By: Graham Lowe, Karen D. Hughes and Frank Graves. One legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is the ongoing shift in work arrangements and location. Work-from-home (WFH), once considered a temporary emergency solution to the initial lockdowns in 2020, has taken root, reshaping how individuals work in many sectors. In a previous Policy Options article, we explored this trend using data from a survey called Shaping the Future of Work in Canada conducted in 2022 by EKOS Research Associates. At the time, over 40 per cent of respondents were still working from home or had done so until recentl ..read more

By: Sabreena Delhon, Béatrice Wayne and Alex MacIsaac. The federal government recently introduced its long-promised Online Harms Act, Bill C-63. Reaction so far has largely focused on the provisions to keep children safe online, on the extent to which the bill does or does not overreach in its definition of hate speech, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre thinks, and whether it encroaches on freedom of expression, as the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has warned. These are worthwhile discussions as the bill moves through the Commons, but it is critical to focus public attention on a ..read more

By: Gillian Petit. Low-income Canadians are struggling and urgently need more support. This is not news. Provincial welfare benefits, which provide money to buy food and other necessities, have been below Canada’s official poverty line since at least 2013. But the situation has become considerably worse because of the post-pandemic surge in inflation. In Ontario, where the official poverty line was $27,631 in 2022, a single working-age adult received $10,253 in welfare income. Welfare incomes were the lowest in Alberta, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Research shows that targeted cash transfer ..read more

By: Robert Leckey. (Version française disponible ici) Since 1980, unmarried cohabitation, or de facto union as it is known is Quebec, has emerged as the province’s dominant form of conjugal life. Yet during this time, the National Assembly has never addressed the relations between de facto spouses, whose relationships entail neither rights nor obligations under family law. This long inaction ended with the justice minister’s tabling of Bill 56 in March respecting family law reform and establishing the parental union regime. However, this long-awaited reform gives cause for hesitation and even ..read more

By: Tyler McCann. Most Canadians interact with agriculture only in the grocery store – often worrying about high food prices. With their daily preoccupations and the physical distance between where they live, work and shop, and most farms, it is not a surprise that many people are unaware of the sector’s importance. However, agriculture is an increasingly important strategic asset and the time is right for Canada to put it at the core of future plans. This April’s federal budget is an opportunity to commit to a more strategic, ambitious vision for agriculture and food, with investments focuse ..read more

By: Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Steven Lewis and Dale McMurchy. Primary care is failing many Canadians in terms of universality, comprehensiveness and accessibility, despite the enshrinement of these core principles in the Canada Health Act. Canada currently has a hodgepodge of independent primary care practices, operating without clear performance expectations or accountability. It is more by design than by an unforeseen circumstance that so many primary care providers are burned out and 6.5 million Canadians have no regular source of care. In addition, with some exceptions, comprehensive, person-c ..read more

By: Emily Huddart Kennedy and Parker Muzzerall. Budget 2024 will be pivotal in building a low-carbon future in ways that need to go beyond tables and tax credits. To keep Canada on course, the federal government must foster material solutions to rapidly reduce emissions while addressing regional polarization and divisiveness. Since humans began burning fossil fuels as a source of energy, we have significantly altered the composition of Earth’s atmosphere. As of May 2023, the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii estimated the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to be 424 ppm. The last time conce ..read more

By: Colleen Kaiser and Geoff McCarney. For Canada to reach the goal of a net-zero economy by 2050, more new electricity generation facilities will be needed in the next 25 years than were built over the entire last century. As we electrify transportation, heating and light industry, as well as produce greater amounts of electricity from renewable sources, regulators will be required to review a large number of new clean energy projects. Currently, clean energy projects in Canada take too long to get built. The stakes are huge. If new, expedited ways to review and approve clean energy projects ..read more

By: Bertie Harrison-Broninski and Richard Robertson. Two years ago, BBC journalists visited Canada to investigate the wood pellet industry. Their findings, broadcast in the documentary Drax: The Green Energy Scandal exposed, sent shockwaves through climate politics in the U.K. Both the BBC and the CBC’s Fifth Estate – in a separate documentary called The Big Burn –reported that energy company Drax Power was shipping wood from rare, previously unlogged forests in British Columbia across the North Atlantic to be burned as fuel for the United Kingdom’s largest electric power station. At the same ..read more

By: Robert Breen. Canada is in a housing crisis, but we’re not giving ourselves a fighting chance to fix it. That needs to change. Instead of making widespread use of innovations in housing construction efficiency, we’re primarily relying on slower and increasingly outdated, century-old methods. The way forward is prefabricated housing, which offers a host of benefits over traditional onsite construction, such as lower costs and time savings, as the clock is running out to solve the crisis. The federal government has already taken some action as seen with the recent funding announcement by Pr ..read more