Futureproofing Canada

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.