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).

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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.