. Worse yet, public policy decisions have, in many cases, been complicit in the perpetuation of social inequalities. This in-person conversation between Debra Thompson, associate professor of political science at McGill University and the host of the IRPP’s In/Equality podcast, and Joe Soss, the Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota, addressed these concerns head-on, considering the intersection of public policy and social inequality.

Well over a decade after the Occupy Wall Street protests, costs of living are still dramatically outpacing wages. The gap between the 99% and the 1% is wider than ever. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, but why? In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with John Peters, Associate Professor and Research Fellow at the Inter-University Research Centre on Globalization and Work (CRIMT) at the Université de Montréal. Peters is also the author of Jobs with Inequality: Financialization, Post-Democracy, and Labour Market Deregulation in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2022). This wide-ranging conversation explores the root causes of rising income inequality in Canada and considers what policy measures can be enacted to change this situation for the better.

Following the 2020 uprisings after the murder of George Floyd, many institutions committed to major changes to address systemic racism. In response to this mass movement for racial justice, a suite of policies and initiatives were announced to address the historical legacy and ongoing impact of anti-Black racism. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Craig Wellington, Executive Director of the Black Opportunity Fund and an experienced non-profit leader. This discussion takes stock of what has, and what has not, changed since 2020. What are the limitations of equity, diversity and inclusion programs? How can policies and institutions create avenues for eradicating the wealth gap that keeps Black Canadians from achieving prosperity? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

Housing affordability has become one of the most talked-about problems of Canadian life. Housing prices have been rapidly rising ,and rent – per many renters – is too damn high. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Yushu Zhu, assistant professor at Simon Fraser University, who studies housing stratification. What does housing inequality look like across Canada, and particularly in Vancouver, one of the hottest housing markets? How did the pandemic affect housing inequality? How much does lack of supply play into affordability? Tune in for discussions of these questions and more.

Seventy-four per cent of Canadians live in cities of over 100,000 people, according to the 2021 census. What does that mean for those living in rural and remote areas? How do we ensure rural Canadians have access to high-quality services? In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Bill Reimer, professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at Concordia University. Bill has studied rural communities in Canada and around the world for decades. Small-town economies, often built around extraction, present various challenges. What policy tools can we learn from provincial governments and other countries? How do Indigenous people fit into discussions of remote and rural inequality? How does immigration intersect with the needs of rural communities? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

In Canada, 1.4 million children live in food-insecure households. Despite being an affluent country, Canada has chronic food insecurity, and the problem is worsening. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Valerie Tarasuk professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and an expert on food insecurity. The conversation explores how entrenched this problem is and what Canada can do about it. How have neoliberal reforms in Canada affected food insecurity? Can food charities like foodbanks deal with a systemic problem like food insecurity? What about modelling food security policies from the U.S.? Tune in as we delve into these questions.

Addressing bias in health-care provision is difficult because the professionals are extremely defensive when confronted with the reality of bias. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with psychiatrist and researcher Javeed Sukhera of the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT, and the Hartford Hospital about his research and teaching on implicit bias. Health-care providers, like all people, have implicit biases that affect the treatment they provide. This conversation explores what these biases are and how they can be dealt with. How does changing implicit bias at the individual level connect to structural changes? Can one inform the other? How much can mandatory training do to root out bias? And how do these issues fit into our already overworked and understaffed health-care system?

Discussions around climate change sometimes portray the climate crisis as a phenomenon that impacts all people equally. But this framing neglects the fact that accelerating climate change disproportionately affects marginalized and vulnerable communities, in particular Black and Indigenous communities, in Canada and on a global scale. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Ingrid Waldron, HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University. The conversation delves into a variety of topics related to the intersection between systemic racism and the climate crisis. What consequences does the concentration of toxic industries and environmentally hazardous projects in racialized communities have for the inhabitants of these communities? What obstacles do these communities face in trying to fight back against environmental racism? How are public policy decisions complicit in the perpetuation of environmental racism? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

Calls for a guaranteed basic income have strengthened during the pandemic, as proponents of the policy have argued that a basic income is a simple and effective way to reduce poverty. A new IRPP book, Basic Income and a Just Society: Policy Choices for Canada’s Social Safety Net, analyzes the arguments advanced by proponents of a basic income. The authors, in turn, take a hard look at Canada’s social safety net and propose an alternative path forward, which begins by asking: “How do we create a more just society together?” In this conversation, authors David Green, professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, and Gillian Pettit, research associate at University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, discuss the book’s findings with Garima Talwar Kapoor, who was director of policy and research at Maytree at the time and is now director of policy research and insights at the Ontario Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services. Listen now for an engaging discussion on the book and on the future of Canadian social policy. This episode of the podcast is a recording of a panel discussion held at the book launch of Basic Income and a Just Society: Policy Choices for Canada’s Social Safety Net. The event was moderated by IRPP vice president of research Rachel Samson and took place at the Toronto Reference Library on April 26, 2023.

From June 12 to 14, 2023, the Institute on Governance (IOG) and the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation at the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) partenered to convene Resilient Institutions: Learning from Canada’s COVID-19 Pandemic – a conference on making public institutions and governance more agile. As the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has recently demonstrated, countries that want to thrive in this turbulent century must be adaptable. In this keynote address at the Resilient Institutions conference, Alasdair Roberts, professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service and a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University, examines Canada’s track record on adaptability and considers how the country can respond more effectively to new conditions and ideas. Despite the many merits of the Canadian approach to governing, adaptability has come under threat in recent years. Short-term politics have increasingly taken the place of forward thinking, technological change has disrupted the public sphere, and the public service has become less nimble. Taking account of these challenges, Roberts proposes a program of reform that is focused on the country’s flexibility for the dangerous decades ahead. This episode of the podcast is a recording of Alasdair Roberts’ keynote address at the IRPP’s Resilient Institutions: Learning from Canada’s COVID-19 Pandemic conference, which was co-hosted with the Institute on Governance and took place in Ottawa from June 12 to 14, 2023.

What do the results of the 2023 Alberta election mean for the future of the province? What consequences will the election have for the province’s relations with Ottawa, with other provinces, and with First Nations? Tune into this panel discussion, moderated by the IRPP’s Charles Breton, executive director of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, for a forward-looking exploration of these questions and many more. The panel features Jed Johns, manager of government and Indigenous relations at Epcor Utilities Inc; Sara Hastings-Simon, assistant professor in the Department of Geoscience and School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary; Sonya Savage, former minister of the environment, minister of energy and MLA for Calgary-Northwest; and Trevor Tombe, professor in the Department of Economics and research fellow in the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. This episode of the podcast is a recording of a panel discussion held at an IRPP private gathering on June 5, 2023, in Calgary, Alberta.

It is impossible to think about inequality in Canada without an understanding of Canada’s settler colonial reality. Public conversations about settler colonialism and the inequalities it imposes on Indigenous Peoples have changed over the last decade thanks to the work of Indigenous activists and leaders. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with one of the public scholars who helped bring about this change: Pamela Palmater, a Mi’kmaw lawyer, author, and Associate Professor of Indigenous Governance at Toronto Metropolitan University. What does critical and impactful public scholarship on settler colonialism look like? Can courts in Canada still provide a valid avenue for Indigenous people seeking redress? We delve into these questions and more.

Various orders of government and institutions like universities develop policies for disabled people. How often are disabled people brought into the process of policymaking? In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Michael Orsini, a Professor of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa and a critical disability scholar. The conversation begins with an an understanding of what policies impact disabled people? How are disabled people made invisible in the making of these policies? How does autism force us to rethink assumptions about disability and diversity? And how can we reconceptualize policy to move toward disability justice? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

Childcare has been entering and exiting the Canadian political agenda since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1970. Now, Canada is entering a new period on child-care policy. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Adrienne Davidson, Assistant Professor of Political Science at McMaster University. Beginning with subsidies and nonprofit daycares, this conversation covers various policies that impact Canadian families, including parental leave and the importance of early education. How do these policies differ between Quebec and the rest of Canada? How are they framed? What effects do they have on racial inequality across the country? And how are they changing?

Canada has seen major changes in social housing policy since the 1990s. How has this shift impacted homelessness? In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Alison Smith, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and the author of Multiple Barriers: The Multilevel Governance of Homelessness in Canada. Homelessness is a constant discussion in major cities across Canada, yet Quebec is currently the only province that has a policy on homelessness. What can other provinces learn from its approach? How do we understand homelessness for the dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of this land? What are the roles of cities, provinces, and the federal government in preventing extreme housing insecurity? We delve into these questions and more.

Economic inequality in Canada and other developed countries has been rising since the 1980s. Along with this trend, Canada has seen a withering of redistributive policies and major changes in the way we talk about poverty. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Keith Banting, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Queen’s University. The conversation explores how inequality and redistribution intersect with racial inequality and immigration, particularly with the rise of a populist backlash. What does this populism look like in Canada? How should we frame discussions of economic inequality? Tune in for an expansive discussion on the rise of inequality and responses to it.

Black Canadians are more likely to be targeted by police for stop and search, and more likely to be incarcerated. In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where he is a leading scholar of race and Canada’s criminal justice system. How does racial data get collected in Canada? What does it reveal about the treatment of Black people by the justice system? How have Canada’s drug laws been used as a tool of racialized social control? Tune in for answers to these questions and deep dives into various intersections of race and criminal justice in Canada.

Welcome to In/Equality! In this new series from the Policy Options Podcast, we explore various aspects of inequality with experts from political science, criminology, history, and other disciplines. We will hear from researchers about the latest research on economic inequality, racial inequality, disability justice, rural-urban divides, and more. In this first episode, IRPP President and CEO Jennifer Ditchburn helps us get to know the host of In/Equality, Professor Debra Thompson of McGill University. What brought her to research racial inequality? What motivated her to create this series? And what can we expect from the coming conversations.

In this episode, our series on federalism turns to one of the most contentious issues in Canada these days: healthcare. We go back to first principles to understand how federalism influences the way we approach healthcare in Canada. We also ask what makes an effective healthcare system? And how does federalism complicate or help that dynamic? What are the different roles of each level of government and the stakeholders they interact with? And how do they work or don’t? Our expert guests are Katherine Fierlbeck, McCullough Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University, and Chaim Bell, Physician-in-Chief at Sinai Health and Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the sixth and final installment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence.

How do municipalities fit into Canada’s federal structure? How do cities manage policy aims with limited revenue-raising powers. On this episode of the podcast, we explore the relationship between municipal and federal, provincial and territorial governments. Moderated by Tomas Hachard, independent researcher, author and former manager programmes and research for the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG), our conversation on municipalities features Enid Slack, Director at IMFG, and Kennedy Stewart, Director at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Public Policy Research and the former mayor of Vancouver.

This episode of the podcast explores how federalism interacts with Indigenous governance. Moderated by Danielle White, Assistant Deputy Minister of Strategic Policy and Partnerships and ISC Evaluation, the conversation features Darcy Gray, Former Chief of Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation, Catherine MacQuarrie, Fellow at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy & Administration, and Martin Papillon, Professor of the University of Montreal. It starts with a brief history of how Indigenous people and their governance structures have fit within Canadian federalism and how this relationship has evolved. We discuss the role of public servants in policy impacting Indigenous Peoples and the lived experiences of Indigenous leaders having to navigate relationships with other orders of government. This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the fourth instalment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence.

The federal government is expected to announce major changes to the Employment Insurance system – the first major update since the 1990s. The IRPP released a report and a set of policy recommendations on how Canada should reform the EI system. In this episode of the podcast, IRPP Digital Engagement Officer Nesi Altaras speaks to our lead researchers on the topic Rachel Samson (Vice President of Research) and Ricardo Chejfec (Research Associate). The conversation covers why EI exists, what it can do for the Canadian economy, and how to pay for the various necessary changes to the program.

Building and maintaining infrastructure requires lots of funds, and often, it’s not clear who will be responsible. It’s a classic problem in federalism: who will fund what? This episode of the podcast explores how the structural characteristics of federalism impact Canada’s economic development and infrastructure. We’ll look at topics like the funding of infrastructure, how to manage regional competitiveness, and the legal and social frameworks that facilitate coordination between the federal and provincial governments. Moderated by Hugo Cyr, Director General at Ecole Nationale D’administration Publique (ENAP), the conversation features Herb Emery, Vaughan Chair of Regional Economics at the University of New Brunswick, and Alison O’Leary, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Communities and Infrastructure. This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the third installment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence. This episode of the podcast is bilingual, with speakers shifting between English and French.

What does it mean to be a status Indian in Canada? Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii), a professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law and a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, answered this seemingly straightforward question in his keynote speech at our 50th anniversary gala. Explaining the processes of losing and gaining status in his family and the policies made to disempower Indigenous people over the last century, Sanderson paints a powerful portrait of how public policy shaped his life and that of Indigenous people across this land.   Sanderson’s words are followed by a stirring poetry performance from Greg Frankson (aka Ritallin), a leading Black Canadian poet and editor of AfriCANthology: Perspectives of Black Canadian Poets (2022). Frankson’s work in this selection continue the theme of inequality.  This episode of the podcast is a recording of Douglas Sanderson’s keynote speech and Greg Frankson’s poetry from November 23, 2022 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

Debates around fiscal arrangements are always at the heart of federal-provincial relations in Canada. These days, health care funding and the Canada Health Transfer are even front-page news. Just a few months ago, equalization and Alberta’s demand for a fair deal that were making waves. In this episode, we do a deep dive into fiscal federalism: the current state of it, its history and how we got here, as well as the challenges ahead. The conversation is moderated by Antoine Brunelle-Côté, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet at the Privy Council Office. He is in conversation with Trevor Tombe, Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and a Research Fellow at The School of Public Policy; and Mary Janigan, a journalist and historian, and author of the recent book, The Art of Sharing: The Richer versus the Poorer Provinces since Confederation. This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the second instalment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence.

Countries around the world are increasing their ambition on climate policy, and low-carbon technologies across a range of sectors are reaching maturity. This is creating the conditions for rapid change in the energy system and, as a major producer and exporter, Canada will be particularly impacted. Policy-makers must prepare for a period of volatility, as systems make the necessary transformation to a low-carbon future. While the end-state is becoming clearer, the transition will be marked by volatility in energy markets. It will require policies that can manage the legacy systems that dominate today as well as support the development of new energy systems.

Tensions within a federation are a frequent, normal occurrence. In Canada, one only has to think about recurrent debates over health care funding to equalization payments. But recently, Canadian federalism has been experiencing more tension than usual. Alberta’s new premier is proposing a Sovereignty Act, Saskatchewan’s premier expressed a desire for his province to be ‘a nation within a nation’, while Quebec’s government was handily reelected on a platform of strengthening provincial autonomy even further. How can a federation manage these tensions and adapt when faced with such challenges? What are the features of a robust federation? This episode of the podcast is a panel that returns to the fundamentals of federalism to answer these questions. Moderated by Charles Breton, the director of the Centre for Excellence in the Canadian Federation, the discussion features two experts. Jenna Bednar is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan and a leading scholar of federalism. Our second guest, Benoit Pelletier is a professor of law at the University of Ottawa and a former cabinet minister of Quebec. This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the first installment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence. This episode of the podcast is bilingual, with speakers shifting between English and French.

Adult education provides skills development opportunities to help Canadians find better jobs and improve well-being. Yet it remains a “poor cousin” of compulsory and higher education, disconnected from social policy and the education system at large, with its learners and teachers stigmatized. In this episode of the PO Podcast, UBC Education Professor Jude Walker speaks with the IRPP's Cléa Desjardins about Canada’s past efforts to address these issues by creating a national adult education strategy. She offers insights from Aotearoa New Zealand, which went a long way to making adult education mainstream by integrating it into the country’s education system, professionalizing its teachers and standardizing assessments.

In June 2022, we organized a special lecture at the McCord Museum in Montreal. This is a recording of the lecture Queen’s University Professor Emeritus Keith Banting and McGill University Professor Debra Thompson delivered. They explore why Canada’s robust welfare state – which includes universal health care and myriad employment and training programs – as well as a race-neutral immigration selection system, official multiculturalism and the Charter have not been able to mitigate racial economic inequality.

In this special crossover episode with the Humans, on Rights podcast, Policy Options copyeditor and contributor Shannon Sampert, a political analyst and media specialist, speaks to host Stuart Murray about her career in journalism and the intersections of media, politics, and gender. From covering high school sports as a teenager to critiquing reporting on sexual assault cases, she shares her experiences in different positions across Canadian journalism, highlighting the role of media in raising public awareness for the right of free expression.

For the 50th anniversary of the IRPP, we are exploring the biggest public policy challenges facing Canada through a series of panel discussions held at some of Canada’s major policy schools. This episode is a recording of our discussion on political polarization held March 30, 2022, in collaboration with the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. We ask if polarization even exists in Canada. And if it is, what forms does it take, and does it pose a threat to our democracy? The conversation is moderated by IRPP President Jennifer Ditchburn and features Anita Lee, the editor-in-chief of The Green Line; Eric Merkley, an Assistant Professor at the Munk School; Sean Speer, a Senior Fellow at the Munk School; and Darrell Bricker, the CEO of Ipsos and a Senior Fellow at the Munk School.

As Russia’s attack on Ukraine carries on, nearly two-thirds of Ukrainian children have fled their homes. 2 million have gone to other countries while 2.8 million are internally displaced, and dozens have been killed or injured. The war also disrupted crop production and shipment from Ukraine and Russia, the largest exporters of wheat, putting millions more children around the world at risk of hunger. Policy Options Editor-in-Chief Les Perreaux talks to David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada, about the threats to children arising from this war and what Canada can do to help Ukraine’s vulnerable children and children around the globe dealing with the ripple effects of drought, COVID-19 and war.

L’IRPP célèbre son 50e anniversaire en s’associant aux principales écoles de politiques publiques du pays pour une série de tables rondes, intitulée « Sur le radar des priorités politiques », qui nous aideront à identifier les prochains défis qui occuperont nos décideurs. Cet épisode du balado d’Options politiques porte sur l’impact de la pandémie de COVID-19 sur les clivages existants au sein de la société canadienne. Quels rôles jouent les médias sociaux dans l’élaboration et la diffusion de théories complotistes ? La pandémie a-t-elle eu un effet sur l’évolution du système partisan au Canada ? Après deux ans de pandémie, comment se porte la confiance envers nos institutions politiques ? Cette discussion a eu lieu 24 mars 2022 en partenariat avec le département de science politique de l’Université Laval. Le panel a été modéré par Sule Tomkinson, la directrice du Centre d’analyse des politiques publiques à l’Université Laval. Elle était accompagnée de la professeure titulaire de science politique à l’Université Laval Aurélie Campana, du professeur agrégé de science politique à l’Université Laval Eric Montigny et de Jackie Smith, conseillère municipale et cheffe du parti Transition Québec.

For the 50th anniversary of the IRPP, we are exploring the biggest public policy challenges facing Canada through a series of panel discussions held at some of Canada’s major policy schools. This episode is a recording of our discussion on shifts in regulatory governance held on March 22, 2022 in collaboration with Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. What is the role of regulation in government policy and how is it changing? How will the COVID-19 pandemic effect how we craft policy? How can regulation be better coordinated at different levels? Moderated by Robert Shepherd of Carleton University, our panel features Darcy Gray, the Chief of Listuguj First Nation, Catherine MacQuarrie, a School fellow of Carleton’s School of Public Policy and Administration, Professor Alexandra Mallett of Carleton, and Kevin Stringer of Carleton University. Each panellist delivers a presentation on an aspect of regulatory governance, followed by a Q&A.

The federal government tabled the 2022 budget on April 7. Coming in the third year of the pandemic, hot off the Liberal-NDP agreement, and the escalating Russian invasion of Ukraine, the federal budget responds both to immediate needs and long-term priorities. On this special crossover episode, we share a conversation from the Voice Above podcast, with host Kate Todd talking to Charles Breton, the Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, and Colin Busby, a Research Director at the IRPP, about what the budget includes, what it lacks, and what its impacts will be in areas from housing to healthcare. The new budget evaluated the emergency pandemic response programs, phased out some and kept others. It included various policies meant to tackle the extreme rise in housing prices, though our experts are not optimistic that the housing allocations will have the intended effect, especially without significant municipal and provincial cooperation. While there is funding for the dentalcare program – an outcome of the Liberal-NDP agreement – implementation might be the larger hurdle. On the other hand, the budget is mum on the question of healthcare funding: how it will be shared between the federal and provincial governments and the strings that come with federal funding. All that and more in this quick but deep dive into the 2022 federal budget. https://anchor.fm/voice-above

Le gouvernement fédéral a dévoilé le 29 mars son plan très attendu de réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES). Le plan détaille entre autres comment le Canada prévoit atteindre son objectif de générer 40 % moins de GES en 2030 par rapport à 2005. Pour parler de ce projet complexe et certainement ambitieux, le directeur du Centre d’excellence sur la fédération canadienne de l’IRPP Charles Breton s’est entretenu avec celui qui aura la mission d’en assurer la mise en œuvre, le ministre de l’Environnement et du Changement climatique M. Steven Guilbeault.

The past few years have been extremely disruptive for Canada’s labour market. In a period of considerable economic change, we have also been facing a pandemic that has shaken the labour market to its core. Some sectors of the economy were shedding jobs and others were frantically searching for workers. It has become clear that workers’ ability to take advantage of emerging job opportunities will determine their resilience over the immediate and longer terms. To enable individuals to make the best career and training choices and adapt to these changes we need more effective information tools, so that those who lose their jobs or are underemployed and want to change jobs can quickly identify appropriate employment opportunities. Matthias Oschinski (founder and CEO of Belongnomics and faculty member at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy) and Thanh Nguyen (undergraduate student in computer science and engineering at MIT) developed two algorithms that, based on an individual’s skillset, suggest potential jobs and provide a pathway to help make those job transitions possible. They are the authors of this recent IRPP study, and today Matthias joins the podcast.

Over the past few years municipal budgets have been strained. In addition to the regular costs, the pandemic has created new and unpredictable expenses, climate-related disasters are increasing in number and scale, and municipalities are on the front lines as first responders supporting their citizens. That’s where provincial-municipal equalization payments come in. Similar in concept to federal equalization payments, they are administered by the province. But the  design of the provincial-municipal equalization process needs to be revamped. Improving this system will not be easy, and when finances are on the line transparency is key. This week Enid Slack joins the podcast. She and the late Richard M. Bird have outlined a way for provincial governments to work toward a better system of municipal equalization payments. Enid is director of the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

In the last few decades, Canada’s economy has changed. We have seen a massive shift in how online enterprises conduct business and how Canadians purchase goods, and these changes have altered the way business is done in Canada. While this is no surprise to many, some may not know that one of the most important laws governing these businesses – the Competition Act ─ has not been updated since 2008, the same year that Apple’s app store was launched. Our competition legislation has fallen behind business trends, and it needs to be brought into the 21st century. A 2022 report from the Competition Bureau states that “Canada faces real challenges to its competition policy framework,” and that the Bureau experiences “friction” in applying the Act on a day-to-day basis. The Bureau recommended a “comprehensive review.” But the Act is an extremely important piece of legislation, and when we do reopen it, we need to make sure it is revised correctly. So, how can it be effectively modernized? Vass Bednar and Robin Shaban both wrote articles for the Policy Options series on modernizing the Competition Act, and they join the podcast to answer these questions. Vass Bednar is the executive director of Master of Public Policy in Digital Society Program and an adjunct professor of political science at McMaster University. Robin Shaban is a co-founder and senior economist at Vivic Research, a winner of the 2021 Globe and Mail Report on Business Changemakers award, and was an officer at the Competition Bureau.

How Ottawa police treat white protesters compared to others including Black and Indigenous people reveals an entrenched Canadian double standard. Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/3gx7vMK By: Anna Drake French version read by Ricardo Montrose

At the onset of the pandemic, it was difficult to predict how the virus would impact our lives. We understood that hospitals were at risk of overflowing, and we knew we needed to prepare for that. There were also a million other things that we didn’t or couldn’t predict would happen due to COVID-19, but if we have learned anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. And we certainly have got better at it. This virus is not the only existential threat that humanity currently faces. Climate change is here, and Canadians are seeing it’s disastrous effects. We collectively failed to address it before entire towns in Alberta and British Columbia were wiped off the map by forest fires, before people died as a result of heat waves, and before neighbourhoods were transformed into shallow lakes. And the reality is, it’s only going to get worse from here. That’s why, as we scale up efforts to soften the impacts of climate change, we need to also work toward adapting to them. We have to alter our policies and investments around infrastructure so that we can adapt. But much like the pandemic, changes in the climate are extremely unpredictable, so how do we know what those investments should be and prepare for the challenges that we do not expect? Today I am speaking with Ryan Ness. Ryan is adaptation research director at the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices (CICC). We will be discussing the state of Canada’s infrastructure in relation to climate change, the CICC’s report on navigating the known and unknown costs of adapting to it, and what policies could be implemented to help Canada remain resilient in the face of it.

When a snap election was called in August, Canadians had a little over a month to prepare for a federal election and digest the platforms put forward by the political parties vying for their votes. Each party focused on what they thought would get them the most seats in the House. The New Democrats talked about affordability writ large, the Conservatives prioritized financial well-being, the Bloc put Quebec’s interests first, the Greens focused on environmental sustainability and the Liberals promised a suite of measures to help stop COVID in its tracks. Months of intense planning goes into every election campaign. So how are these platforms conceived and developed in the first place? Who decides what makes the final cut? And what happens when something goes wrong?

Over the past few years, the need for governments to work with one another has been ramping up. Canada is facing a long and unpredictable pandemic, a changing economy and high expectations from Canadians. 2022 is upon us, and with the new year come new policies for governments to fight over and old disagreements to revisit. So, what issues are on the horizon at all levels of government as we enter our second full year of the pandemic? To discuss that question, we are joined by the IRPP’s Charles Breton. Charles is the director of the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation at the Institute. We will be speaking about the provincial and federal economies and what major battles Canadians can expect from their governments in the coming year, as well as his work at the Centre of Excellence.

Over the summer of 2021 the world saw what can only be described as the fall of Afghanistan. Taliban offensive forces rapidly overtook the country in a matter of weeks, causing chaos within its borders and concern from the international community about what would happen to its citizens. There was a collective understanding that these individuals needed support, and along with it an understanding that we needed to take in refugees from that country. A few weeks later, the Canadian government committed to accepting Afghan 40,000 refugees (until now only 5,500 have been admitted). This isn’t the first time Canada has taken in a large group of refugees at one time. There are parallels (and considerable differences) between what is happening now and what happened during the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis, and we can learn a lot from our successes and mistakes during that 2015 initiative. On this episode of the podcast I speak with three individuals who have deep experience in refugee migration and settlement in Canada. First up is Thomas Soehl, an associate professor at McGill University and Canada Research Chair in International Migration. He is currently working on Tajribati, a project in which a McGill team is conducting interviews with thousands of Syrian refugees to explore the socio-cultural and political aspects of their adjustment to life in Canada, with a focus on intergenerational dynamics and informal support networks. Next is Alexandra Dawley, Senior Manager of Refugee Resettlement and Integration Programs at Mosaic ─ a British Columbia-based organization ─ one of Canada’s largest resettlement nonprofits, which serves immigrant, refugee and migrant communities throughout BC. Last I talk with Ramez Al-Jassem, who arrived in Canada in late 2016 as a Syrian refugee, to discuss his experience as a refugee and a Canadian citizen.

The killing of women and girls in Canada is not accurately tracked. Data needs to emphasize prevention, not just the administrative needs of government. Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/3pjJvkc Article by: Myrna Dawson Read by: Cléa Desjardins

In 2020, 5.5 million Canadian workers lost their jobs. In that same year, 47 Canadian billionaires saw their wealth increase by 78 billion dollars. But rising inequality did not start during the pandemic. In fact, since the 1980s, the richest Canadians have increased their wealth, while middle- and low-income Canadians saw theirs diminish. Between 1982 and 2018, the top 1 per cent of Canadians saw their income double, the upper middle class saw an income increase of around 10 per cent, and everyone else’s salary didn’t see any increase at all. In fact, those salaries didn’t even keep up with inflation. Wealth inequality in Canada is staggering. Last September, Statistics Canada reported that the wealthiest 20 per cent of Canadians currently hold over 65 per cent of the wealth in the country, while the bottom 40 per cent – almost half the country, holds just 2.5 per cent of wealth as of 2020. Coming out of the pandemic, governments are looking for ways to reduce debt and fix systemic issues in healthcare and long-term care, as well as fill gaps in the social safety net that were made apparent in the last two years. This week Angella MacEwan joins the podcast. Angella is the senior economist at the Canadian Union of Public employees, a policy fellow at the Broadbent Institute, and a former federal NDP Candidate for Ottawa Centre. I will be speaking with her about the steps the Canadian government has taken to reach this point of inequality, and the Broadbent Institute’s plan to tax the rich.

The Canadian federation was built on a compromise between two linguistic communities, anglophones and francophones. This compromise still exists today and is now part of our national fabric and identity, in addition to being enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Read the full text here: https://on-irpp.org/37oFnb6 By: Stéphanie Chouinard and Luc Turgeon *** La fédération canadienne a été érigée sur un compromis fondateur entre deux communautés linguistiques, francophone et anglophone. Ce compromis existe toujours et fait désormais partie du tissu identitaire national, en plus d’être enchâssé dans la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés. Lisez le texte complet ici : https://on-irpp.org/2Hm9fde Par: Stéphanie Chouinard and Luc Turgeon

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming more and more common in our everyday lives. The technology is being used in a wide range of areas, such as advertising, health care, banking and manufacturing, to name a few. It is a massive advance in the tech sector that can benefit almost all levels of society. But with the benefits, there are also risks. Because of the speed at which the technology is advancing, it can be an unpredictable, or even a malicious tool that policy-makers are ill equipped to deal with, especially because of the speed at which the technology is advancing. This became apparent with the development of an AI system called GPT-3. GPT-3 was designed to be simple AI tasked with learning how to auto-complete a sentence, but it taught itself a suite of seemingly unrelated tasks, including how to write articles that are indistinguishable from writing done by a human. Its evolution raised alarm bells within the AI developing community, who had concerns about its impact on public safety. My guest today is dedicated to filling the knowledge gap between AI developers and policy- makers. Jérémie Harris is a former physicist and Silicon Valley tech start-up founder who left the tech industry to collaborate with AI policy leaders around the world, including the former heads of AI policy at the U.S. Department of Defense, the World Economic Forum, and top AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. He has developed a plan that will enable the federal government to monitor and create policy around AI so that Canada can stay ahead of the curve. Jérémie joins the podcast to discuss the current public safety risks posed by AI, and what the government can do to mitigate them.

Canada-China relations in trade, climate change and human rights must follow a courageous and creative new path in the wake of the two Michaels saga. Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/3jVmMcf By: Lynette Ong

Alberta has spoken! On October 18, as Albertans voted in municipal elections, there were two additional questions on the ballot. One was fairly inconsequential and asked people if they preferred doing away with daylight savings. It was narrowly rejected, with just 50.2 per cent of the vote. The second was more weighty and could end up changing the Canadian Constitution. Albertans were asked if section 36(2) of the Constitution Act, concerning equalization payments, should be removed from the Constitution. To that question, they said “YES,” with 62 per cent of the vote. But what on earth is equalization!? And what happens now? Will Alberta be able to convince other provinces to get on board? And will the federal government entertain the idea of a constitutional change? To answer these questions, we speak with two professors in Alberta. First up is Trevor Tombe, professor of economics at the University of Calgary and research fellow at the School of Public Policy. His research focuses on international trade, macroeconomics and fiscal federalism. He will explain what equalization is, and talk about the flaws in the program. Then we speak with political science professor Lisa Young, also at the University of Calgary. She researches Canadian political parties, women's participation in politics, interest groups and social movements, and the regulation of electoral finance. She will discuss what this vote might mean for Alberta and for the rest of the country.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security should follow the blueprint that U.K. and U.S. institutions use to protect critical national infrastructure. Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/3G2tfLS By: David Masson

Over the course of the pandemic, largely due to the increase in cases due to workplace transmission, there were calls to improve the current regime of sickness and caregiving leaves across Canada. Over a year later, almost all of those calls have been ignored. Federal, provincial and territorial governments had to enact emergency measures to address these serious gaps in the system. Those programs will soon run out, and Canada will return to a mismatched system where the province you live in determines whether you have adequate access to paid sickness and caregiving leaves. It is crucial that we re-evaluate this regime and create one that is beneficial for all workers, because when workers decide that they cannot take time off due to illness, the resulting costs are borne by both individuals and society. In their new IRPP paper Eric Tucker and Leah Vosko examine international norms in comparable economies for sickness and caregiving leaves and what principles need to be included in a Canadian regime. They join the podcast to discuss the shortfalls in Canada’s current system and what the ideal system would look like for workers.

Canada exploited Chinese workers from its start. The anti-Asian racist violence during the pandemic has exposed how little has changed. Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/2YntK1P By: Chandrima Chakraborty

At the onset of the pandemic, in March 2020, there was an (unconfirmed) collective idea that in a few weeks or months we would be able to go back to our lives as usual, and the pandemic would be a thing of the past. Now we recognize that it wasn’t that simple, that the regular functions of the country must continue, and that we would, at least for now, have to learn to live with the virus. In September 2020, New Brunswick held Canada’s first election during the pandemic, and electoral management bodies had to grapple with the challenge of how to prepare for an election. Canada has now seen six provincial and territorial elections and a federal election. So what have we learned? And how can we use these lessons to better prepare ourselves for voting in times of emergencies? Today’s guests are Allison Harell and Laura Stephenson, co-directors of C-DEM. This organization administers the Canadian Election Study, which collects and analyses public opinion data on electoral attitudes in Canada. They will be speaking about their research and the lessons we have learned from voting during a pandemic.

A young dentist’s ideals led him to Afghanistan as an infantry officer. After two tours, he began to question what was ultimately achievable. *** Mû par ses idéaux, un jeune dentiste s’est engagé comme soldat d’infanterie. Deux séjours en Afghanistan l’ont amené à douter de la mission. Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/3mDZ9Hh Lisez l'article complet ici : https://options-po.li/3zfGO6a By: Luong Phuc Nguyen

There is no doubt that social media has changed politics. It has connected politicians and constituents, making it easier for them to speak more freely with one another than ever before. But these sites have also changed the way people communicate with politicians. If you look at the replies to any tweet, by any politician, you will see a series of replies that express disagreement, or support. But there is also a steady stream of hatred directed toward politicians, from a minority of people who engage in behaviour that experts have described as “toxic.” It’s easy to brush off these tweets as nothing more than posts on a Website, but they can actually have a harmful effect on our democracy. Not only do they make politicians’ work – already difficult – even harder, they dampen people’s willingness to engage in political conversations online and dissuade people from entering the political arena. My guest today is hoping to stop online toxicity, for the betterment of Canadian democracy. Sabreena Dellen is the executive director of the Samara Centre for Democracy, a charity dedicated to strengthening democracy in Canada. The Samara Centre recently partnered with Areto Labs on a project that tracks the tweets received by incumbents who are running for re-election, to find out how toxic these tweets are and who is receiving them. Today we will discuss the project, as well as SAMbot, which they use to track this data, and how they hope to foster a positive culture change in digital democracy. If you would like to find out more about SAMbot, check it out here - https://sambot.ca/

After the discovery of unmarked graves at residential schools, political leaders won’t be able to ignore commitments to advance reconciliation.

The pandemic, combined with working from home, has challenged our perceptions of how we work. People are now able to “work from home” from anywhere, and the concept of a disaggregated workforce is gaining acceptance. The idea that being employed means staying in one place and following the same rules that we have followed for generations is crumbling, and people are adapting to this new normal. But the changes have not been all positive. In fact, research shows that people are more stressed and overworked than they have been in decades, and that the technology that was supposed to make work easier has invaded our non-work lives and broken down the barrier between work and life. How can employers decrease the stress that employees are feeling, and how can we rethink work? To discuss these ideas I am speaking with Linda Duxbury, Chancellor's Professor at Carleton University, who studies work-life balance and the impact of technology on employees. Some employers are indeed recognizing that the pandemic gave us an opportunity to change the way we work and reduce the stress felt by employees. One of these is our second guest, Barry Carroll, chief administrative officer at the municipality of Guysborough on the east coast of Nova Scotia. He transitioned his entire workforce to a four-day work week. Our third guest, Christina Bowie, is an employee at the municipality of Guysborough who now works four days a week. We will be discussing their experiences and how the change has impacted the lives of these employees.

The last year has been a reckoning for so many aspects of our society, revealing that we need fundamental reform in the way the country operates. However, one piece of news that has been shocking to many Canadians is the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at residential schools across the country, with thousands more expected to be found. While many Indigenous people have known about these graves and have tried to shine light on them for decades, they have continued to be hidden from the public by various institutions and governments. But we have to be very clear: Canada has committed a genocide. From the late 19th century up until 1996, Canada forcibly removed over 150,000 Indigenous children from their families in order to, as John A. Macdonald put it, “remove the Indian from the child.” Canadians are learning that we have an individual responsibility to advance reconciliation. In fact, a new survey conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, along with the Institute for Research on Public Policy and a number of other leading public policy organizations called the Confederation of Tomorrow, showed that the percentage of Canadians who believe individuals have a role in advancing reconciliation has increased from 55 per cent in 2020, to 70 per cent in 2021. These statistics were taken before the news of any unmarked graves came to light, and may have changed since. So if residents of Canada want to enact change where policy has failed to do so, and work collectively toward reconciliation, what can they do? This week on the podcast we are speaking with Tara Williamson and Robert Houle, researchers at the Yellowhead Institute, a First Nation-led research centre that aims to foster education and dialogue on First Nation governance. We are discussing the role that individuals play in advancing reconciliation, and what steps settlers can take to push for it in their everyday lives.

The conversation surrounding the COVID-19 recovery has been almost entirely centred on the economy. Governments have allocated countless resources to protecting people from economic hardship and keeping businesses afloat. But there is one aspect of Canada’s recovery that has received little attention from policy-makers: How do we heal people and cities, so that when we “build back better” we are building a society that includes and works for everyone? This type of healing does not require a vaccine. It requires a rethink of who we are and how our cities operate. The pandemic did not create the issues that dominate the news cycle, such as racism, sexism and the repression of marginalized voices, but it did make these issues much more prevalent in everyday life. This week’s podcast guest is Jay Pitter. An award-winning place-maker and author, she works in her practice to mitigate the growing divide in cities across North America. She will be discussing marginalized and underrepresented groups, their experience during the pandemic, and what policy-makers can do to truly build back better.

En dépit de nombreux rapports qui préconisent depuis plus de 20 ans une réforme majeure des soins de longue durée au Québec, aucun gouvernement n’est véritablement passé à l’action. L’indignation en réaction aux défaillances systémiques révélées par la pandémie entraînera-t-elle un véritable changement ? Quelles politiques faut-il prioriser pour lancer une réforme en profondeur qui produirait des résultats probants ? Le balado de cette semaine est l’enregistrement d'un webinaire que l’IRPP a tenu le 3 juin 2021. Il portait sur les problèmes du système de soins de longue durée qui doivent être abordés dans le Québec post-pandémique. Réjean Hébert, Marie-Louise Leroux et Yves Couturier étaient les invités de cette rencontre animée par Charles Breton, directeur du Centre d'excellence sur la fédération canadienne de l'IRPP.

COVID-19 has shaken the Canadian labour market to its core, and it has revealed that our Employment Insurance system is not well equipped to handle a major disruption to the economy. In the first half of 2020, roughly 2.4 million Canadians were laid off or had permanently lost their jobs. By January 2021, roughly 511,000 individuals had been unemployed for more than six months. In response to these unprecedented unemployment numbers, the federal government created a patchwork of emergency response benefits to cover the gaps in the EI system. Now, as vaccinations go out across the country and the economy reopens, people will need to get back to work. EI could provide a stepping stone, but will the current system get people back to full-time employment? A new IRPP study argues that the system could be improved by redesigning the working-while-on-claim provisions, which allow claimants to take part-time or casual jobs and still keep a portion of their EI benefits. The authors of the study, IRPP Research Director Colin Busby, Stephanie Lluis, professor of economics at the University of Waterloo, and Brian P. McCall, professor of education, economics and public policy at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, join us on the podcast to discuss their research.

The story of western alienation runs parallel to the story of Canada. Both stories have their roots in 1867, when a country was born out of the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. At the time those two provinces were leaders in business and population numbers. But in the western part of the country, a different story was started – one of alienation – that would lead to the creation of modern-day political parties and calls for separation from the rest of Canada. Despite attempts by successive governments to reduce it, western alienation persists, and while it may seem that current political issues are driving these feelings, the root cause remains in 1867. The current political debates around big issues like energy or the environment, and other issues such as equalization payments, are manifestations of long-lasting grievances in the west dating to the founding of the country. Canada’s original sin ─ building the country on the foundation of the eastern provinces ─ persists. To discuss these issues, this week’s guest is Loleen Berdahl, professor and head of political studies at the University of Saskatchewan. She has been studying western alienation and how it fits into the context of pan-Canadian regional conflict for two decades. Her recent essay for the IRPP’s Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation delves into the origins of western alienation and recommends ways to tackle it.

COVID-19 has been one of the largest disruptions in the Canadian labour market in the country’s history. Not only were some sectors like tourism nearly decimated, the economy as a whole took a hit - making it extraordinarily difficult for laid-off Canadians to find jobs that they could easily transfer their skills to. Retraining workers who have lost their jobs so that they can successfully transition into a new field has been an elusive goal for governments. This is partly because skills retraining is a difficult to sector to navigate for policy-makers, but also because studies have shown mixed results in the benefits and drawbacks of this training, which has shaken the public’s confidence in whether or not it’s an economically viable solution. But given the pandemic’s toll on our labour market, it is time for governments to start taking a serious look at skills training, and to develop a functional system so that workers can find not just any job, but the right job for them. Kelly Pasolli, along with Karen Myers and Simon Harding of Blueprint, conducted a study for the IRPP that examined previous research on skills training to find what worked and what didn’t. Through this research, they found two promising systems that Canadian workers could benefit from. For this episode of the Policy Options Podcast, we speak with Kelly Pasolli about these systems, and what Canadian governments need to do to successfully retrain under- or unemployed workers for the post-pandemic future.

Canada has vaccinated nearly 40 per cent of its citizens, an important milestone in the fight against COVID-19. But underlying this success is a concerning aspect of the global vaccine rollout: wealthy countries like Canada have taken the lion’s share of vaccines – 87 per cent, leaving medium- and low-income countries with just 0.2 per cent of the vaccine supply. Not only is this a moral concern, with the pandemic ravaging medium- and low-income countries that may struggle with increased health-care demands, it’s also a health concern as new variants emerge from the hardest-hit areas. But there is a plan to correct this, and Canada has an opportunity to support it: COVAX, a program designed in early 2020 with the hopes of distributing vaccines globally and equitably. Today’s guests are Annie Bodmer-Roy, the director of international policy and programs at UNICEF Canada, and Srinivas Murthy, a clinical professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia and a consultant with the World Health Organization. They will be speaking about the global inequality in vaccine distribution, and how Canada can support COVAX in its goals.

On April 19, 2021, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland presented the first federal budget in two years. Among the many new and updated policies, one stood out especially – the promise of affordable universal childcare for all Canadians. Universal child care had been promised in the past and never come to fruition, not for lack of political will or public support, but rather because it is such a difficult policy to enact. One place in Canada, however, already has universal, affordable child care: Quebec. The federal government plans on taking this model of child care and replicating it in every province and territory. But this system is not perfect, and the government needs to be careful not to make the same mistakes that Quebec has made while creating this policy. This week we are joined by Sophie Mathieu and Gordon Cleveland to speak about the Quebec model of child care, and how this policy will be enacted across the country. Sophie Mathieu is a postdoctoral researcher at Université TÉLUQ in Quebec City, with a focus on family policy in Quebec. She holds a PhD in sociology. Gordon Cleveland is emeritus associate professor of economics at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and a member of the Expert Panel on Early Learning and Child Care Data and Research. He is also president of Cleveland Consulting: Early Childhood Education and Care Inc.

This special episode of the Policy Options Podcast is a recording of our recent webinar on the 2021 federal budget. The webinar can also be found online at IRPP.org, or on YouTube. This budget came with high expectations. Public debate around such issues as reforming long-term care, helping displaced workers transition back into the labour force, righting the impact of the “she-cession,” and the relative powers of the provinces, had Canadians wondering which sectors would see funding. On April 20, 2021, the day after the tabling of the federal budget, our panel of experts held an in-depth conversation around the key policy issues critical to Canada’s post-pandemic recovery.

In March 2020, Canada saw a major “office-drain,” as office workers made the sudden switch to working from home. Most were told that this would be a temporary solution to the social distancing orders and lockdown measures put in place to lower the spread of COVID-19. But just a few weeks later, COVID-19 was named a full-blown pandemic, and talk of returning to the workplace became less and less hopeful. Now, over one year later, a majority of Canadian office workers are still working from home, and there is still no timeline for a safe return to work. Our guest this week is Jean-Nicolas Reyt. Reyt is an assistant professor of organizational behaviour at McGill University, and has studied work-from-home since 2010. Over the past year, he has had a rare opportunity for a researcher: the chance to see his theories play out in the real world. Reyt has used “earnings calls” – calls made by CEOs to their investors – to track how Canadian and U.S. executives have been talking about working from home, how their perceptions of this style of work have changed, and what is and isn’t working. In this episode, he shares his insights about how far we’ve come, and how much farther we have to go.

Indigenous treaties are enormously significant for both First Nations groups and Canada. These treaties are constitutionally recognized agreements that lay out the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and Canada, where Yukon is a leader in treaty-making. Out of the 14 Indigenous groups that live in the territory, 11 hold signed treaties with the government. But there is a disconnect between the generation of leaders who originally negotiated these treaties, and the youth, young people between 16 and 30, who are now taking the reins of governance. These individuals did not grow up under the Indian Act, and were not there to witness the negotiations in person. Our guests for this episode of the podcast are Gabrielle A. Slowey and Geri-Lee Buyck. Gabrielle A. Slowey is a professor in the Department of Politics the director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University, and has worked with Indigenous groups in Yukon to train youth to negotiate and implement treaties. Her new paper, published by the IRPP’s Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, describes her work with communities to develop a treaty negotiation simulation, where young people can learn from the elders and experts who negotiated the original treaties. Geri-Lee Buyck is an Indigenous youth from the Na-Cho Nyuk Dun First Nation. Buyck is a first-year student at Vancouver Island University, and took part in one of these simulations

Last Fall, Joyce Echaquan, an Indigenous woman, died in a Quebec hospital after posting videos online of the hospital staff insulting her. The tragedy was seen by many as the latest example of the systemic racism that Indigenous people often face when dealing with the Canadian health care system. It’s not the first time systemic racism in health care has made the news or has been denounced by the public or by government officials. And yet it often seems as if things are improving very slowly or not at all. Why is that? What are some of the elements blocking or slowing down change? Whose responsibility is it to find and implement possible solutions? To help us answer these questions and more, we’ve invited Dr. Alika Lafontaine to this week’s podcast. Alika Lafontaine is an Indigenous physician and the chair of the Governance Council of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Help us get to know you! Fill out our podcast listener survey here: https://options-po.li/podcastsurvey Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @JRicardoBM.

COVID-19 has put many Canadians out of jobs. But even after the pandemic ends, there’s no indication the labour market will go back to the way it was. Automation, climate change, and the rise of gig work will all have very real consequences for the nature of work. In light of these disruptions, giving job seekers and employers the support they need is more important than ever. Today on the podcast, we’re joined by the authors of an IRPP paper that’s looking at one piece of the puzzle: how to help people get the skills they need to succeed in the jobs of tomorrow. Tony Bonen leads the Labour Market Information Council’s team of economists and data scientists, delivering high-quality labour market information to stakeholders and decision-makers. Matthias Oschinski is an economist specializing in inclusive growth, well-being and climate change at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Read more in Mapping Canada’s Training Ecosystem: Much Needed and Long Overdue: https://on-irpp.org/394Gz2N Help us get to know you! Fill out our podcast listener survey here: https://options-po.li/podcastsurvey Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

It’s just over a month into Canada’s vaccine rollout, and every day seems to bring new federal-provincial bickering or logistical nightmares. It’s difficult and confusing at a time when Canadians just want to get needles into arms. The problem is, it’s not just a Canadian issue – as recent disruptions to vaccine supply have reminded us, the pandemic is global. Our response must be global, too, whether that means helping vaccinate people beyond our borders or considering the international implications of our own COVID-19 policies. Here to discuss this and more is Dr. Alan Bernstein. He’s president and CEO of the global research organization CIFAR and was the founding president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He sits on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and is a member of Canada’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force. Help us get to know you! Fill out our podcast listener survey here: https://options-po.li/podcastsurvey Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

This week we’ve got a special, bilingual episode of the podcast. To celebrate 40 years of Policy Options, and the end of a truly terrible year, we’re joined by Jennifer Ditchburn, Policy Options’ editor-in-chief. She takes us back to 1980 to discuss what policy concerns of the time still resonate today. And we chat about what the future holds for public-policy debate in Canada, within the magazine and beyond. Plus, let us know how you like the podcast! Fill out our brand-new listener survey here: https://options-po.li/podcastsurvey Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or any member of the team (@jbugiel, @JRicardoBM or @jenditchburn). ... Pour célébrer les 40 ans d’Options politiques et finir cette année difficile en beauté, Jennifer Ditchburn, rédactrice en chef du magazine, nous ramène en 1980. Dans ce balado bilingue, elle revient sur les enjeux politiques de l’époque et examine leur pertinence dans la période actuelle. Elle se penche également sur l’avenir du débat politique dans les médias et nos instances politiques. Si vous appréciez le balado d’Options politiques, nous vous invitons à répondre à notre sondage (seulement en anglais) en cliquant sur le lien qui suit: https://options-po.li/podcastsurvey Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous mettons en ligne de nouveaux balados chaque deuxième mercredi. Vous pouvez envoyer vos commentaires par Twitter à @IRPP, @jbugiel, @JRicardoBM ou à @jenditchburn.

COVID-19 has tested Canada’s intergovernmental system. With the stakes as high as they are, it’s crucial that all levels of government continue to meet, communicate, and try to work together. To make that process a little easier, this week’s podcast has lessons for policymakers on successful cooperation in the face of complex intergovernmental challenges. Charles Breton, executive director of our new Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, moderates a discussion between Mireille Paquet, Robert Schertzer, and Roxanna Benoit. Mireille and Robert, who are associate professors of political science at Concordia University and the University of Toronto respectively, share findings from their recently released study with the Centre of Excellence, "Irregular Border Crossings and Asylum Seekers in Canada: A Complex Intergovernmental Problem." Meanwhile, Roxanna brings insights on intergovernmental collaboration, drawing on her experience in the public service, including as Alberta’s former deputy minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations. This discussion was originally recorded as a webinar by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada for its recent conference. Read the study here: https://on-irpp.org/3neOikf Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @charlesbreton.

Canada’s cities have borne the worst of COVID-19. Looking ahead, it’s clear they’ll need targeted support in any future recovery plans. But they’ll also need new tools to help federal, provincial and municipal governments come together and make decisions about Canada’s urban centres. How do we make that happen? Today on the podcast, you’ll hear suggestions from Gabriel Eidelman, the director of the Urban Policy Lab at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. We discuss his recent essay from the IRPP’s Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation, entitled "Reimagining the Canadian Federation through an Urban Lens." Then we’re joined by Edmonton mayor Don Iveson. He’s served as city councillor since 2007, mayor since 2013, and chair of the Big City Mayor’s Caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities since 2016. He gives us an insider’s look at what is and isn’t working when it comes to urban governance in Canada. Read Gabriel Eidelman's essay here: https://on-irpp.org/3kDGlEg Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Working-age singles are more likely than most to be living in deep poverty, with incomes that fall well short of what’s required to meet basic needs. So why are they so often overlooked in our poverty reduction plans? And what does this diverse group of Canadians require to support them in moving out of poverty? Today on the podcast, we cover all that and more as we discuss a recent IRPP report: Canada’s Forgotten Poor? Putting Singles Living in Deep Poverty on the Policy Radar. We’re joined first by Colin Busby, a research director at the IRPP. He walks us through this inaugural report from his new program on The Social Safety Net for Working-Age Adults. On the second half of the podcast, Sherri Torjman joins us to share some policy recommendations from her commentary on that report. Sherri is a social policy consultant and policy associate with the Maytree Foundation. She’s vice-chair of the Disability Advisory Committee, which provides advice to the Minister of National Revenue. She was vice-president of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy from 1992 to 2017. Read the report: https://on-irpp.org/32yhkDP Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

The last seven months haven’t been easy on any of us. But newcomers, especially asylum seekers and refugee claimants, have had an especially hard time. To understand the unique challenges they face during COVID-19, we’re joined by Dorota Blumczynska. She’s the executive director of the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization of Manitoba and president of the Canadian Council for Refugees. She reminds us not only of our different experiences of this pandemic, but of what we have in common: a need for friendship, solidarity, and respect. This podcast is part of the Tackling Inequality as Part of Canada’s Post-Pandemic Recovery special feature: https://options-po.li/33JKn6V Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel, or to Dorota herself (@blumczynska).

Last week marked the launch of the IRPP’s Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation. To celebrate, we’re putting out a special edition of the podcast hosted by centre director Charles Breton. Charles came to the IRPP in 2019 from Vox Pop Labs, where as research director he led the design of innovative public opinion research tools such as Vote Compass. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of British Columbia. Before pursuing an academic career, he was a researcher and journalist for current affairs programs on Radio-Canada. He’ll be speaking with Jörg Broschek, Stéphanie Chouinard and Alain Noël, three political scientists who contributed essays to the centre’s inaugural series. They’ll be drawing on those essays to discuss last week’s Speech from the Throne and its implications for Canadian federalism. This is a bilingual podcast. Skip to the 25-minute mark to listen to the French part of the episode. Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @charlesbreton. /// La semaine dernière, l’IRPP a inauguré officiellement son Centre d’excellence sur la fédération canadienne. Nous marquons cet événement par un balado bilingue animé par le directeur du Centre, Charles Breton. Charles s’est joint à l’IRPP en 2019. Il a été auparavant directeur de la recherche à Vox Pop Labs, où il a dirigé la conception d’outils de recherche innovants sur l’opinion publique, tel que la Boussole électorale. Titulaire d’un doctorat en science politique de l’Université de la Colombie-Britannique, il a été recherchiste et journaliste pour des émissions d’affaires publiques à Radio-Canada avant d’entreprendre un parcours universitaire. Charles s’entretient avec Jörg Broschek, Stéphanie Chouinard et Alain Noël, trois experts des politiques publiques qui ont écrit des essais pour la série de lancement du Centre. Se fondant sur leurs textes, ils examinent le discours du Trône de la semaine dernière et ses répercussions sur le fédéralisme canadien. Pour accéder directement à la discussion en français, allez à la marque de 25 minutes. Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous produisons de nouveaux balados un mercredi sur deux.  Si vous avez des questions et des commentaires, envoyez des tweets à @IRPP ou @jbugiel.

A new Parliament is fast approaching, and the Trudeau government’s COVID plans will soon be put to the test. We don’t yet know what’s in next week’s Speech from the Throne, but we do know one major change the government’s introducing: the transition away from the Canada Emergency Response Benefit and toward Employment Insurance and a trio of new benefit programs. With six months of the pandemic behind us, now’s the time to stop and reflect on the federal response so far. Have the support programs done their job? Are the proposed changes in the public interest? And what can we learn from the labour market effects of past crises as we retool our response to the current one? This week on the podcast, two labour economists help us figure it all out. First, we have Mikal Skuterud, an associate professor in economics at the University of Waterloo who’s also affiliated with the Canadian Labour Economics Forum. He gives us the rundown on the new federal benefits and EI changes, and explains how economic insights can help make sense of pandemic-era policy. Next, René Morissette, research manager in the Social Analysis and Modelling Division of Statistics Canada, joins us to share insights from his June IRPP study, “Turbulence or Steady Course? Permanent Layoffs in Canada, 1978-2016.” You can find that study here: https://on-irpp.org/2YZxJhx Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

It seems like every day, we’re seeing new changes that COVID-19 is bringing to the world of work. Firms are choosing to automate and digitize, and they’re turning increasingly to remote and casual work. Policy-makers have helped people and businesses through the early days of the crisis. But now it’s time to meet the future of work head on. Today on the podcast, we have Natalia Mishagina, research director of the IRPP’s new program on The Future of Skills and Adult Learning. She’ll be building on a recent IRPP study by Statistics Canada’s Marc Frenette and Kristyn Frank to talk about who’s at risk of seeing their jobs transformed by automation. Next, we’re bringing on Sunil Johal to discuss how policy-makers should meet the labour market challenges accelerated by COVID-19. Sunil serves as a fellow to the Public Policy Forum and the Brookfield Institute. From 2012 to 2019 he was policy director at the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre, and in 2019, he was named chair of the Expert Panel on Modern Labour Standards by the federal Minister of Labour. Download for free. New episodes every other Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel. The Demographics of Automation: Who Is at Risk? -- https://on-irpp.org/3dJt2hr

As calls to “defund the police” have spread around the world, we’ve seen the violence police inflict upon communities of colour. Race-based data is hard to come by in Canada, but the data we do have show Black and Indigenous people to be disproportionately policed and to face high rates of police violence. Now, many Canadians are seriously considering the need to reform or even abolish our police forces. But what does the movement to defund the police require from a policy perspective? And how can people working within Canadian institutions play a role in this global movement? To answer some of those questions, we’re joined by Holly Campeau and Kiké Roach. Holly Campeau is an assistant professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Alberta specializing in the intersection between criminal justice, cultural sociology, and law. She is also Senior Researcher with the Global Justice Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Kiké Roach is the Unifor National Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University, where she teaches courses in social movements and politics, and in human rights. As a lawyer, she was an advocate for accountability and reform in policing and in detention centres for many years representing organizations such as the Black Action Defense Committee. Download for free. New episodes every other week. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Au-delà des manchettes et de la course des meneurs, les électeurs sont peu nombreux à savoir comment se déroule une élection. Qui en sont ses acteurs clés ? Quel rôle jouent les médias dans l’élection ? Comment le gouvernement continue-t-il de fonctionner durant la campagne ? L’ouvrage Inside the Campaign: Managing Elections in Canada se penche sur ces questions et nous mène dans les coulisses de la campagne électorale fédérale de 2019. Dans ce balado, Thierry Giasson, professeur de sciences politiques à l’Université Laval et codirecteur de l’ouvrage, nous parle du travail des personnes qui tentent d’orienter le choix des électeurs et de la manière dont se déroule une élection canadienne.

Earlier in June, the Fair Deal Panel made public its final report to the Alberta government. The stated goal of the panel was to find ways to get Alberta a better deal in the federation, and promote the province’s economic interests along the way. In the recommendations, some of the items are now standard fare for Alberta politics, including the referendum on equalization promised by Premier Jason Kenney. Others, like establishing a provincial police force and withdrawing from the Canada Pension Plan, not so much. This week on the podcast, we take a deep dive into the policy and politics of the Fair Deal Panel, and what they tell us about Alberta today, with Trevor Tombe and Melanee Thomas. Trevor Tombe is an associate professor of economics and a research fellow at the University of Calgary School of Public Policy. He’s also the author of the IRPP paper, "An (Overdue) Review of Canada’s Fiscal Stabilization Program," which we discussed on an earlier podcast. Melanee Thomas is an associate professor of political science at the University of Calgary. She’s written several pieces for Policy Options, including one about separatist anger in Alberta and another about Jason Kenney’s focus on Quebec. What’s the deal with fiscal stabilization?: https://options-po.li/2uXBzNk An (Overdue) Review of Canada’s Fiscal Stabilization Program: https://on-irpp.org/38OBr1q Jason Kenney’s case of Quebec envy: https://options-po.li/2KOTiLE As Alberta’s anger deepens, it gets harder to turn off: https://options-po.li/311g0GG

Canada’s system of long-term care was a powder keg; COVID-19 the spark that set it alight. As the virus overtook nursing and care homes across the country, we began to hear about the outdated facilities and the population unable to advocate for itself. Then there are the workers themselves, forced to work across multiple facilities just to make ends meet. These overwhelmingly female and disproportionately racialized workers have increasingly taken the spotlight, as researchers have pointed to our undervaluing of care work as a factor in COVID’s deadly spread. One of these researchers is Ivy Lynn Bourgeault. She’s a professor of sociology and University of Ottawa research chair in Gender, Diversity and the Professions, with an international reputation for her research on gender and the healthcare workforce. She joins the podcast to discuss her recent piece for Policy Options on the need for a revaluing of the work that goes into long-term care. Her piece for Policy Options: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2020/long-term-care-work-is-essential-but-essentially-under-recognized/ Policy Options' series on Facing up to Canada’s Long-Term Care Policy Crisis: policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may…olicy-crisis/ Download for free. New episodes every other week. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

COVID-19 has been a death sentence for many Canadians living or working in long-term care. The scale of this loss is overwhelming, with over 80 percent of COVID deaths in Canada linked to nursing and retirement homes.  This crisis brings to light what many have known for years: the system is broken, and society's most vulnerable are paying the price. Dr. Samir Sinha joins the podcast to make sense of this political and policy failure, and to call on all of us to act. Dr. Sinha is the director of geriatrics at Sinai Health System and the University Health Network in Toronto and an associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He’s also the director of health policy research at Ryerson University’s National Institute on Ageing. COVID-19 tracker: https://ltc-covid19-tracker.ca/ Policy Options' series on Facing up to Canada’s Long-Term Care Policy Crisis: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2020/facing-up-to-canadas-long-term-care-policy-crisis/ Download for free. New episodes every other week. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Depuis le début de la pandémie de COVID-19, les différents gouvernements, les professionnels de la santé et la population ont dû prendre des décisions difficiles qui ont d’importantes dimensions éthiques. Quels principes devraient guider l’allocation de ressources médicales limitées ? Les mesures de confinement imposées par les gouvernements sont-elles disproportionnées ? Devrait-on utiliser des outils technologiques comme le traçage de contacts et la géolocalisation pour mieux faire face à la pandémie ? Ce sont quelques-unes des questions d’éthique qui ont été soulevées ces dernières semaines. Président de la Commission de l’éthique en science et en technologie et professeur titulaire de philosophie à l’Université Laval, Jocelyn Maclure nous parle de la dimension éthique des mesures adoptées pour faire face à la pandémie et de la place que devraient prendre les considérations éthiques dans les décisions gouvernementales. Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous mettons en ligne de nouveaux balados chaque deuxième mercredi. Vous pouvez envoyer vos commentaires par Twitter à @IRPP ou @JRicardoBM. Ce balado fait partie du dossier « La pandémie de coronavirus : la réponse du Canada. » Cliquez sur le lien qui suit pour accéder au dossier : https://policyoptions.irpp.org/fr/magazines/march-2020/la-pandemie-de-coronavirus-la-reponse-du-canada/

How do you make policy, good policy, in a crisis? That’s the question on everyone’s minds, as all levels of government try to find ways of putting out fires without sparking new ones. You have to be quick. You have to actually be able to make your policies happen. And you have to be responsive when citizens tell you what’s not working.  Jennifer Robson knows this. She’s an associate professor in the Riddell Graduate Program in Political Management at Carleton University, and an expert on social policy, tax policy and financial inclusion. Her plain-language guide on accessing the COVID-19 benefits has been picked up by media outlets, think tanks and citizens’ groups alike.  She joined the podcast last Wednesday, April 8th, to discuss how Canada is faring on these policy-making goals, and how we can better support those most at risk.   Her benefits guide: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lOJn7XS6ETIkbLRodYk681M_2dxkkQsc/view Download for free. New episodes every other week. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Over the next while, here at Policy Options we’ll be putting out special “corona-casts” so we can look at the many sides to the COVID-19 pandemic. And specifically, how policymakers can respond in a way that helps the majority of Canadians without ignoring those most at risk. Today we’re laying the groundwork with Colin Busby. He’s a Research Director at the IRPP, where he heads the Faces of Aging program and co-heads the Skills and Labour Market Policy program. He gives us the lowdown on the current economic response plan and how the federal approach has changed over time. Canada's COVID-19 Economic Response Plan: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/economic-response-plan.html Download for free. New episodes every other week. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has made headlines for his proposal to hold a referendum on equalization. Now, Canadian premiers have a long history of taking shots at equalization. But what’s different here is Kenney’s focus on fiscal stabilization. It’s a program most of us are likely unfamiliar with, or were until recently. But Kenney is tying these two programs together – describing fiscal stabilization as an “equalization rebate” – and saying that it, too, isn’t giving Alberta its due. So, what exactly is fiscal stabilization, and how does it relate to equalization? Will these programs be reformed? Should they be? Today on the podcast, we're joined by James Feehan, an honorary research professor and former professor of economics at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He’s the author of a recent IRPP Insight, Canada’s Equalization Program: Political Debates and Opportunities for Reform. We're also joined by Trevor Tombe, an associate professor of economics and a research fellow at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy. He’s the author of another recent IRPP Insight, An (Overdue) Review of Canada’s Fiscal Stabilization Program. Canada’s Equalization Program: Political Debates and Opportunities for Reform: https://irpp.org/research-studies/canadas-equalization-program-political-debates-and-opportunities-for-reform/ An (Overdue) Review of Canada’s Fiscal Stabilization Program: https://irpp.org/research-studies/an-overdue-review-of-canadas-fiscal-stabilization-program/ Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

En 2019, à la suite d’une importante mobilisation de la société civile, la Ville de Montréal a lancé une consultation publique sur le racisme et la discrimination systémiques. Les audiences ont pris fin en décembre, et le rapport final de la consultation devrait être publié au printemps 2020. Ce n’est pas la première fois que le racisme et la discrimination systémiques à Montréal font l’objet d’un rapport. En 2017, après s’être rendu à Ottawa, Toronto, Halifax et Montréal, un groupe de travail du Conseil des droits de l’homme de l’ONU déposait un rapport condamnant le racisme systémique dont est victime la population noire au Canada. En octobre 2019, des chercheurs indépendants mandatés par le Service de police de la Ville de Montréal blâmaient le service de police dans un rapport faisant état de la discrimination systémique dont sont victimes les populations noires, arabes et autochtones. Malgré la multiplication des recherches et des condamnations, des actions politiques concrètes pour lutter contre le phénomène se font toujours attendre. Mais quelle est exactement cette problématique du racisme systémique et de quelle manière affecte-t-elle les Canadiens ? Cofondateur de Montréal en action ― le groupe qui, grâce à une pétition signée par plus de 15 000 personnes, a incité la Ville de Montréal à tenir ces consultations ―, Balarama Holness nous parle des impacts du racisme et de la discrimination systémiques, de la consultation publique de la Ville de Montréal et du manque de politiques gouvernementales efficaces pour lutter contre le racisme. Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous mettons en ligne de nouveaux balados chaque deuxième mercredi. Vous pouvez envoyer vos commentaires par Twitter à @IRPP ou @JRicardoBM.

Parliament has finally resumed sitting, but it’s hardly a fresh start for Justin Trudeau. The regional and ideological fault lines of the last election aren’t going anywhere. And now, it’s on the prime minister – and of course, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs Chrystia Freeland – to find points of common interest with all of Canada’s premiers. So how will Trudeau and Freeland approach this balancing act? Today on the podcast, we’ve got some of the keenest observers of Canadian federalism discussing this very question. On Monday, January 27th, the IRPP came together with the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada (MISC) and The Max Bell School of Public Policy to host an event on Justin Trudeau and the politics of federalism. What follows is a conversation between Chantal Hébert of the Toronto Star, Daniel Béland of MISC and Christopher Ragan of Max Bell, moderated by Charles Breton, executive director of the IRPP’s new Centre of Excellence on the Canadian. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Last September, a Quebec Superior Court judge struck down key provisions in the Quebec and federal laws on medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in what’s known as the Truchon and Gladu case. These set out how close or predictable one’s death needs to be to qualify for MAiD. Now, on March 11, both laws will come into force – without those provisions in Quebec. Meanwhile, the federal government is holding consultations to develop a solution that will be consistent across Canada. As a result of the decision, MAiD will be within reach for more people like Montrealers Jean Truchon and Nicole Gladu – people suffering as a result of physical disabilities and chronic conditions. But a group of experts is arguing that the implications extend far beyond cases like these. In particular, it could allow many more people with mental disorders as their sole underlying medical condition to gain eligibility for MAiD. And if that happens, it’s not clear how the government will respond. To discuss the ripple effects of Truchon and Gladu, we’re joined by Jocelyn Downie and Mona Gupta for a bilingual podcast. Jocelyn Downie is the James S. Palmer Chair in Public Policy and Law at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law, and Mona Gupta is a psychiatrist and researcher at the Centre l’Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal and an associate professor of psychiatry at the University de Montréal. They’re two of the authors on a forthcoming IRPP study on what the government must do to address the issue of MAiD for people living with mental disorders. Jocelyn will be speaking to our host Julia in English, while Mona will focus on the Quebec context with our French host, Ricardo. To skip ahead to the French portion of the podcast, go to the 31-minute mark. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

The legalization of cannabis and the pardon system for simple possession charges should have decreased the criminalization surrounding the drug. Yet advocates say the impact of legalization won’t be equal: Black and Indigenous people, already disproportionately targeted by police, will likely bear the brunt of the new cannabis regulations. Meanwhile, they’re facing some of the biggest barriers to obtain a pardon and enter into the legal cannabis market. This week’s podcast delves into the links between cannabis and the larger criminalization of Black Canadians. We’re joined by Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, Mississauga, and the director of research for the Campaign for Cannabis Amnesty; and El Jones, a Halifax-based poet, educator, journalist and activist. Cannabis Amnesty: www.cannabisamnesty.ca High, Good People: www.highgoodpeople.com Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

We hear every day about the ways technology is changing the world around us. But if these conversations mention government, it’s usually to warn against foreign threats to our elections. Rarely do we discuss the digital transformation going on within the public service. The FWD50 conference is trying to change that. For the past few years, it has gathered experts from around the world to speak to public practitioners about the possibilities and challenges of digital government. We headed to Ottawa to speak to some of those experts. On this week’s episode, FWD50 speakers David Eaves (Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School of Government), Jaimie Boyd (Chief Digital Officer, Government of British Columbia) and Kristo Vaher (Chief Technology Officer, Government of Estonia) give us an insider’s look at how governments around the world are tackling the digital transformation. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday, starting again in January. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

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 for everyone as the tax base shrinks and the number of people with complex or chronic conditions grows. But older Canadians and their caregivers are struggling now: not just because there aren’t enough specialists or care facilities to go around, but because our health and care systems are so fragmented that reaching and navigating those services can become a Herculean task. To learn how this struggle affects older Canadians and their caregivers, we’re joined by Laura Funk. She’s an associate professor of sociology at the University of Manitoba with a new IRPP study: "Relieving the Burden of Navigating Health and Social Services for Older Adults and Caregivers." That study is available at https://irpp.org/research-studies/relieving-the-burden-of-navigating-health-and-social-services-for-older-adults-and-caregivers/. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

The 43rd federal election has come to a close. At his first press conference after election night, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stressed that he and the Liberals have a lot of reflecting to do. He said it so often, in fact, that Carleton Journalism Professor Josh Greenberg called this the “reflection re-election.” What does reflection entail? For starters, it means Prime Minister Trudeau and his team will be hard at work deciding on who has a voice in the new cabinet and how the parts of Canada without Liberal MPs will be represented. But there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes, from crafting mandate letters to choosing policy priorities. And it’s not just Mr. Trudeau who will want to hit the ground running. In a minority Parliament, even a fairly stable one, each party is going to have to think strategically. When will they play ball and when will they take a stand? Do they stick with their leader or is it time for a change? What is their endgame? This week we bring you the final conversation from Policy Options’ election 2019 breakfast series, as Yolande James (Les ex, Radio-Canada), Brian Topp (KTG Public Affairs), Elizabeth Roscoe (Hill+Knowlton Strategies Canada) and Jennifer Ditchburn (Policy Options) discuss what awaits Canada’s 43rd Parliament. This event series is held in partnership with the Max Bell School of Public Policy, sponsored by the CBC, and broadcast by CPAC. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

On Monday night, people across Canada tuned in to the first federal debate hosted by the new Leaders’ Debates Commission. If you were looking for measured discussions of policy alternatives, you were out of luck. Instead, viewers got a taste of the parties’ brand management, followed by the usual media narratives: who’s up in the polls, who scored a hit on whom, who “won.” While the messaging may be familiar, there’s no doubt the media landscape itself has changed. Parties and voters are turning more and more to social media. Individuals now have a forum to actively engage with what they’re reading and to hear directly from experts or MPs. But they can also be subject to mis- and disinformation in ways we’re still trying to account for. Today on the podcast, we’re sharing the conversation from the second event in Policy Options’ election 2019 breakfast series, in which Shree Paradkar, Taylor Owen, Paul Adams and moderator Jennifer Ditchburn discuss media coverage and the campaign online. This event series is held in partnership with the Max Bell School of Public Policy, sponsored by the CBC, and broadcast by CPAC. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

The 2019 election campaign is under way. The parties have made major policy announcements. But so far, much of the commentary has focused on political bombshells. When we don’t talk policy as much as we should, that’s a shame. First, because the announcements leaders make are good markers of their party’s election strategy. But more than that, because whoever forms government is going to be making good on a number of these election promises. And a healthy policy debate is crucial for citizens looking to make informed political choices. That’s why, over the next several weeks, we’ll be highlighting the policy issues on the campaign trail by covering the three panel discussions in Policy Options’ new Election 2019 Breakfast Series. The events are being held in Ottawa in partnership with the Max Bell School of Public Policy and sponsored by the CBC. This panel explores emerging policy themes. It features Mike De Souza, Tasha Kheiriddin, and Jennifer Robson, and is moderated by Jennifer Ditchburn. For more information, go to: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/po-events/election-2019-breakfast-series/ Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

When the Senate expenses scandal hit in 2012, it left the parties scrambling to reform the deeply unpopular institution. Then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper had taken small steps over the past several years, but was hitting major constitutional roadblocks. Justin Trudeau took a different approach: in 2014, he removed the Liberal senators from caucus and asked them to sit as independents. Then in 2016, his government introduced a nonpartisan appointment process. These attempts to decrease the Senate’s partisanship and increase its legitimacy have had mixed results. On one hand, the Senate is operating less on party lines, with senators from all groups more active in introducing legislative amendments; on the other, the process by which legislation moves through the senate has become much more complex. Walking us through the effect these changes are having on Canada’s upper chamber is an all-star panel of guests: Yonah Martin, the deputy leader of the opposition in the Senate; Ratna Omidvar, one of the first new senators with the Independent Senators Group; Emmett Macfarlane, associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo and author of the IRPP study, "The Renewed Canadian Senate: Organizational Challenges and Relations with the Government;" and Leslie Seidle, director of the IRPP research program Canada’s Changing Federal Community. For more information on the Senate renewal, check out the IRPP’s studies: Emmett Macfarlane, "The Renewed Canadian Senate: Organizational Challenges and Relations with the Government": https://irpp.org/research-studies/renewed-canadian-senate-organizational-challenges-relations-government/ Paul G. Thomas, "Moving Toward a New and Improved Senate": https://irpp.org/research-studies/moving-toward-new-improved-senate/ And our round-table report, "Renewal of the Canadian Senate: Where to from Here?": https://irpp.org/research-studies/renewal-of-the-canadian-senate-where-to-from-here/ Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

On October 21, Canadian voters will head to the polls to decide who will represent their riding and their country in our 43rd federal election. The parties have just released their campaign slogans, and after the writ drops in September, we can expect election coverage to take over our TV screens and social media feeds. Among that coverage, can we expect to hear about issues that will affect Indigenous people? That’s the question we pose to Karyn Pugliese on this week’s podcast. Pugliese has an award-winning career in political reporting, and was with APTN for seven years as its executive director of news and current affairs before becoming Canada’s most recent Nieman fellow at Harvard. Here, she walks us through how to report on elections with Indigenous people and policy in mind. But the issues go far beyond that. Earlier this summer, the way Canada’s columnists and editorial boards responded to the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls served as a reminder that it’s not just our elections coverage that needs more Indigenous perspectives. On the second half of the podcast, Sheila North joins in to discuss how newsrooms can do a better job of covering Indigenous perspectives. North is an award-winning journalist and filmmaker who has served as the grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak. She has told the stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls through the documentary 1200+ and as a Cree host of APTN’s Taken. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

When it comes to how Canadians feel about federalism, it turns out there aren’t easy answers. Some provinces and territories are feeling shortchanged while their neighbours are satisfied; our identities are growing even more layered; and our preferred federal-provincial balance of powers is different for every issue and every place. So says the Confederation of Tomorrow, a landmark survey of public opinion on the federation. It’s a joint effort by the Environics Institute, the former Mowat Centre, the Canada West Foundation, the Centre D’Analyse Politique sur la Constitution et le Fédéralisme at UQAM, the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St. FX University, and the IRPP, with the first two of three reports released earlier this year. Today on the podcast, we’re joined by Andrew Parkin, one of the masterminds behind the project. He’s the executive director of the Environics Institute and former director of the Mowat Centre, with a lengthy career researching and advising on policy before that. We discuss how policymakers can speak to the country’s complexity and tap into our willingness to work together. For more info: https://www.environicsinstitute.org/projects/project-details/confederation-of-tomorrow---2018 Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Tax-Free Savings Accounts were designed to help lower-income Canadians put money away for retirement. But a decade into the program, new research shows that TFSAs are primarily benefitting higher-income savers. A saver’s credit and other tax changes could be the keys to fixing this flaw, writes Richard Shillington in a widely read study for the IRPP. Richard Shillington is a statistician specializing in poverty measurement, tax policy and low-income supports. He joins us on the podcast to discuss his study and its implications for low-income savers. His study is available here: https://irpp.org/research-studies/are-low-income-savers-still-in-the-lurch-tfsas-at-10-years/ Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Although economists favour carbon pricing as the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the policy has taken an unpredictable path in Canada. With four constitutional challenges and even more provincial opposition, the near-consensus on carbon pricing has fallen apart. Joining us to discuss is Kathryn Harrison, a professor at the University of British Columbia who specializes in Canadian and US environmental and climate policy. Her featured talk for the 2019 Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities inspired our series on the evolution of carbon pricing in the provinces, for which she has written about the pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Energy and Climate Change and the BC carbon tax. The fleeting Canadian harmony on carbon pricing: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2019/the-fleeting-canadian-harmony-on-carbon-pricing/ Lessons from British Columbia’s carbon tax: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2019/lessons-from-british-columbias-carbon-tax/ Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

June 12 marked the release of the Final Report of the Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare. The Council recommended that Canada adopt universal, single-payer pharmacare, and set out a plan for how to go about it. Currently, Canada is an outlier: we have among the highest per capita pharmaceutical spending in the world, and are the only OECD country to have universal health insurance without drug coverage. We know the issues, and we’ve been debating them since the dawn of Canadian medicare. So why hasn’t there been more movement on this file? The IRPP’s own Colin Busby, who heads up the Faces of Aging research program, joins the podcast to discuss the history of pharmacare in Canada and the hurdles to implementation. For a summary of some of his main points, check out his piece for Policy Options: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/june-2019/big-hurdles-remain-in-pharmacare-implementation-plan/ Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

A move for closure on the debate and a marathon weekend session at the Quebec National Assembly saw the contentious Bill 21 finally pass, 73 to 35. The legislation prohibits public-school teachers, government lawyers, judges and police officers from wearing religious symbols to work, and mandates that citizens uncover their faces while receiving certain public services. And, for the next five years, it can’t be struck down by the courts due to the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause. Premier François Legault says Quebecers are on his side, but the bill is already facing challenges. On Monday, Montrealers took to the streets in protest, while earlier that same day the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association filed a motion for an injunction in Quebec Superior Court. Today on the podcast, we’re joined by Eric Mendelsohn, Robert Leckey, Jack Jedwab and Bochra Manaï, who unpack and critique some of the key dimensions of the bill – including the identity debate, the disproportionate effect on Muslim women, and the legal grounds on which it can – or cannot – be challenged. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP, @jbugiel or @JRicardoBM.

Countries around the world are grappling with how to identify and prevent a host of new threats to the integrity of their elections and democratic systems. With the next general election around the corner in Canada, is our policy framework up to the task of dealing with the deliberate spread of false information? We put this question to three experts: Elizabeth Dubois (University of Ottawa), Jennifer McGuire (CBC News) and Taylor Owen (Max Bell School of Public Policy). They spoke with Policy Options editor-in-chief Jennifer Ditchburn at our pre-election breakfast on May 7, held in partnership with the Max Bell School of Public Policy and sponsored by CBC and Microsoft. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

In Canada, thousands of migrants are detained at any time, with up to one third of detainees in maximum and medium-security prisons despite most never having been charged with a crime. The recent Canada v. Chhina Supreme Court ruling allows detained migrants to access the remedy of habeas corpus so that, in appropriate cases, they can challenge the legality and conditions of their detention before a judge. However, critics like migration expert Sharry Aiken say it fails to address the underlying issues of how Canada sets the grounds for detention and the basis for release. Migrant detention is actually a relatively new phenomenon in North America and, for the participants of the recent De-Carceral Futures conference at the Queen’s School of Law, it’s something we can and must do away with. We attended the conference to interview some of the scholars and activists who are working toward a world in which neither migrants nor citizens are incarcerated. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Le gouvernement fédéral s’est engagé à investir près d’un milliard de dollars sur cinq ans dans cinq projets de supergrappes pour stimuler la collaboration entre sociétés industrielles, organisations et établissements de recherche dans les secteurs à fort potentiel de croissance. Quels seront les éléments clés pour rendre ces supergrappes efficaces ? Comment pourront-elles contribuer à renforcer les écosystèmes d’innovation ? Et quelles seront les retombées d’une telle initiative pour Montréal et, plus généralement, le Québec ? Catherine Beaudry, Pascal Beauchesne et l’animatrice Ariane Krol ont discuté de ces questions lors d’un 5 à 7 de l’IRPP le mardi 12 mars 2019 au Pub L’Île Noire. Graham Fox (IRPP) et Joanne Castonguay (IRPP) ont introduit le débat. Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous mettons en ligne de nouveaux balados chaque deuxième mercredi. Vous pouvez envoyer vos commentaires par Twitter à @IRPP.

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 changed. Yet with critics arguing that many of the advances are symbolic, it’s clear Crown-Indigenous relations still have a ways to go. Today on the podcast, K̓áwáziɫ Marilyn Slett (Heiltsuk Tribal Council), Brock Pitawanakwat (York University) and Hayden King (Yellowhead Institute) take stock of this crucial relationship: where it is now, how it has changed over the years and where it might go. Their conversation with Policy Options editor-in-chief Jennifer Ditchburn, introduced by Gilbert Whiteduck of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, was recorded at Policy Options’ pre-election breakfast on April 2. The event was held in collaboration with the Yellowhead Institute, and our series is held in partnership with the Max Bell School of Public Policy. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

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 election 43. But what about the policy questions? For the next few podcasts, we’ll be sharing coverage from events held by Policy Options, the IRPP and our partners, where experts come together to discuss some of the key policy challenges facing our country. This week, Nancy Olewiler (director of the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University), David McLaughlin (director of climate change at the International Institute for Sustainable Development) and Céline Bak (founder and president of Analytica Advisors) talk climate change. They cover how the debate has fared, what’s on the table and where policy should go next. Their discussion took place on February 25 as part of Policy Options’ pre-election breakfast series. It was moderated by Jennifer Ditchburn of Policy Options and introduced by Chris Ragan of the Max Bell School of Public Policy. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

What were the highlights of the 2019 federal budget? Policy Options editor-in-chief Jennifer Ditchburn, IRPP research directors Colin Busby and Natalia Mishagina, and Veldon Coburn of Carleton University's Indigenous Studies program share their insights during this special podcast. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday.

À mesure que la population canadienne vieillit, les politiques de soins de fin de vie gagnent en importance et suscitent un nombre grandissant de questions. Le gouvernement du Québec a tenté de répondre à certaines de ces préoccupations en établissant en 2015 un régime de directives médicales anticipées. Mais en quoi consiste exactement ce régime et quel est son impact sur les proches des patients et les professionnels de la santé ? Dans ce balado, Louise Bernier et Catherine Régis discutent de l’importance des directives médicales anticipées, des lacunes du régime actuel et de ce que peut faire le gouvernement du Québec pour l’améliorer. Leur analyse détaillée, Improving Advance Medical Directives: Lessons from Quebec, est publiée sur le site de l’IRPP. Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous mettons en ligne de nouveaux balados chaque deuxième mercredi. Vous pouvez envoyer vos commentaires par Twitter à @IRPP.

The 2015 federal election saw the most women elected to Parliament yet. But with women making up only 26 percent of MPs, it’s clear that structural barriers to political participation remain. For racialized and Indigenous women, the path to politics is harder still. This week, Erin Tolley and Mitzie Hunter come on the podcast to discuss the experiences of racialized women in politics. Erin Tolley is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and the author of "Framed: Media and the Coverage of Race in Canadian Politics." Mitzie Hunter is the member of provincial Parliament for Scarborough-Guildwood and finance critic for the Ontario Liberals. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

Today, many of the most crucial policy questions are also digital questions, and how we choose to address them has the potential to transform policy-making at the highest levels. Agencies like the Canadian Digital Service are working to innovate within the bureaucracy, but governments are slow to change. Meanwhile, opposition to Sidewalk Toronto's planned smart neighbourhood shows that concerns about digital democracy aren’t going anywhere. Alistair Croll and Amanda Clarke join the podcast to explore the best practices and greatest challenges of digital government. Alistair Croll is an author, tech entrepreneur and co-founder of the FWD50 conference on digital government. Amanda Clarke is the Public Affairs Research Excellence Chair at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy and Administration. Her book, Opening the Government of Canada, was just published by UBC Press. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @jbugiel.

As more aspects of the economy go digital, Canadian businesses face new challenges along with new opportunities. It’s clear that Canada’s economic growth depends on how we seize these opportunities. Our past few federal budgets have addressed this: they have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to grow innovation networks and streamline innovation programs. But as the pace of innovation increases worldwide, Canada must lead or be left behind. David Wolfe joins the podcast to discuss the obstacles facing Canadian businesses and the path to a successful digital policy strategy. Wolfe is a professor of political science at the University of Toronto (Mississauga campus) and co-director of the Innovation Policy Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. He is currently leading a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for the project Creating Digital Opportunity for Canada. To learn more, you can read his report, “A Digital Strategy for Canada: The Current Challenge.” Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

The Wet’suwet’en Nation made headlines across the country with its resistance to the Coastal GasLink LNG pipeline. TransCanada has said it gained consent of every First Nation along the pipeline route. But out on Wet’suwet’en territory, the nation’s hereditary chiefs tell another story. They say the responsibility for matters of land and title rests with them, and they were never consulted. Dr. Bruce McIvor joins the podcast to give a legal and historical perspective. McIvor is principal at First Peoples Law, a law firm dedicated to defending and advancing Aboriginal title, Aboriginal rights and Treaty rights. He is also an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia’s Allard School of Law. You can read more about the legal precedents he addresses in "First Peoples Law: Essays in Canadian Law and Decolonization," available at www.firstpeopleslaw.com. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Welcome to Uberland, a Policy Options podcast. For passengers and drivers, Uber is either a convenient option for hailing an affordable ride or making a quick buck. But the influential technology company is also transforming labour and legal landscapes across North America. As the ride service arrives in more Canadian cities, how should policy-makers regulate its impact on workers and consumers? Alex Rosenblat joins the podcast to discuss the topic. Rosenblat is a technology ethnographer and researcher at the Data & Society Research Institute. She is the author of Uberland: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Rules of Work. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Le nouvel échiquier politique québécois, un balado d'Options politiques. Que signifie le nouvel échiquier politique québécois pour les grands enjeux de société ? Pour la première fois depuis 1966, un parti autre que le Parti libéral ou le Parti québécois a pris le pouvoir, et le projet d’indépendance semble être mis en veilleuse. Le débat s’est centré sur des questions telles que l’immigration, l’intégration des minorités et des nouveaux arrivants, et la réforme électorale. Ces enjeux seront en effet déterminants pour l’avenir du Québec. François Cardinal (La Presse), Mireille Paquet (Université Concordia), Alain Noël (Université de Montréal) et Sophie Seguin-Lamarche (Institut du Nouveau Monde) ont discuté de ces questions lors du 5 à 7 de l’IRPP le 27 novembre. Graham Fox, président de l’IRPP, a animé le débat. Les rencontres de la nouvelle série 5 à 7 de l’IRPP sont une occasion pour les jeunes intéressés par les grands débats de société d’en discuter dans un cadre informel et convivial, et de rencontrer des experts de politiques publiques. Le téléchargement est gratuit. Nous mettons en ligne de nouveaux balados chaque deuxième mercredi. Vous pouvez envoyer vos commentaires par Twitter à @IRPP.

Upskilling workers for the new economy, a Policy Options podcast. Disruption as a result of automation is fast changing the nature of work. As machine labour increasingly replaces human labour, old jobs are disappearing or changing and new ones are being created. So how do we ensure workers are receiving the skills training they need to navigate the future of work? Ethan Pollack joins the podcast to discuss innovative policy ideas to help citizens acquire the right skills for the new economy. He is the associate director of research and policy for the Aspen Institute’s Future of Work Initiative. Read the rest of our feature series Preparing Citizens for the Future of Work. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @madihaslam.

Polling and the Quebec election, a Policy Options podcast. The outcome of the 2018 Quebec election was a surprise: Coalition Avenir Québec beat the Quebec Liberal Party by 12.6 percentage points, for a majority government. Not only did pollsters fail to predict this result, but the gap between the polls and the actual vote for the leading parties was the largest recorded in Quebec political polling history. Claire Durand joins the podcast to discuss what went wrong with the pollsters’ predictions, the national and international context for political polling, and why accurate polling matters. Claire Durand is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Université de Montréal and president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research. Her research focuses on the impact of methodologies on pre-election polling estimates. Read her Policy Options article Quebec 2018: A tough night for pollsters in English and French. And if you’re in Montreal on November 27, don’t miss the Institute for Research on Public Policy’s 5 à 7 to discuss Quebec’s new political landscape. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @madihaslam.

New approaches to development assistance, a Policy Options podcast. Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy aims to contribute to global efforts to eradicate poverty by prioritizing investments in gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. The government’s commitments include an investment of about $800 million in the Global Financing Facility (GFF). Housed at the World Bank, the GFF funds health initiatives for women, children and adolescents in low-income countries around the globe. Monique Vledder, Practice Manager of the GFF, joins the podcast to discuss the GFF’s country-led approach to financing, why it’s important to prioritize investments in women’s and children’s health, and how new funding practices are reshaping the dynamics of international assistance. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @madihaslam.

A path forward for innovation policy, a Policy Options podcast. Innovation has become an essential element of policy conversations about economic growth. But given trends like globalization, technological change and population aging, how exactly will it help boost the economy? Peter Nicholson joins the podcast to talk about why innovation policy matters, evaluate Canada’s innovation record in an international context, and explain why he thinks the federal government’s current innovation plan doesn’t go far enough. Peter Nicholson is the founding president of the Council of Canadian Academies. He is a former policy adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office and was a business executive. Read his new paper for the Institute for Research on Public Policy, Facing the Facts: Reconsidering Business Innovation Policy in Canada. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @madihaslam.

A universal pharmacare plan for Canadians, a Policy Options podcast. As the federally appointed Advisory Council on the Implementation of National Pharmacare prepares the blueprint for a national pharmacare plan, what can Canadians expect it to look like? Colleen M. Flood joins the podcast to talk about the need for universal pharmacare and how it could work within our federal system. Colleen is professor, Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, and director of the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa. Read the study she co-authored for the Institute: Universal Pharmacare and Federalism: Two Policy Options for Canada. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @madihaslam.

Canada’s cannabis economy, a Policy Options podcast. What kind of economic impact can we expect from recreational cannabis legalization? Contributors to our Policy Options feature series The Economics of Canadian Cannabis join the "potcast" to discuss. Colin Busby, IRPP research director and co-editor of the series, gives an overview of some of the key economic questions being raised as the Oct.17 legalization date approaches. Allan W. Gregory, professor of economics at Queen’s University, looks at the future of the medical cannabis market. And Rebecca Jesseman, director of policy at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, breaks down the potential health costs of legalization. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @madihaslam.

Why isn’t social assistance improving health outcomes?, a Policy Options podcast. Income levels and health are closely linked, and people living in poverty are far more likely to have poor health than people with higher incomes. Social assistance programs should be helping to close this gap, but a study recently submitted to the Ontario government shows that support programs in Canada, the US and the UK are falling short. Arjumand Siddiqi joined the podcast to discuss social determinants of health, the results of her study, and why we need more effective strategies to address income-based health inequities. Arjumand Siddiqi is an expert adviser with EvidenceNetwork.ca, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Canada Research Chair in Population Health Equity. Read the Policy Options article she co-authored: Social assistance is not improving health. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Revitalizing the Inuktut language, a Policy Options podcast. Inuktut, the collective name for the languages Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun, is the mother tongue of 65 percent of the Nunavut population. The language is central to Inuit culture and identity, but its use is declining by 1 percent a year. Aluki Kotierk joined the podcast to discuss the protection of Inuktut, how the federal government can support language revitalization efforts, and the ongoing fight for bilingual essential public services in Nunavut. Aluki Kotierk is the president of Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., an Inuit organization that ensures promises made under the Nunavut Agreement are carried out. Read her Policy Options article Promoting the use of Inuktut, a founding language Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

The future of the Safe Third Country Agreement, a Policy Options podcast. As the Trump administration persists with its harsh immigration policy south of the border, calls are mounting for Canada to suspend or rescind the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA). Implemented in 2004, the STCA requires those seeking asylum in Canada or the US to make a refugee claim in whichever country they arrived in first. Sharry Aiken joined the podcast to discuss the STCA and its history. She argues that the US is currently unsafe for refugees, and looks at the political implications of suspending the agreement. Sharry Aiken is an associate professor at Queen’s Law, where she teaches international refugee law, immigration law, international law and international human rights law. She is a past president of the Canadian Council for Refugees. Read the Policy Options article Aiken co-wrote in April 2017: Fortress USA and policy implications for Canada. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Why does encryption policy matter?, a Policy Options podcast. How does encryption impact our daily lives? What’s at stake in the policy debate over the challenges raised by encryption? Lex Gill joined the podcast to discuss how effective encryption technology protects human rights, public safety, national security and consumer interests. Lex Gill is a research fellow at the Citizen Lab. She has written and spoken internationally on issues like privacy, freedom of expression, equality rights, cybersecurity policy, national security law, censorship regulation and surveillance technology. Read the Citizen Lab’s report, by Lex Gill, Tamir Israel and Christopher Parsons, Shining a Light on the Encryption Debate: A Canadian Field Guide. Read the Policy Options feature series Recalibrating Canada’s Consumer Rights Regime. Download for free. New episodes every second Wednesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

What are the policy moves and events that have defined Justin Trudeau’s Liberals first mandate? What should we expect from the upcoming federal election? These were the topics discussed at a recent Policy Options working lunch in St. John’s, Newfoundland. A panel consisting of IRPP President Graham Fox, Amanda Bittner (Memorial University) and Alex Marland (Memorial University) took stock of the last three years in federal politics and looked ahead to Election 2019.

What can Canada expect from the G7 summit?, a Policy Options podcast. Despite anticipated trade tensions at the G7 summit in Charlevoix on June 8-9, the Trudeau government will promote its agenda focusing on inclusive economic growth, peace and security, climate change and oceans, gender equality and jobs of the future. John Kirton joined the podcast to discuss Canada’s priorities at the meeting, the six-plus-one dynamic with US President Donald Trump, and what a successful G7 summit would look like for Canada. John Kirton is director of the G7 Research Group, co-director of the G20 Research Group and a research associate at the Munk School of Global Affairs. New episodes every second Wednesday. Download for free. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Canada’s surveillance of Indigenous movements, a Policy Options podcast. From the fight against the Northern Gateway pipeline to the anti-fracking protests involving Elsipogtog First Nation and the Idle No More movement, Canadian surveillance organizations have kept close watch of Indigenous resistance movements over the past decade. Andrew Crosby and Jeffrey Monaghan, authors of Policing Indigenous Movements: Dissent and the Security State, joined the podcast to discuss why the government monitors Indigenous social and environmental movements. They say this surveillance characterizes land and water protectors and other activists as security threats, delegitimizing the actions of Indigenous rights holders. Andrew Crosby is a coordinator with the Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) at Carleton University. Jeffrey Monaghan is an assistant professor at Carleton’s Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice. New episodes every second Wednesday. Download for Free. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Black Canadians and the justice system, a Policy Options podcast. Black people are dramatically over-represented in Canada’s prison system, making up 8.6 of the federal prison population, despite the fact they make up only 3 percent of the population. What is more, between 2003 and 2013, the incarceration rate among Black people increased by nearly 90 percent. Anthony Morgan says the targeted policing of Black people in Canada isn’t only happening through the justice system. It’s also taking place in our education, child welfare and health care systems. Morgan is a lawyer at Falconers LLP. His practice focuses on state accountability litigation. He is also an advocate and commentator on Canadian multiculturalism, racism and critical race theory. Read Anthony Morgan’s Policy Options articles Doing justice by Black Canadians (part of our ongoing feature series Widening the Lens on Criminal Justice Reform) and Where are Black Canadians in the cannabis debate? Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Immigration detention and newcomer communities, a Policy Options podcast. According to the Canada Border Services Agency, about 7,000 men, women and children are detained through Canada’s immigration detention system every year. Stephanie J. Silverman joined the podcast to discuss how the system traumatizes newcomer and mostly racialized communities, criminalizes migration and requires extensive reform. Silverman is the outgoing Bora Laskin National Fellow in Human Rights Research, and teaches ethics, society, and law at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College. She is also a partner at Thinking Forward, a human rights consultancy, and the Canada country adviser for the International Detention Coalition. For more about reforming Canada's justice system, read the Policy Options feature series Widening the Lens on Criminal Justice Reform. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Mitigating harm for sexual assault complainants, a Policy Options podcast. Over 90 percent of sexual assaults in Canada go unreported. According to law professor Elaine Craig, when sexual assault survivors do end up in court, the trials cause them further harm. Craig joined the podcast to discuss how sexual assault trials could be reformed to make the process less traumatic for those testifying. Elaine Craig is the author of Putting Trials on Trial: Sexual Assault and the Failure of the Legal Profession (2018). She is an associate professor in the Schulich School of Law at Dalhousie University. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Do female ministers affect women's civic engagement?, a Policy Options podcast. In governments around the world, women’s presence in cabinet is having a substantial impact on political office and policy-making, but what does it mean for women’s political involvement? Sarah Liu joined the podcast to discuss her study Do Government Positions Held by Women Matter? A Cross-National Examination of Female Ministers’ Impacts on Women’s Political Participation. Liu is an assistant professor in the School of Geography, Politics, and Sociology at Newcastle University, England. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Will AI just wind up automating inequality?, a Policy Options podcast. Proponents of automation say the developments will create a more efficient and advanced society, but there are concerns that the changes will not affect all citizens equally. According to Virginia Eubanks, the automation of social and welfare services in the United States is creating a "digital poorhouse,” deepening class divides and diverting poor and working-class people from accessing public resources. Eubanks joined the podcast to discuss her new book Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. She is an associate professor of political science at the University at Albany, SUNY. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP. Read the Policy Options feature series on the Ethical and Social Dimensions of AI.

Budget 2018 analysis live from the lockup, a Policy Options podcast. 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 University's Kroeger College weigh in. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday

Gerald Stanley and the castle narrative, a Policy Options podcast. 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, in Saskatchewan. According to this narrative, the incident had nothing to do with race, but was rather a matter of a farmer protecting his land and family – defending "his castle." Gina Starblanket joined the podcast to explain how this perspective is intimately tied to the history of displacement and settlement on the Prairies, and throughout Canada. Starblanket is a professor in the native studies and women’s and gender studies departments at the University of Manitoba. She is Cree/Saulteaux and a member of the Star Blanket Cree Nation in Treaty 4 territory in Saskatchewan. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP. Read Gina Starblanket’s op-ed "How the death of Colten Boushie became recast as the story of a knight protecting his castle. " Read the Policy Options article “The real ‘justice’ denied to Boushie.“

A snapshot of precarious work in Canada today, a Policy Options podcast. 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 do not come with the benefits associated with long-term employment. Canada’s social architecture, including employment insurance, may no longer be responding adequately to the nonstandard work so many Canadians are being forced to accept. In this podcast you can listen to the panel discussion recently hosted by Policy Options on the implications of precarious work for Canadians and decision-makers. Francis Fong of Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, Sunil Johal of the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre and Wendy Vuyk of the Ontario Centre for Workforce Innovation joined Policy Options Editor-in -Chief Jennifer Ditchburn to broach this key policy issue. Download for free. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP. Read Francis Fong’s Policy Options article on precarious work at http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2018/we-dont-know-the-extent-of-precarious-work/ Check out the Policy Options special feature "Inclusive Growth in an Age of Disruption" at http://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/october-2017/inclusive-growth-in-an-age-of-disruption/

The role of online bots in electoral politics, a Policy Options podcast. Online bots scan social media sites and then send out automatic messages to users. Political parties use them to get their messages out. So they have the power to shape public opinion, and they can even have an impact on elections. Fenwick McKelvey from Concordia University and Elizabeth Dubois from University of Ottawa recently wrote about bots for Policy Options. They found that the risks of this kind of digital campaign could soon outweigh the benefits. McKelvey sat down with journalist and McGill University law student Ryan Hicks at our Montreal studio to talk about why political parties should commit to using bots responsibly. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Put The Peace Back Into UN Peacekeeping Operations, a Policy Options podcast. 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 it has yet to deliver. But is that really where Canada should focus its efforts? Our host, journalist and McGill University law student Ryan Hicks, spoke to Lou Pingeot, co-ordinator of McGill’s Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. She and Vincent Pouliot are the authors of the recent Policy Options article Replacer la paix au cœur des opérations de l’ONU. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Walking The Talk On International Development Assistance, a Policy Options podcast. When Justin Trudeau’s government took office, one of the Prime Minister’s messages overseas was "Canada's back," which referred to Canada's perceived lack of leadership on the world stage under the previous, Conservative, government. Now that the Liberals are halfway through their mandate, it’s a good time to reflect on whether the government is living up to its rhetoric on international development assistance. Our podcast host, journalist and McGill University law student Ryan Hicks, spoke to economist and policy analyst Debapriya Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Dhaka, Bangladesh, about Canada’s performance in this area. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP.

Far-right extremist groups have long flown under the law enforcement and policy-making radar, but the events of the past year have made them impossible to ignore. The violent demonstrations of white supremacists and nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the planned protests by the anti-immigrant group La Meute in Quebec City this summer are just two examples of the alarming rise of far-right extremist activity. Barbara Perry, a professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, wrote recently in Policy Options about the phenomenon of far-right extremist groups in Canada. She joined journalist and McGill University law student Ryan Hicks to discuss the threat these groups pose and what policy-makers can do about it in the latest episode of the Policy Options podcast.

The Naylor Report under the microscope, a Policy Options Podcast. Does Canada spend enough on fundamental, independent research at our universities? When funding is awarded to our scholars and scientists, is it done fairly? These are two of the central questions addressed by the report of Canada’s Fundamental Science Review, or the Naylor Report. The report came out in April, but many in the research community are still anxiously waiting for the federal government to respond to the recommendations. Policy Options co-hosted a panel discussion on the report with Universities Canada. The participants included University of British Columbia President Santa Ono, Janet Rossant from the Gairdner Foundation, Indigenous legal scholar John Borrows from the University of Victoria, and PhD candidate Catherine Normandeau from Queen’s University. You can also read a Policy Options piece on the subject by Universities Canada president Paul Davidson, published earlier this year.

What to make of the INAC split?, a Policy Options Podcast. It is not often that the name of a department grabs the headlines in a cabinet shuffle, but that’s what happened when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was cleaving Indian and Northern Affairs Canada into two separate entities. The move comes two decades after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples made this recommendation in 1996. In a recent Policy Options article, Queen’s University PhD student Veldon Coburn takes a look at whether splitting up the department still makes sense, and whether it will actually move the government toward decolonization. He joined the podcast to discuss the important context around the announcement.

Securing the best NAFTA deal possible for Canada, a Policy Options Podcast. In advance of the first round of NAFTA negotiations, officials from Canada, the United States, and Mexico all laid out their trade policy goals to their respective citizens. Achieving those goals will be easier said than done, and will require careful strategizing, compromise, and assertiveness on the part of each delegation. In an article she wrote as part of Policy Options’ ongoing special feature on trade policy, Meredith Lilly – holder of the Simon Reisman Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University – outlined a set of principles that she believes should guide Canada’s NAFTA negotiating strategy. Lilly discussed these principles and more in a new episode of the Policy Options podcast. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed. Read Meredith Lilly’s Policy Options article “Four ways to keep our eyes on the prize in NAFTA talks” at http://options-po.li/2v1wIrA See the Policy Options Special Feature “Trade Policy for Uncertain Times" at http://options-po.li/2tfc5ow

Supporting academic freedom globally, a Policy Options Podcast. 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 the state of academic freedom and the factors that continue to lead to the imprisonment and abuse of her colleagues globally. In a speech she gave at the 2017 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, and later published by Policy Options, professor Hoodfar argued that academic freedom ought to be recognized as a transnational right by governments everywhere. Doing so would go a long way toward the protection of academics and their contribution to the common good. Professor Hoodfar stopped by our podcast to explain what this would entail. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed. Read Homa Hoodfar’s Policy Options article “Academic freedom as a transnational right” at http://options-po.li/2tLPhQG

Canadian copyright policy is so 2012, a Policy Options podcast. 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 in the copyright regime that had plagued both creators and users. With the mandated five-year review of the Act fast approaching, stakeholders are once again reflecting on how Canadian copyright policy can be improved. In an article he contributed to the Policy Options special feature Reviewing Canadian Copyright Policy, Michael Geist, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, outlined his expectations for the upcoming copyright policy review. He stopped by the podcast to discuss where he thinks copyright policy is headed. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed. Read Michael Geist’s Policy Options article on the upcoming Canadian copyright policy review at http://options-po.li/2rinW8h See the Policy Options special feature "Reviewing Canadian Copyright Policy" at http://options-po.li/2thJelK

The real impact of the pension reform plan, a Policy Options podcast. In June of 2016, the Liberal government announced reforms to Canada’s retirement income system. At the heart of the plan was a commitment to increase the benefits provided by the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). While this might seem like an unquestionable win for Canadians’ chequebooks, a new IRPP study finds that Canadians are not likely to benefit as much as they’d think from the plan to enhance the CPP. Bob Baldwin is an Ottawa-based consultant and co-author of the new IRPP study “Unfinished Business: Pension Reform in Canada”. He stopped by the podcast to explain why the reform falls short of its goals and how the government can address the issue. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed. See Bob Baldwin and Richard Shillington’s IRPP study “Unfinished Business: Pension Reform in Canada” at on-irpp.org/2rsdcPR

Empowering women entrepreneurs globally, a Policy Options podcast. The burden of poverty is not shared equally. In most developing nations, low-income women experience unique barriers that hinder their ability to lift themselves out of poverty. These include discriminatory public policies and cultural biases, which prevent them from accumulating enough assets to start a business. In her chapter in the IRPP’s new trade volume, Arancha González, the executive director of the International Trade Centre (ITC), makes the economic case for incorporating gender into trade policy design. She stopped by the podcast to discuss how women in developing countries can be empowered by connecting more small and medium-sized enterprises to global trade networks. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed. See Arancha González’s chapter “How Gender Affects SMEs’ Participation in International Trade” at http://on-irpp.org/2fhZo6C See the IRPP’s new trade volume “Redesigning Canadian Trade Policies for New Global Realities” at irpp.org/research/trade/

Andrew Scheer and Conservative policy, a Policy Options podcast. The Conservative leadership race is over, and the contestants who pushed the envelope with more provocative policy ideas didn’t make the cut. They included Michael Chong, with his support for carbon taxes, Maxime Bernier, with his call to end supply management, and Kellie Leitch, who pushed for a “values” test for new Canadians. Instead, consensus candidate Andrew Scheer won the day with a more cautious platform. So how will Scheer handle policy development for the party as it prepares for the 2019 election? Rachel Curran, a former policy director for prime minister Stephen Harper, joined us on the podcast to discuss the possibilities. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Read Rachel Curran’s Policy Options article on policy-making in the Conservative party at http://options-po.li/2rR0ezk Read Jennifer Ditchburn’s Policy Options column on Andrew Scheer’s policy challenges ahead at http://options-po.li/2rxmu1z Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed or @jenditchburn.

Canadian trade policy at a risky crossroads, a Policy Options podcast. Rising economic anxieties combined with challenges to the global multilateral trade framework has necessitated a re-evaluation of Canadian trade policies and priorities. What should the pillars of Canadian trade policy look like going forward? In the IRPP’s new trade volume titled "Redesigning Canadian Trade Policies for New Global Realities", co-editors Stephen Tapp, Ari Van Assche and Robert Wolfe lay out a blueprint for improving Canada’s trade performance. They stopped by the Policy Options podcast to share insights from their book. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the IRPP’s new trade volume “Redesigning Canadian Trade Policies for New Global Realities” at http://irpp.org/research/trade/ Tweet your questions and comments to @IRPP or @AlexShadeed

Breaking down the French election, a Policy Options podcast. The runoff vote in France’s presidential election is less than a week away, in a campaign that has seen major political upheaval in the republic. The two parties that traditionally traded the keys to the Elysée Palace, the Republicans and the Socialist Party, have been sidelined in favour of Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, two disruptive candidates. Although Macron, head of the new En Marche! movement, is widely seen as the frontrunner against Le Pen (until recently the leader of the populist Front national), what happens after the election in the French legislature is likely to be the real drama. Canada’s former ambassador to France, Marc Lortie, joined the podcast to discuss this intriguing moment in French politics.

How the NDP's past can help the party today, a Policy Options podcast. A new leader isn’t the only thing that the federal NDP is searching for, in the wake of its third-place finish in the 2015 general election. The party is also grappling with existential questions around its core political philosophy. In a recent Policy Options article, historian Kenneth C. Dewar argued that the policy debates of the party’s past can provide some valuable guidance today. He stopped by the podcast to share his insights. Download for free. New Episodes every second Tuesday. See Kenneth C. Dewar’s Policy Options article “The NDP and the future of social democracy in Canada” at http://options-po.li/2nHypUf See Kenneth C. Dewar’s Active History essay “The Social Democracy Question” at http://bit.ly/2nZdq42

Where will automation lead us? A Policy Options podcast. It’s hard to measure the effect that automation will have on the Canadian economy. Advances in technology will not only make certain jobs obsolete, they may well change the very nature of some industries, as well as industries related to them. David Ticoll (senior fellow at the Innovation Policy Lab at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs) wrote about the challenges facing Canada in the era of disruptive technological change as part of the Policy Options special feature, “The Changing Nature of Work”. He stopped by the podcast to share his insights on the topic. Download for free. New Episodes every second Tuesday. See David Ticoll’s Policy Options article “The automation elephant in the room” at http://options-po.li/2mkESrd See David Ticoll’s Innovation Policy Lab discussion paper “Driving Changes: Automated Vehicles in Toronto” at http://bit.ly/2n7BKAD

Budget 2017 analysis live from the lockup, a Policy Options podcast. What were the highlights of the new federal budget? IRPP's Jennifer Ditchburn, Joanne Castonguay, Stephen Tapp, and Alex Shadeed weigh in from the budget lockup. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday.

Canada's suburbs are no place to grow old, a Policy Options Podcast. Canada’s suburbs do not meet the needs of our aging population. The phenomenon of urban sprawl make driving a must, which isn’t an option for many seniors with limited mobility. According to the statistics, one in four Canadians will be 65 years old or older by 2041, so we need to ask: what would a move toward age-friendly communities look like? IRPP author Glenn Miller, a senior associate with the Canadian Urban Institute in Toronto, stopped by the podcast to share his insights on the topic. Download for free. New Episodes every second Tuesday. See Glenn Miller’s IRPP Insight “No Place to Grow Old: How Canadian Suburbs Can Become Age Friendly” at http://on-irpp.org/2mXLBrU

Countering violent extremism in Canada, a Policy Options Podcast. In its 2016 Public Report On The Terrorist Threat To Canada, Public Safety Canada said domestic, violent extremists who could be inspired to carry out an attack are the nation’s principal terrorist threat. This comes as terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State show they are still able to use the Internet very effectively to propagate their radical ideology online, and to inspire individuals to carry out attacks. How are Canadians being radicalized, and what is the government doing to counter domestic, violent extremism? Nadia Hai, a PhD candidate at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication, studies how terrorist organizations communicate their message with Western audiences. She stopped by the podcast to share her insights on the topic. Download for free. New Episodes every second Tuesday. See Nadia Hai's article “Jihobbyists, Fanatics or Fan-attacks? Exploring Extremist Fan Cultures through Inspire Magazine” at http://bit.ly/2mGD8We

Improving Canada's sanctions legislation, a Policy Options Podcast. With the "Magnitsky law" now in effect in the United States, many have speculated that Canada might adopt similar legislation that would facilitate the application of sanctions on individuals and countries who commit grave human rights violations. How should Canada proceed? Andrea Charron, director of the Centre for Security, Intelligence, and Defence Studies at Carleton University, stopped by the podcast to share her insights on the matter. Download for free. New Episodes every second Tuesday. See Andrea Charron and Meredith Lilly's Policy Options article “More sanctions is the wrong tool for human rights protection” at http://options-po.li/2kufxew

Indigenous representation in the media, a Policy Options Podcast. How can we ensure that Indigenous issues are being covered regularly in the media and with sensitivity? Duncan McCue is the creator and curator of the website “Reporting in Indigenous Communities,” and he hosts CBC Radio One’s Cross Country Checkup. He stopped by the podcast to share his insights on the topic. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the website of “Reporting on Indigenous Communities” at http://riic.ca/ See Duncan McCue’s article “Who is Jimmy Gwich?” at http://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/blog/who-is-jimmy-gwich-the-story-behind-my-radio-sign-off-1.3901020

Journalism and truth in the Trump era, a Policy Options Podcast. As Donald Trump moves into the White House, the American news media is scrambling to get its own house in order. How do they cover a president who is overtly hostile to reporters, and is moving to curtail their access? How does the media connect with a distrustful public, especially when there are powerful voices telling citizens to ignore journalists? What can journalists do to make sure that the truth does not fall victim to a political movement that has its own powerful means of communication? All of these questions swirl as the industry across North America is struggling financially. Policy Options’ editor-in-chief Jennifer Ditchburn discusses these issues on the podcast with one of America’s foremost journalism scholars, Michael Schudson of Columbia University. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday.

Federalism and climate change, a Policy Options Podcast. The Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change is the largest intergovernmental project to combat climate change in Canada’s history. Meeting the goals laid out in the framework will depend on effective coordination among Ottawa, the provinces, and the territories in their climate change mitigation efforts. However, this will not be an easy task, given the provinces and territories’ different economic situations. What are the factors that will determine how and how well governments coordinate with one another? Tracy Snoddon and Debora VanNijnatten, both associate professors at Wilfrid Laurier University, answered that question in a recent IRPP publication titled Carbon Pricing and Intergovernmental Relations in Canada. They stopped by the podcast to share their insights on the issue. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See Tracy Snoddon and Debora VanNijnatten's IRPP Insight “Carbon Pricing and Intergovernmental Relations in Canada" at http://on-irpp.org/2g39k3r

Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, a Policy Options Podcast. The reconciliation agenda has made progress since the 1970s, but there’s still much work to be done. A legacy of loss and dispossession has left a sizable gap in the life conditions and self-determination for Indigenous Peoples, which has yet to be closed. How should Canada and Indigenous peoples move forward on reconciliation?  David Newhouse, chair of the Department of Indigenous Studies at Trent University and a member of the Onondaga Nation from the Six Nations of the Grand River community, near Brantford, Ontario, stopped by the podcast to share his insights on this topic. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See David Newhouse's IRPP Insight “Indigenous Peoples, Canada and the Possibility of Reconciliation" at http://on-irpp.org/2fzNG98

North American relations under President Trump,a Policy Options Podcast. If Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric is any indication of what his foreign policy will look like, then America’s relationship with its neighbours is about to change dramatically. Trump’s promise to renegotiate NAFTA is just one of the many policy proposals that has Ottawa and Mexico City on pins and needles. So what is the future of the North American relationship? Agustín Barrios Gómez, president of Mexico Image Foundation and a former member of the Mexican federal congress, discusses these issues with the IRPP’s Alex Shadeed, on a new episode of the Policy Options Podcast. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the Policy Options event "Bridges or walls — what is the future of the North American relationship?" at http://bit.ly/2gccEgQ

Preparing for the transition in Washington, DC, a Policy Options Podcast. The race for the Oval Office is closerthanthis, and both candidates are preparing for victory. Their transition teams are putting in place plans for the aftermath of the election, which will include the naming of a new cabinet and thousands of senior government officials, as well as the setting of legislative priorities and foreign policy objectives. Canadian officials in Washington will be monitoring the transition of power closely, to see what the implications are for our own domestic interests and actions. Gary Doer, the former Canadian ambassador to the United States, talked with Policy Options editor-in-chief Jennifer Ditchburn about the state of American politics and what the future might hold for Canada-US relations. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the Policy Options special feature "The US Presidential Election" at http://bit.ly/2f5G921

Why more academics should engage with the media, a Policy Options Podcast. Imagine putting months of work into an article to have it read by only 10 people. This is the situation in much of academia right now, where the influx of new material is making it increasingly difficult for academics to get their research out to the public and to policy-makers. What can academics do to get their work noticed? Noralou Roos, director of EvidenceNetwork.ca and professor at the Max Rady College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba, stopped by the podcast to offer some advice. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See Noralou Roos and Kathleen O’Grady’s Policy Options article "Linking academic research with the public and policy-makers" at http://bit.ly/2afhhEH

Protecting Canadians' Privacy, a Policy Options Podcast. Last week, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada submitted its 2015-2016 Annual Report to parliament. As well as giving a thorough account of the privacy risks facing Canadians today, the report calls on the federal government to update Canada's legislative, legal, and regulatory framework to better protect Canadians' privacy. Daniel Therrien, The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, stopped by the podcast to discuss the report's recommendations. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the Privacy Commissioner's Policy Options article "Bringing privacy protection into the 21st century" at http://bit.ly/2d3VpL7

Public Policy and Young Canadians with PM Justin Trudeau, a Policy Options Podcast. Justin Trudeau is not just the Prime Minister, he’s also the Minister of Youth – the first time that such a portfolio has been a full position in cabinet. What is Trudeau’s vision for engaging youth? How will he shape the policies that address the specific challenges young Canadians face today? Carleton University journalism student Anna Desmarais led a special Policy Options Podcast interview with the PM in one of his Parliament Hill offices, with the help of the IRPP’s Alex Shadeed (himself a graduate student at Concordia University). Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the Policy Options Special Feature "Public Policy and Young Canadians" at http://bit.ly/2cBLAR7 See the Prime Minister's Policy Options article "Feeding the ambitions of Canada’s youth" at http://bit.ly/2dDkX31

Democracy Promotion, a Policy Options Podcast. Earlier this month the Liberal government released a review of Canada’s international assistance efforts. The review recommends that we strengthen our international humanitarian response in a number of key areas – including democratic governance. What might this look like? Lisa Sundstrom, associate professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, stopped by to offer some insights into Canadian international assistance and democracy promotion. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See the Policy Options Special Feature “Democracy Assistance” at http://bit.ly/2dghFTa

Towards a new Canada-China relationship, a Policy Options Podcast. Justin Trudeau’s visit to China has come to an end. The takeaway from the Prime Minister’s meetings with the country’s economic and political elite – including President Xi Jinping – has been generally positive, with all signs pointing to closer ties between the two G20 partners. So what does the future hold for Canada-China relations? Gordon Houlden, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, stopped by the podcast to weigh in on the matter. We looked at trade, human rights and the need for more Chinese-language speakers in the Canadian public sector. Download for Free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See Gordon Houlden’s Policy Options article “China and the government’s recruitment challenge” at http://bit.ly/2cr5mo1 See the Policy Options Special Feature “Canada-China Relations” at http://bit.ly/2bbQsR5

Why Gawker's Bankruptcy is a Policy Issue, a Policy Options Podcast. Where should media outlets draw the line between revenue generation and content quality? Between truth and ethics? CBC News’ Lauren O’Neil stopped by the podcast to weigh in on these issues and more. We looked at the Gawker bankruptcy, the ethics and business of new media and Canada’s evolving media landscape. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See Lauren O’Neil’s CBC News article “Why Gawker matters: Bankruptcy auction could make or break the 'voice of a generation'” at http://bit.ly/2bLuamc

Refocusing Canada’s International Security Agenda, a Policy Options Podcast. This week, we spoke with James Fergusson, director of the Centre for Defence and Security Studies at the University of Manitoba, about the changing international security landscape and how it affects Canada. We look at the lessons from Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan, our relationship with NATO, and whether Canada is equipped to deal with the threats it faces. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. To find out about James Fergusson and Francis Furtado’s recent book Beyond Afghanistan: An International Security Agenda for Canada, please visit http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299175195

Technology-enabled trade in Canada, a Policy Options Podcast. E-commerce is revolutionizing the way we trade by giving businesses unprecedented access to new markets. Tools such as eBay have become the great equalizer of international trade: empowering small businesses in a globalized trade environment traditionally dominated by large firms. With so much to gain from these emerging trade patterns, Canadian trade policy can’t afford to be stuck in the past. In a new IRPP study, authors Hanne Melin and Usman Ahmed argue that Canadian trade policies are creating obstacles for small businesses engaging in cross-border online trade. Using data from eBay between 2008 and 2013, they found that e-commerce businesses export at a much higher rate, reach more countries, and grow faster than do their offline counterparts. We caught up with Hanne to learn how the government can foster the growth of technology-enabled small businesses. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Hanne Melin and Usman Ahmed’s IRPP study “Technology-Enabled Small Business Trade in Canada: New Evidence from eBay Marketplaces” http://irpp.org/research-studies/aots6-ahmed-melin/

Episode 15 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. In an era where access to political figures is unprecedented (and a scandal is just a tweet away), for those in politics controlling the political brand has become major priority. Narratives come from the top and make their way down, driving the need for message consistency throughout the process. In his new book Brand Command: Canadian Politics and Democracy in the Age of Message Control, Alex Marland argues that the consequences of this shift go beyond the substance of political communications — they're changing democratic participation itself. We caught up with Alex to talk about the “alarming developments” he sees in Canadian democracy. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. To find out more about Alex Marland's new book Brand Command, visit http://www.ubcpress.ca/search/title_book.asp?BookID=299175196

Episode 14 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. In the wake of the Brexit referendum, this week’s episode tackles a Canadian issue that might soon trigger a referendum of its own: electoral reform. To kick off the podcast, podcast host Alex Shadeed briefly explains why some Canadians want to do away with the current system and what lies ahead in the electoral reform debate. Then, Policy Options editor-in-chief Jennifer Ditchburn speaks with Pippa Norris, professor at Harvard University and director of Electoral Integrity Project, about Canada’s electoral reform debate. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. The Policy Options Special Feature on electoral reform http://bit.ly/29gvNXE

Episode 13 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. Five years ago, the special expert panel on innovation in Canada, chaired by Tom Jenkins, tabled its report, which outlined several policy recommendations for improving Canada's lackluster research and development portfolio. Last week, the IRPP released a report by Andrei Sulzenko that looks at whether governments have followed up on the Jenkins Report's recommendations, and what must be done to achieve the current government's goal of turning Canada into an "innovation powerhouse." We caught up with Andrei Sulzenko to learn more about orienting Canada’s innovation policy for the future. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Andrei Sulzenko's IRPP report Canada’s Innovation Conundrum: Five Years After the Jenkins Report http://bit.ly/1r2Kuom

Episode 12 of the IRPP's Policy Options Podcast. This week we spoke with immigration scholar and IRPP research director Leslie Seidle, to learn more about the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe, how the European Union's response differs from the Canadian government's response, and how European states can improve their immigrant integration regimes. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. See also Leslie Seidle's Policy Options article, "Resettling Syrian refugees: The Canadian advantage," at http://bit.ly/27wKxKC

Episode 11 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week, we spoke with acclaimed author and scholar Donald J. Savoie – winner of the 18th Annual Donner Prize for his book What Is Government Good At? A Canadian Answer – to learn how the federal government can improve public administration and regain the waning trust of Canadians. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. The Donner Canadian Foundation’s news release announcing Donald J. Savoie as the winner of the 2015 Donner book prize. http://bit.ly/1fELUPs

Episode 10 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week, we caught up with Dwayne Winseck of Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication to talk about the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunciations Commission’s “#TalkBroadband” conference, and how we can make the Internet more accessible to all Canadians. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Dwayne Winseck’s blog about the conference: “A Radical Broadband Internet and Cultural Policy for Canada” http://bit.ly/1rtJU3M

Episode 9 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week, we caught up with Canada’s information commissioner, Suzanne Legault, to learn more about access to information in Canada and how the federal government can be more open and transparent. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. The Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada’s report Striking the Right Balance for Transparency: Recommendations to Modernize the Access to Information Act: http://bit.ly/1SiQ1yg

Episode 8 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week, we caught up with Christopher Waddell, one of the co-authors of the IRPP's colloquium report to learn more about the major points of consensus and contention surrounding leaders' debates in Canada. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. The IRPP's leaders' debate colloquium report: http://bit.ly/1TLR8Mf

Episode 7 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week's episode analyses the new federal budget straight from the media lockup in Ottawa. Policy Options' Jennifer Ditchburn and Alex Shadeed were joined by the IRPP's Stephen Tapp and David Deault-Picard to discuss what stood out in the budget, and what its provisions mean for Canada. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Stephen Tapp's article "What we should ignore in Budget 2016": http://bit.ly/1LBPFpc

Episode 6 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week we spoke with Mel Cappe, a professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto, about whether government scientists should be allowed to engage in policy debates. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. For Mel Cappe’s article “Government scientists and the management of science in government,” see http://bit.ly/1RQ4WBQ For the IRPP’s report “Making Better Use of Science and Technology in Policy-Making”, see http://bit.ly/1TnjWdF

Episode 5 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week, the IRPP released the fifth volume in its Art of the State series, Income Inequality: The Canadian Story. We spoke with the books co-editors, David Green and France St-Hilaire, to find out why, in their opinions, income inequality is on the rise in Canada, and what our governments can do to reverse the trend. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Check out David Green and France St-Hilaire's new book here: http://bit.ly/1KIMGdX

Episode 4 of the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast. This week we spoke with John Rainford, director of The Warning Project, about the threat posed by the Zika virus and the complexities of communicating its health risks. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. For John Rainford and Joshua Greenberg’s Policy Options Perspectives article, “Uncertainty management: communicating the Zika risk,” see http://bit.ly/1mpMNzy

Episode 3 of the Institute for Research on Public Policy's "Policy Options Podcast". This week, we spoke with Mostafa Askari of The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer of Canada (PBO) to discuss Canadian households and debt. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report "Household Indebtedness and Financial Vulnerability": http://bit.ly/1Ubdwvh

Episode 2 of the Institute for Research on Public Policy's "Policy Options Podcast". This week, we spoke with Jatinder Mann of University of Alberta about Canada's Internal Trade Regime. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Jatinder Mann and Andrew Smith's working paper, "Federalism and Sub-National Protectionism: a Comparison of the Internal Trade Regimes of Canada and Australia"... http://bit.ly/1ZgXDVt

Episode 1 of the Institute for Research on Public Policy's "Policy Options Podcast". This week, we spoke with Ted Mallett, Chief Economist for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) about small business tax structures. Download for free. New episodes every second Tuesday. Ted Mallett's paper: see "Policy Forum: Mountains and Molehills — Effects of the Small Business Deduction" http://www.ctf.ca/CTFWEB/EN/Publications/CTJ_Contents/2015CTJ3.aspx