No one in the world has or had all the answers, and there are bound to be mistakes and missteps.
Health, health care system, pharmacare
In this issue:
The winter/spring 2020 issue focuses on the ways in which the neoliberal education agenda and austerity governments are reshaping education across the country, and the impact of these changes on kids — particularly the most vulnerable — and communities. But it also illustrates the passion with which the public will defend its schools and support their educators and education workers. It includes a cross-country scan of standardized assessment policies.
Maria Rose Sikyea is a young Dené artist living in Yukon with her adorable three-year-old. When I spoke to her in November, she was expecting a second child, whom she hoped would be delivered with the assistance of a midwife. But like many others in her situation, Sikyea faced a considerable roadblock: Yukon is the only Canadian jurisdiction that does not offer access to government-provided and funded midwifery.
In the Speech from the Throne this September, the Trudeau government said it “remains committed to a national, universal pharmacare program and will accelerate steps to achieve this system.” That is an improvement over the Liberals' pledge, during the 2019 federal election, to provide $6 billion over four years as a "down payment" on pharmacare. How much of an improvement remains to be seen.
"If we learn anything from COVID-19," write Lindsay McLaren and Trish Hennessy in their cover feature for this issue, "it should be that we need to build and foster a more comprehensive version of public health that acts on what we know about the social determinants of well-being." Economy and health are not separate things, they argue, and public health policy should not be limited to matters of primary care.
What exactly is the logic behind sending Home Care workers to do shifts in personal care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic?
As part of Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy White Paper consultation, the federal government asked civil society organizations and individuals how Canada can use the diplomatic tools at its disposal, in multilateral and bilateral forums, “to reinforce efforts to uphold and advance human rights, gender equality and inclusion, while helping to reform the current international rules-based order and shape the system as it evolves to Canada’s advantage.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical importance of federal government leadership in health care. The pandemic’s impact has been particularly dramatic in long-term care homes, exposing a fragmented and under-resourced system that is heavily reliant on for-profit delivery.