LATEST ARTICLES

Investing in organizations dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of those who defend Canada will pay long-term dividends

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Investing in organizations dedicated to supporting the health and well-being of those who defend Canada will pay long-term dividends

Senator Baltej Singh Dhillon and BGen (Ret’d) Hugh Colin MacKay, QUOI Media

The federal government has pledged to spend billions over the next decade to increase defence spending to five per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product in line with other NATO allies, to meet the challenges of an increasingly dangerous and divided world.

As Ottawa considers it defence spending priorities, it must not overlook the health and well-being of its most important asset – the people who provide safety and security to Canada and those who support them, who will most certainly be impacted as they meet the new challenges they will face. They are critical to Canada’s defence revitalization.

It is now more important than ever for the government to continue to support and invest in organizations – in particular four pivotal organizations – dedicated to supporting the physical and mental health of Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) members, veterans, public safety personnel (PSP) and their families.

The four organizations – Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research (CIMVHR), Canadian Institute for Public Safety Research and Treatment (CIPSRT), Atlas Institute for Veterans and Families (Atlas) and Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence for Canadian Veterans (CPCoE) – all play a critical – in some cases, life-saving – role in the health and well-being of these communities.

Operating at arm’s length from the government, they make up only a tiny proportion of the federal budget, but play an outsized role in enhancing quality of life for those who have sacrificed so much for our country.

While each organization is unique, their work is complementary, and their mutual collaboration creates synergies that did not previously exist – and could not easily be replaced.

CIMVHR is the hub for leading scientific military, veteran and family health research in Canada.

Working with researchers at Canadian universities and abroad, it has built a network of collaborative relationships within academia, government, industry and the philanthropic sector to advance military, veteran and family health and well-being research.

Its work is instrumental in ensuring that CAF members and veterans receive the most up-to-date and evidence-based treatments and support for service-related injuries, illnesses and post-service challenges.

CIPSRT serves as a national knowledge exchange hub, integrating the best contemporary research evidence into free online mental health resources that support current and former PSP and their families to maintain and improve their mental health and well-being.

With studies showing that over 23 per cent of public safety officers could have post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental health issues, CIPSRT’s work is essential in safeguarding their health. 

Atlas works with veterans, their families, service providers and research partners to create, gather and share knowledge on veteran and family mental health. Veterans and their families are actively involved in identifying issues and in collaborating to develop evidence-informed solutions in the areas such as moral injury, intimate partner violence, substance use and suicide prevention.

It also trains service providers in evidence-based therapies, ensuring that the latest data on veteran and family mental health needs informs best practices and policies.

CPCoE is a research centre dedicated to improving the well-being of veterans with chronic pain. Studies show that veterans are two times as likely to suffer from chronic pain as other Canadians – particularly female veterans.

Its research is built on veterans’ lived experiences, allowing the centre to directly address veterans’ daily challenges with chronic pain, while also advancing evidence-based pain management treatment.

Trusted among the populations they serve, CIMVHR, CIPSRT, Atlas and CPCoE are critical to ensuring that CAF members, veterans, public safety personnel and their families have the support they need to improve their quality of life and that their healthcare providers have access to the best evidence-based knowledge and treatments to enable their well-being.

All four organizations also promote knowledge sharing – hosting forums, webinars, podcasts and other events and widely publishing their research – ensuring that their work benefits not only those in the military and PSP community, but also Canadians in all walks of life.

Their expertise also plays a pivotal role in informing government policies, practices and programs. Their research was fundamental to a recent Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs’ report on the serious challenges affecting women veterans and the federal government’s veterans’ employment strategy.

The work they do today will pay long-term dividends. Afterall, better health outcomes mean a more resilient military, PSP and veteran community, with improved productivity and operational readiness and reduced healthcare costs.

In this rapidly changing world, Canada needs the research and insights that these organizations provide now more than ever.

The federal government’s defence spending priorities must include continued support and increased investment in their vital work.

Denying Canadians access to healthcare – It could happen here too

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Denying Canadians access to healthcare – It could happen here too

Jason M. Sutherland, QUOI Media

Millions of Americans are about to lose access to healthcare. If you don’t think that could ever happen in Canada, think again.

Hospital and doctor visits are free to Canadians and protected by federal legislation. But determined provincial governments could find ways to chip away at Canadian’s access to vital services.

New provincial legislation is needed to secure funding for healthcare services enshrined in the federal Canada Health Act.

In the United States, President Trump’s signature legislation reduces subsidies for states to provide health insurance to low-income Americans. According to the non-partisan U.S. Congressional Budget Office, over 10 million Americans are expected to lose their health insurance. Without health insurance, millions of Americans will lose their access to hospitals, doctors and drugs and pushed to emergency departments as their only source of healthcare.

Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta governments each spent in excess of $30 billion on healthcare for their residents in 2024 according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. This is a veritable pot of gold for governments looking to plug huge holes in budgets, especially in provinces especially hard hit by tariffs.

Like what is underway in the U.S., is it possible that a determined provincial government could start a war with its own publicly provided healthcare system in the name of fiscal restraint?

It could happen.

As Canadians are seeing in the U.S., the traditional way of doing things can be challenged and upend norms.

The federal Canada Health Act mandates that provinces are financially obligated to fund hospital care, physician services and advanced diagnostics. Importantly, however, the Act is vague regarding specifics. It does not specify the rate at which funding must be provided to hospitals, advanced imaging clinics or physicians to guarantee access to residents.

Provincial governments could dramatically cut funding to their health systems under this current federal legislation.

Massive funding to healthcare systems would target the most costly services first: hospitals, physicians and drugs. The impact could cause Canadians to have healthcare delayed, modified or even denied.

Hospitals unwilling to abandon their communities would prioritize life-saving care by reducing or eliminating less urgent or elective care. Some hospitals would likely need to close or merge to reduce capital expenses. Thousands of jobs would be lost. Similar to the U.S., emergency departments would fill up with non-emergency cases.

Cuts to physician payments would result in physicians moving into private practice or leaving Canada for greener pastures, re-igniting a brain drain of seasoned experts to more secure or more lucrative settings in unaffected provinces or other countries.

Given the vague language of the Canada Health Act regarding funding levels, the federal government would have few levers in response to breaches of the legislation. If the federal government were a willing corroborator in under-funding healthcare, provinces’ health systems would unravel even more quickly.

Seniors, the disabled and the working poor could find more drugs uninsured by government-funded programs and see deductibles rise.

Sure, provincial governments might topple for reshaping the health system landscape and reducing services Canadians have been getting for free. But before they topple, the changes they legislate might be hard to unwind especially if their budget shortfall is real and significant.

So, what can be done to buttress core healthcare services for Canadians?

New provincial legislation to future-proof provincial governments’ obligation to pay fairly for healthcare services prescribed in the Canada Health Act is needed to further ensure the right of all Canadians to access hospitals and doctors without additional out-of-pocket costs.

Experts attribute part of Canadians’ longevity to access to free healthcare and less severe poverty among seniors. The risk of not taking strong steps to ensure access to healthcare could open the doors to healthcare systems that undermine our health and wellbeing.

Jason M. Sutherland is the UBC Professor of Health Services and Policy and Director of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

‘Drill, baby, drill’ is outdated

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‘Drill, baby, drill’ is outdated

Renewable energy production is now significantly cheaper – and cleaner – to produce

Jory Cohen, QUOI Media

“Drill, baby, drill!” is a quote most of us attribute to President Donald Trump during his inaugural address in January of this year, but it first made headlines in 2008 as a Republican campaign slogan.

While the environmental benefits of renewable energy production relative to fossil fuel energy generation are hard to ignore, what often gets overlooked are the financial advantages of cleaner sources of energy.

According to the most recent report published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), in 2023 the average cost of energy production via solar photovoltaic systems (aka solar panels) was less expensive than power produced through burning fossil fuels by more than half (56 per cent cheaper). The average cost of energy produced by onshore wind projects was only two thirds the cost of energy powered by fossil fuels.

It wasn’t always like this.

More than a decade ago, when analyzing the short-term economics of fossil fuels, “drill, baby, drill” was at least financially defensible. In 2010, solar power cost more than five times energy produced by fossil fuels, and onshore wind was 23 per cent more expensive. (Although this calculation ignores the risk of future stranded assets if fossil fuel reserves are forced to be left untouched, becoming devalued and resulting in a liability on balance sheets).

Back then, the argument for fossil fuels could be rationalized, but these days, nodding to the chorus of “drill, baby, drill” is simply out of tune.

People tend to point their finger at subsidies as the reason for greener power cost efficiencies, but that argument just doesn’t hold up. In the most recent report focused on energy subsidies, with data from 2017, IRENA estimated global subsidies to the energy sector to be at a minimum, $634 billion (USD).  Approximately 70 per cent of this total supported fossil fuel production, while 20 per cent was directed at renewables. The balance was allocated to biofuels and nuclear.

Subsidies simply aren’t the reason why clean energy is now the more affordable option.

Technology advances and manufacturing efficiencies, coupled with low operational and on-going maintenance expenses relative to fossil fuels, have led to drastic cost reductions when producing cleaner forms of energy, in particular from solar and onshore wind sources.

The global average cost of installed solar panels was $130 USD per watt way back in 1975. It was $6.41 per watt in 2000 and $0.31 in 2023.

Whether you roll your eyes at the term global warming or you’re David Suzuki himself, the economics of renewable energy generation should be a breath of fresh air – literally.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a body of the United Nations, reported that approximately 89 per cent of CO2 emissions globally were the result of fossil fuels (2017 data).

Does this mean that we should immediately drop fossil fuels altogether? We can’t.

According to the International Energy Agency, renewable electricity generation was about 30 per cent of total global energy production in 2023. Turning away from fossil fuels suddenly would cripple the world, but the transition to cleaner sources is essential from both a financial and environmental perspective.

The notion of “drill, baby, drill” turns a blind eye to the bottom line and the health of our planet.

We know now that renewables are more financially viable than fossil fuel alternatives, and significantly more environmentally conscious too. The cost to produce clean energy, in particular, from solar and onshore wind sources, has decreased dramatically over the past decade.

Our world is powered by energy. We might as well invest in the more affordable greener alternatives, especially given their beneficial effects on the environment.

“Drill, baby, drill” was so 2008.

Jory Cohen is the director of finance and impact investment at Inspirit Foundation.

Canada is falling behind on Alzheimer’s disease treatments

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Canada is falling behind on Alzheimer’s disease treatments

Andrew Frank and Katherine C. Pearson, QUOI Media

Alzheimer’s disease is an insidious and relentless loss of memory and thinking, accompanied by a gradual yet devastating deterioration in ability to function independently. It’s a terrifying diagnosis for patients and families alike.

Dementia is defined as a loss of memory or thinking, which takes away daily independence. Alzheimer’s disease is the buildup of amyloid and tau proteins in the brain — proteins which begin as helpful yet become toxic as they accumulate. Alzheimer’s disease is therefore the cause, and dementia is the effect.

Unfortunately, medical treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia have remained minimal for over 25 years, and with a growing aging population, Alzheimer’s disease has become one of the greatest unmet medical needs in the world.

There is hope on the horizon.

Recently, two new intravenous medications, lecanemab and donanemab, have shown they can clear away toxic accumulations of the amyloid protein in Alzheimer’s disease. One or both of these medications have been approved in the United States, the European Union, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Yet, these medications have not been approved in Canada.


Canada is falling behind, and families are suffering. It’s time we made new Alzheimer’s disease medications available to Canadians in a timely and accessible manner.


Clinical trials research into lecanemab and donanemab demonstrated a 27 per cent to 35 per cent slowing of cognitive decline in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease versus a placebo, with greater benefit experienced the earlier in the disease process the treatment was started. The treatments slow the rate at which Alzheimer’s disease worsens, though do not fully stop or reverse the damage.

Both lecanemab and donanemab remain under review by Health Canada and are not yet approved for use in Canada. The decision to approve these medications has been complex, as a slowing of cognitive deterioration by 27 per cent may not be viewed as enough of a benefit, especially when weighing against potential side effects.

Indeed, as these medications cross into the brain and trigger clearance of amyloid by the immune system, there can be development of swelling or bleeding in the brain. While most clinical trial participants who developed swelling or bleeding had no associated symptoms, three to six per cent experienced headache, dizziness, confusion or occasionally stroke-like symptoms.

Often these symptoms resolved when treatment was stopped, though in rare cases, the symptoms were permanent.

In some ways, arrival of these medications ushers in a new era of Alzheimer’s disease treatment, reminiscent of the approach we now take towards cancer — detection of disease at the earliest possible stage, and potential treatment with medications capable of serious side effects.

Canadians who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease deserve the chance to evaluate the potential benefits and side effects of these new medications, to determine, for themselves and their families, if they wish to proceed to treatment. The decision process must include fully informed consent, guided by real-world results from patients across the world.  

Indeed, patient registries (collections of anonymous patient data) play a critical role in tracking benefits and side effects of new medications over time. Vaccinations for COVID-19 were subject to similar monitoring for serious side effects, after the vaccines were approved for general use. A similar patient registry for those treated with new Alzheimer’s disease treatments in Canada will be essential.

At the end of July 2025, Canada will welcome the world’s Alzheimer’s disease clinical and research community to the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC), held in Toronto this year. The message will be clear: Canada should provide the same treatment opportunities to its citizens as other jurisdictions around the world.


The memories and autonomy destroyed by Alzheimer’s disease continue to make it one of the greatest health challenges faced by Canadians. New anti-amyloid treatments are not a cure, though they represent desperately needed progress. They represent hope that we will one day live a long and full life without the ravages of dementia.

A long and full life, for ourselves and those we love.

Dr. Andrew Frank is a cognitive neurologist at Bruyère Health, and investigator at Bruyère Health Research Institute in Ottawa. Katherine C. Pearson is a Professor of Law and Arthur L. and Sandra S. Piccone Faculty Scholar at Dickinson Law, Pennsylvania State University, and the 2024-25 Visiting Research Fellow in Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law.

How does your primary care stack up? We’re asking Canadians

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How does your primary care stack up? We’re asking Canadians

Dr. Tara Kiran, QUOI Media

I still remember the hope I felt in 2002 when I chose to become a family doctor. It wasn’t the most popular career path in medical school, but for me, it was a calling — the chance to build lasting relationships with patients and be there through every stage of life.

More than two decades later, it’s heartbreaking to see so many people in Canada still struggle to get that kind of care.

Right now, over 6.5 million people in this country don’t have a regular family doctor or nurse practitioner. And even for those who do, getting an appointment can be frustratingly difficult.

Our primary care system — the part of health care meant to be our front door — is not working the way it should.

But we have a chance to change that. And we know where to start: by listening to the people the system is meant to serve.

That’s what we set out to do with OurCare — the largest public conversation about primary care in Canadian history. Over 16 months, nearly 10,000 people across the country shared their experiences and hopes for the future through a national survey, citizen panels and community roundtables.

Despite differences in geography, age, and background, people largely agreed on what needs to change. They want a system where:

            •           Everyone has a relationship with a primary care clinician who works with other health professionals in a publicly funded team.

            •           Everyone receives ongoing care from their primary care team and can access them in a timely way.

            •           Everyone’s primary care team is connected to community and social services that together support their physical, mental and social well-being.

            •           Everyone can access their health record online and share it with their clinicians.

            •           Everyone receives culturally safe care that meets their needs from clinicians that represent the diversity of the communities they serve.

            •           Everyone receives care from a primary care system that is accountable to the communities it serves.

These six statements make up the OurCare Standard — a bold, people-powered vision for what primary care in Canada should look like. It’s a framework to guide reform and evaluate how well our system is performing.

Now, we want to know how close we are to achieving that vision — and where we’re falling short.

That’s why we’ve launched a new national survey — to find out whether people’s actual experiences of care align with what they told us they want to see in a better system.

Do you have a regular family physician or nurse practitioner? Can you get care outside of typical working hours? Can you get services in a language that meets your needs? Do you have to pay out-of-pocket for care?

Importantly, the survey also asks where you live — because your postal code should not define the quality of care you receive.

People across Canada have told us what they want. This survey will help us understand how far we’ve come — and what still needs to change to make that vision a reality.

The 2025 OurCare National Survey is open to all people in Canada aged 18 and over. It is confidential, takes about 10-15 minutes, and is open online until July 30, 2025 at OurCare.ca/survey.

Dr. Tara Kiran is a family physician and researcher at St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto, and the Fidani Chair in Improvement and Innovation at the University of Toronto. She is the national lead for OurCare and host of the podcast Primary Focus.

‘Sorry, not sorry’ — Collaboration is Canada’s innovation superpower

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‘Sorry, not sorry’ — Collaboration is Canada’s innovation superpower

Andrea Nemtin, QUOI Media

Canadians have recently elected a Prime Minister known for being ‘nice’ — not as a weakness, but as a reflection of a deeper national strength.

At a time when global politics is increasingly marked by division, short-term thinking and zero-sum narratives, Canada has a different path available to us — one rooted in a quiet but powerful tradition: collaboration.

While the world often jokes about how “nice” Canadians are, our niceness isn’t just a national quirk — it’s our collaborative superpower. It’s what has enabled us to listen deeply, work across differences, and build trust-based solutions to our most complex challenges. And right now, it’s the key to solving the defining problems of our time — housing, climate, inequality and reconciliation.

At the heart of Canada’s economic prosperity is something deeper than GDP or trade figures –it’s our capacity to collaborate and innovate locally. Whether it’s tackling housing affordability in Hamilton or building Indigenous-led clean energy in Northern Ontario, the most impactful innovations are born from community-rooted solutions.

Markets don’t solve complex problems on their own. They amplify what exists — but they require direction, vision and trust to deliver inclusive outcomes. That direction comes from people: civil society organizations, local governments, entrepreneurs, Indigenous communities and mission-driven institutions. It comes from collaboration.

That’s why we believe the new federal government must treat the social sector not as an afterthought, but as a core part of Canada’s innovation economy. Because innovation isn’t just about patents and products — it’s about solving problems at scale. And no one does that better than civil society organizations, Indigenous nations, community leaders and mission-driven entrepreneurs. These are the people already doing the hard work.

Consider affordable housing: collaborative, community-led solutions don’t just put roofs over heads — they create jobs, stabilize families, improve health outcomes and enable mobility. These are all core components of a healthy, functioning economy. Canada’s housing crisis has taught us that market-only solutions won’t cut it.  The shift toward collaborative models — like CMHC’s Solutions Labs and the Housing Supply Challenge — hasn’t just funded new projects; it’s fundamentally changed how we approach affordable housing.

The same is true for climate solutions. When Indigenous communities lead clean energy projects like Wataynikaneyap Power, the economic benefits stay in the community — building local capacity, ownership and long-term prosperity.

This isn’t charity. It’s economic strategy. These initiatives are about more than sustainability –they’re about sovereignty, equity and local economic development.

Canada is also becoming a global leader in climate-focused social finance and cleantech. The Canada Growth Fund and impact investment vehicles are helping scale low-carbon solutions that will define the economy of the future. And let’s not forget: the term “cleantech” itself was coined by a Canadian.

But none of this progress happened in isolation. It happened because we worked together. Because we were willing to listen, to share power and to co-create across traditional boundaries.

This is what we call radical collaboration — the practice of not just working together, but transforming how we work together. It means:

• Building long-term relationships, not just one-off partnerships

• Creating space for discomfort and hard conversations

• Valuing many kinds of knowledge equally

• Designing solutions with communities, not for them.

This kind of collaboration is hard. It’s slow. It challenges egos and requires patience. But it’s also the only way we’ll achieve systems-level change. And Canada, with its deep traditions of co-operation and pluralism, is uniquely positioned to lead.

That leadership, however, requires the right infrastructure. We need national mechanisms that connect grassroots solutions to federal strategy. We need resource flows that are flexible, equitable and grounded in local realities. We need policy coherence across departments, so promising innovations don’t get stuck in silos.

Collaboration doesn’t scale itself. We need social innovation infrastructure that connects grassroots solutions to federal strategy. That’s why SI Canada advocates for:

• A national strategy for social innovation

• Mission-based funding models that reward collaboration and inclusion

• Mechanisms for cross-departmental coordination and multi-sector financing

And above all, we need to recognize that Canada’s most valuable asset isn’t just our land or economy — it’s our people. Our capacity to collaborate across difference is not a “nice-to-have.”

It’s a survival strategy. It always has been.

Indigenous communities understood this long before the word “innovation” became a buzzword.

Their teachings on food, medicine and stewardship made Canada possible. Our collective future depends on learning — and unlearning — what it really means to build relationships based on reciprocity and shared leadership.

Where communities have the autonomy and infrastructure to drive change. Where collaboration isn’t just a personality trait — it’s our national strategy.

Let’s make sure the next chapter of Canada’s innovation story includes all of us. And let’s be unapologetic about the power of being nice.

Sorry, not sorry.

Andrea Nemtin is the CEO of Social Innovation Canada, a leader in social finance and innovation, dedicated to driving systemic change through mission-based strategies and collaboration across sectors.

Engineers of the future need to be trained in disaster adaptation, mitigation and recovery

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Engineers of the future need to be trained in disaster adaptation, mitigation and recovery

James Olson, QUOI Media

“In Canada there was a town called Lytton. I say ‘was’ because on June 30th, it was burned to the ground,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to a packed climate summit. Temperatures in Lytton, a small town in the southern interior of British Columbia, had hit an alarming record 49.6C, before the wildfires erased all but 30 homes.

This heat wave was part of a larger heat dome that blanketed large swaths of BC in the summer of 2021. The Lytton fire killed two people, and displaced thousands. The heat dome event itself was responsible for 619 deaths across BC and today comprises the deadliest weather event in Canadian history.

Before Lytton, there was Fort McMurray, Alberta, where more than 90,000 evacuees fled a firestorm that ripped through almost 600,000 hectares and destroyed more than 2400 homes and businesses. Dry hot weather for days preceding the wildfires set the perfect conditions for a blaze so large and fast that even seasoned firefighters could not imagine the eventual scale of the devastation.

And yet these examples are only a few of the recent disasters that have beset Canada. In the same year as the Lytton fires and the heat dome, BC experienced historic rainfall and flooding that destroyed highways and rail lines and became Canada’s costliest weather disaster. 

Whether it’s climate change, natural disasters, global pandemics, energy grid failures, mass migration – and more, Canada must become more disaster-proofed and disaster-prepared.

We also need to prepare our leaders of today and tomorrow to become disaster-ready. Engineers have a role to play.

One hundred years have now passed since the creation of the ‘Iron Ring’ ceremony to induct engineers into a valued and trusted profession. Engineers have long been known for their ability to craft the infrastructure that makes up the backbone of our country – roads, bridges, pipelines, complex energy and computer systems.

But it’s imperative we change how we educate engineers to prepare them to serve Canada for today’s many increasingly complex challenges. That means educating leaders in the critical skills necessary for disaster mitigation, adaptation and recovery.

For climate change, mitigation has meant finding ways to keep the earth’s temperatures below a 2C increase. We’ve not been very successful thus far, so adaptation becomes increasingly important. 

Adaptation means addressing how we can change our communities to thrive through a 2C+ increase, by creating wildfire protections, creating heat safe zones and adapting our infrastructure to work properly in a warmer world, a world with more flooding and severe storms. This might mean creating low energy cooling solutions, urban forestry and decentralized water, information, food and logistics networks, and more.

Disaster recovery addresses the increasing global complexity of our challenges, and the competencies required to come back from disasters, such as combined policy expertise, international finance, geopolitics, governance, conflict, food security and logistics knowledge. 

When there’s nothing left, how do communities start again? It has been four years since the Lytton fires and the community has still not been rebuilt. After two years, only a single store had been rebuilt.

Canada must get better at responding to disasters.

We need to go beyond conventional engineering and leadership education to make this happen. Siloed education will no longer suffice.

The next generation engineering professional must learn to integrate technology and science, system level design thinking, policy and community engagement, integrate Indigenous knowledge with the social and applied sciences. 

Our future engineers must also safeguard the most vulnerable populations who are disproportionately affected by disasters. The heat dome disproportionately killed those who were elderly, poor, lived with disability, or lived alone. 

We don’t have to invent from scratch. There are models we can use to recast our education. 

The United Nations has established models to address how communities can recover after war — a meaningful tool to adapt for climate and other disasters. Or we can learn from ‘peace engineering,’ pioneered at Drexel and the University of New Mexico, which uses engineering with a complex systems approach to promote peace and social justice and address social and political issues that lead to conflict and violence. 

At the University of British Columbia, we’ve started on this path by creating new engineering programs that are collaborative, applied and multidisciplinary. We’ve brought together four schools: architecture, community and regional planning, nursing and engineering.  Together they tackle issues like coastal adaptation, carbon capture and sequestration, climate and health, clean energy and transportation and heat management, from multiple perspectives.

It’s time Canada had robust disaster response and recovery plans ready – and the people to deliver them.

James Olson is Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science at the University of British Columbia.

The Canadian dream does not have to be built — we are already living it

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The Canadian dream does not have to be built — we are already living it

Al Etmanski, QUOI Media

Canadian author, and Pulitzer Prize winner, Carole Shields once said: “It’s a wonder that so many people are good, not that so many people are evil.”  This is the focus we should carry through Trump’s repeated threats of economic devastation and annexation.

We are already living it.  The foundation of our response to the upheaval emanating from the south is our caring.

Every day, everywhere, just about everyone in Canada is taking care of a family member, friend, neighbour or stranger, as well as the land and the living world. People do so voluntarily, creatively and lovingly. Not because they are paid. Simply because that’s who they are.

That’s who we are. That’s the Canadian dream — caring is in our nature.

Here’s a snapshot of my neighbourhood. Darlene has invited her brother who is recovering from addiction and mental health challenges to live with her; Jane is an errand runner, confidante and power of attorney for her best friend who is in her final days; Beth is caring for her husband with Parkinson’s; Retired ‘bus driver Joe’ has a new gig in his retirement, driving little kids back and forth to gymnastics four days a week; Julie a young mom of three has become the premier environmental activist in our community campaigning to stop the trains carrying dirty U.S. coal from running through our community; Teresa and Cora oversee a community garden which they laughingly describe as a place where it’s impossible to steal anything because everything is free. Finally, there is Harriett, the glue of our neighbourhood who organizes music festivals and weekly coffee houses with live music.

There’s nothing unique about my neighbourhood. Other versions are happening where you live. Once you pay attention, you see caring everywhere.

These millions of daily acts of caring are what make Canada tick.

These acts of daily caring generate belonging, model hospitality, kindness and neighbourliness and nurture our children. 

My late wife Vickie Cammack described these caring relationships as love in action.

I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t been birthed, nurtured and sustained on such love. Behind every business tycoon, politician, artist, preacher, athlete, record setter, public servant, first responder, academic and tech wizard is a caring relationship.

Caring is not passive – it’s political.  Caring enlightens our strategies, our policies and our proposals: “Nothing in the universe ever grew from the outside in,” said Richard Wagamese.

That’s why we should celebrate, nurture and learn from caring in Canada.

Rick Mercer agrees: “There are so many people who keep our democracy moving in private and never get recognized. How and why someone gets involved shouldn’t be a state secret — it should be a state celebration,” he said.

Wab Kinew agrees too. Before he became Manitoba Premier he said: “I’ve traveled enough to realize there are brilliant people in every community who know solutions. They don’t need saviours, they need allies.”

Our caring nature is embodied in Marguerite d’Youville, founder of the Grey Nuns. She self-financed a social and health care apparatus in the mid-1700s to tend to wounded soldiers tossed aside because they were no longer of fighting value to the military governors; rescued babies left to die in the woods and took care of unwed mothers, people with disabilities, the elderly, prisoners, prostitutes and the poor.

It’s in Frederick Banting who gave the world insulin and didn’t charge a penny. And it’s in the hundreds of thousands who complete Terry Fox’s interrupted run every single year.

It’s in the open heartedness of community groups who came together to welcome 65,00 Vietnamese boat people in the 1970s and convinced the federal government to create a way for private citizens to sponsor refugees. That world-first innovation continues to make Canada the most welcoming country per capita in the world.

We see it on full display when disaster strikes. Our families, neighbours and colleagues are the true first responders helping each other out long before the firefighters and emergency crews get there. Think Fort MacMurray, east coast blizzards and ice storms.

Caring opens your heart. It inspires you to work 24/7. To stretch, to innovate, to make do with less. Caring reminds us that sacrifice doesn’t deprive, it endows.

Ask any parent raising children, mother nursing her baby, daughter caring for her father who has dementia, or husband caring for his wife who has a severe illness. They know that letting go of certain comforts is necessary and worth it in order for your life, the life of those you love and indeed all life, to survive and thrive.

Most of all caring teaches us how to grieve in response to the inevitable upheavals in our lives. Grieving teaches us that while our hearts may be broken in response to individual loss or community tragedy, they never shut down. In fact the opposite is true.

Cracked hearts sparkle like a mirror ball. Or the light in a Mary Pratt painting.

I’ve been a community organizer all my life. I’ve learned that popular support always comes before bold political decision making.  And popular support emerges when people realize they are part of something bigger than themselves.

Caring reminds us of the plurality we are. Of our vulnerability, if we go it alone. Of our interdependence. There is a direct link between caring for each other and caring for our country.

The basic unit of Canadian democracy is a caring relationship. It’s the ethic of care that unites us.  Our elbows are up. Our eyes are open. Our hearts are even wider.

Al Etmanski is a community organizer, social entrepreneur and author.

How employee ownership can help secure Canadian sovereignty

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How employee ownership can help secure Canadian sovereignty

Jon Shell and Michael Ras, QUOI Media

In 2024, about 400 companies in the UK were sold to their workers using a structure called an Employee Ownership Trust (EOT). That represented about eight per cent of all private company sales in the UK. Instead of being sold to outside investors or closed altogether, those companies will now remain domestically owned, keeping jobs in local communities and flowing future profits to workers.

As the threat to Canada’s sovereignty intensifies, we need policies that keep Canadian companies owned by Canadians. With so many business owners approaching retirement, and the Canadian dollar in freefall, Canada faces the risk of a significant sell-off of privately owned companies to Americans. Strong employee ownership policies can counter this, with little or no ongoing intervention by governments, by presenting an attractive alternative to business owners looking to sell.

Currently, there are very few employee-owned companies in Canada, due largely to tax and trust laws that have made these kinds of transactions difficult. In June of last year, the federal government started to address this by introducing an EOT structure and incentives that encourage uptake. The long-term goal is to capture the same proven, positive outcomes seen for employees, business owners and the broader community in the UK over the past decade.

However, Canada’s policy is tentative compared to the UK’s more robust approach. Our legislated $10-million capital gains tax exemption is set to expire by the end of 2026, far too soon given the lead time required in a business sale. It also includes a number of constraints and “red tape” provisions that have made it difficult or impossible for some business owners to access.

It’s a typically Canadian “let’s see how it goes” approach, but the time for that kind of dithering is over.

In the face of the American tariff threat, one of the few Canadian employee-owned companies is demonstrating why employee ownership is such a critical tool in building a resilient economy.

Friesens is a major publisher based in southern Manitoba that exports between 60 to 70 per cent of their books to the U.S. Facing the same headwinds as other Canadian manufacturers, their CEO Chad Friesen recently said: “You’re going to hear about job cuts and factory closures, but not at Friesens. Our objective is to keep our employee-owners as financially whole as we can for as long as we can.”

Companies owned by foreign or financial investors would never make an equivalent commitment.

Employee ownership also has a strong track record in the U.S., where a slightly different version of the EOT (called an Employee Stock Ownership Plan) launched in 1974. Almost 15 million Americans now have share accounts in about 6,500 employee-owned companies, with an average value of about $120,000.00 USD. Along with these extraordinary wealth outcomes, these firms are proven to be more resilient in recessions, be more productive, grow faster and keep jobs in local communities. Early data on the UK’s decade-old program show similar results.

Appealing to Canada’s workers is a clear priority for the two most-likely frontrunners in Canada’s next federal election. In the English language Liberal leadership debate, Mark Carney suggested that, under his leadership, it would be a “great time to be a worker in Canada.” And in a January video, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre went even further, saying that “instead of turning workers against business owners, we’ll turn workers into business owners.”

There is no better way to declare support for Canada’s workers than to help make them owners.

Each federal party’s platform should contain a commitment to extend and increase the EOT tax incentives and remove the unnecessary red tape from current legislation. On the stump, employee ownership provides a rare opportunity for leaders to offer a message of hope that workers and communities can survive and thrive amidst economic turmoil.

With Canada’s very sovereignty is at stake, we must invest in every approach to keeping Canadian businesses in Canadian hands. Simply matching the UK’s EOT success would see 300 Canadian companies sold to their workers each year; very few policies promise as powerful an outcome.

Employee ownership was a great idea in 2024. It has become an essential idea for Canada in 2025.

Jon Shell is Chair of Social Capital Partners and a Board member of Employee Ownership Canada. Michael Ras is CEO of Employee Ownership Canada.

Trump’s tariffs would upend Canadian healthcare – but we could use it as an opportunity for meaningful reform

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Trump’s tariffs would upend Canadian healthcare – but we could use it as an opportunity for meaningful reform

Jason M. Sutherland, QUOI Media

It is widely known now that American President Trump has been threatening widespread tariffs on Canadian products and services, and that this would have devastating economic repercussions for many Canadians.

But what has yet to be part of the national conversation is the impact tariffs would have on our health system. And what we should do to prepare for such an outcome.

Winston Churchill’s saying, ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’ is particularly apt. Canadians may see a crisis unfold in our commitment to sustain quality universal healthcare through a prolonged trade war; we should use such a crisis, should it arise, to open the door to new solutions.

What’s the connection between tariffs and our health system?

Economists have noted that a possible depression induced by tariffs would cause many Canadians to lose their jobs. Add to this the ripple effect of businesses going bankrupt because they rely on these Canadian consumers to survive. If tariffs stay in place for an extended period, widespread unemployment plus business bankruptcies would cause a precipitous drop in federal and provincial tax revenues.

Provincial spending on healthcare is already almost 50 per cent of all money spent by provincial governments. That always makes healthcare a prime target for governments trying to reduce their spending – something that would be exacerbated in a tariff-induced depression.

Yet provincial governments would have a difficult time finding ways to save money on healthcare as it is organized and delivered today.

Canada has more seniors than ever; Canadians are living longer with more medical problems; and recent population growth will continue to drive immense public pressure for ever-more healthcare. Governments in many provinces are also bound to multi-year wage increases for nurses and physician payments that in part redress recent high inflation.

And if a depression takes hold, hundreds of thousands of Canadians could also lose extended health benefits related to their place of employment, including insurance for dental and vision health, access to mental healthcare and coverage for prescribed drugs. Some Canadians would be forced to defer or forgo their and their families’ health needs. In some instances, this could lead to avoidable emergency department visits and hospitalizations that further crowd acute care.

Provincial and federal public drug and dental insurance programs would have to absorb many new enrollees and push up government spending.

In other words, if a prolonged trade war ensues, provincial governments will have to make tough choices. Governments will likely avoid cutting services that directly affect patients or cause longer wait lists.

The effects of government cuts on healthcare austerity will not be spread equally.

Services most vulnerable to cutting include rehabilitation and mental health services, public health and prevention efforts. Organizations that promote healthcare quality, standards or health information organizations will be targeted. Modernization efforts such as team-based primary care reforms will be postponed or scuttled.

So, what are the solutions?

Massive public debts and deficit financing may be the only route to ensure public access to the healthcare systems we have now, taking a page from the COVID-19 playbook. Doing so would maintain healthcare delivery system stability through preserving the status quo.

But if governments run massive public debts due to the high cost of healthcare, the public should demand fundamental reforms that improve health and well-being for all Canadians.  Let’s make use of the crisis.

Crises can open the door to new solutions. Provinces have been slow to change their healthcare systems over the past decades. Productivity in the healthcare sector has stalled and billion-dollar electronic medical record modernizations have not realized expected efficiency gains.

Governments should be emboldened to use the crisis as a foundation for significant reforms to their healthcare delivery systems.

New initiatives may include paying healthcare providers to keep their population healthy rather than paying for illness care, link health with social care and housing security, and acknowledge that mental health is as important as physical healthcare.

A multi-year vision should incorporate flexible health care budgets that can be moved across settings, organization types and across budget years to maximize the impact of spending on Canadians’ health.

A prolonged tariff war may never come to pass, but the fractures in our health system are already profound and would be amplified if a crisis arises owing to the tariffs. We shouldn’t give up our hard-fought right to universal healthcare, nor the impetus to dramatically improve it. 

Elbows up: we could turn such a crisis into rapid healthcare reform that would benefit Canadians for generations.

Jason M. Sutherland is Professor and Director of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

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