Futureproofing Canada

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.