Two years ago, we argued Canada pays insufficient attention to the promotion of good health and the collection of data and information on the health of Canadians. The focus has been on health care, the treatment and care of those already in ill health.
Policymakers could argue they did not have the full range of insights needed to implement a more comprehensive set of health policies at the time. However, thanks to a new report from Statistics Canada, there is no longer any excuse.
Unfortunately, the report clings to the custom of equating good health with the absence of disease, especially of chronic conditions, but does report on Canadians’ self-perception of their health status and…
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea.
Émile Chartier is credited with those words or similar, finishing with “…when it’s the only one we have.”
Canada has tried for nearly 80 years to implement “national pharmacare”—defined here as a fully public national drug insurance plan—without success. We should ask why.
One reason is an unrelenting insistence that only a fully public plan will work. Fifty years ago that may have been true. When Ottawa didn’t act, we found an alternative: provinces and employers stepped in.
Between us and a good-quality universal drug insurance plan lie four problems, all of which matter right now. The Liberal-NDP supply-and-confidence agreement promises…
In public policy, as in life generally, we often recognize mistakes by others more easily than we recognize mistakes we make ourselves. Italy just goofed big-time with a windfall tax on its banks, and Canadians should take notice.
Last month, the coalition government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced a surtax of 40 per cent on the profits of the country’s banks. The announcement triggered a crash in bank stocks – a loss of €10-billion in a single day – and a storm of criticism from investors, economists and elected representatives, including members of the coalition.
Ms. Meloni’s government has since backtracked, capping the amount at 1 per cent of bank assets, and exempting smaller banks. But the…
