Newly appointed minister of finance Chrystia Freeland faces the daunting task of putting Canada on the path to a more sustainable and equitable future. Inevitably, even while rightly continuing to run a large deficit for now, she will have to make some tough choices between competing, urgent priorities.

Ideas on Education and Childcare during COVID

Those with young and school-aged children are caught in an anxiety-inducing parent trap. Parents are having sleepless nights fearing for their jobs while also being worried about the health and well-being of their kids. But we argue that it shouldn’t be this way. Solving the Parent Trap is a policy series on transforming childcare and education featuring ideas from Janet Davis, Nigel Barriffe, Marit Stiles, Beyhan Fahardi and Maria Dobrinskaya and edited by Katrina Miller and Brittany Andrew-Amofah.

Canadian families are emerging tentatively from the cocoon of lockdown, quarantine, home schooling, remote working, and temporary income support—and are asking what comes next. While governments responded swiftly to support workers, families, and businesses as the pandemic began to take its toll, the response also exposed the stagnant inadequacy Canada’s social infrastructure.

Trying to find a silver lining in the current COVID crisis is not easy, but there is a growing realization around the world that the place to look is in the transition to a greener economy.

People are struggling. As front-line workers in emergency rooms, isolation shelters and clinics, we see how the COVID-19 pandemic has devastated health and livelihoods. We’ve witnessed the toll that the last several months has taken on workers, families, and marginalized communities.

Canada has done a good job curbing the COVID-19 curve, and after a months-long shutdown many people are eager to resume regular routines. In order to keep transmission rates low while we reopen, many regions are implementing preventative public health measures, such as mandatory masks in indoor public spaces. Paid sick days and paid sick leave are an essential component of a safe re-opening, to protect workers and mitigate future outbreaks.

Though it’s difficult to measure these things, we may well be witnessing the most widespread rollbacks of environmental protections in Canadian history.

The Institute’s Senior Policy Analyst Brittany Andrew-Amofah interviewed former Deputy Minister of Ontario & Manitoba Michael Mendelson on Canada's housing crisis in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and what housing solutions should be considered as Canada moves towards a recovery. Michael Mendelson is currently a Maytree Fellow. 

The federal government has just announced a new program to expand loans to struggling non financial corporations – the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility. It’s role  deserves serious debate.

Today, four out of five Canadians who have died from COVID-19 in Canada are linked to long-term care homes. The first death from COVID-19 in Canada was an elderly resident of the Lynn Valley Care Centre in British Columbia. It marked the first of dozens of outbreaks in long-term care homes in Canada that have taken thousands of Canadian lives.