The convoy protest was the biggest political watershed moment for Canada in recent years. The treatment of this event by Canadian political elites however has brought into question the effectiveness of evidence based policy when it comes to fighting vaccine hesitancy .
Student debt has been pushed by Canadian governments as a way to ensure that all students have the opportunity to access higher education. But, students have been taking on too much debt with no way to feasibly pay it off. The result has been a lack of student participation in societal innovation. Policy makers should thus look to other models, such as the Nordic countries for inspiration.
There is a definitive and alarming rise of right-wing populist rhetoric and violent actions both internationally and nationally. Perhaps more concerning is the normative belief that Canada’s multiculturalism policy will protect Canada from this threat to democracy. In today’s terms, sorry-not-sorry, but this is false.
The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly changed Canada’s urban and rural landscapes by causing both rural decline and unexpected rural growth. As a result , Canada needs to rethink its approach to rural communities at the federal level.
The typical attitude towards welfare policies in Canada among the majority of the population is not generally a positive one. But much of this hate is due to misconceptions about what welfare policies are and how they actually work. In cases like this the policy details do matter and in Canada these details need to be reconfigured and re-conceptualized.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the oftentimes ignored cracks and fault lines in the current mental health care system in Canada. One of the biggest issues that has arisen and urgently needs to be addressed, is the inability of many people to access mental health services.
Though China is sometimes invoked in quasi-admirable terms, the real goal for the anti-populist would be, in a sense, “getting to Singapore”, where there are (notionally) competitive elections, but much of the state functions on a perception of “clean”, meritocratic technocracy. However, Singapore is not “Singapore” and the reasons for this point to both the impossibility of closed systems of government being benevolent and the need for the anti-populists to stop dreaming and start addressing real concerns.
In light of the recent discovery of unmarked graves at the former residential schools there has been an increased focused on indigenous issues. Particularly the idea that In order for Canada to truly achieve truth and reconciliation with the indigenous communities within our borders our education system must be modified and reviewed. This includes not only the curriculum, but also the resources available and the teaching methods used by educators.
In light of the current static and outdated state of Canada’s university system a change to a different model may be able to bridge these gaps. The German model in particular may be the perfect system for policymakers to experiment with.
The recent rise in homelessness and detention rates during the pandemic has raised concerns about the interconnectedness of race, prison and homelessness in Canada. Reallocating funds from police budgets to social housing budgets has the potential to address this issue.