If a mine is a nation-building project, why not universal pharmacare? Inside the big push to get Mark Carney behind it
The type of pharmacare most advocates want to see the policy evolve into is a universal, single-payer model, where governments would foot the majority of prescription drug costs for all Canadians… tens of billions of dollars Canada shells out on prescription medications annually would be better spent within the country’s borders, bolstering domestic production capacity… The gaps exposed by COVID-19 — the procurement chaos, supply chain woes, equipment shortages and expiring oversupply — make some believe pharmacare holds the potential to strengthen Canada’s autonomy and security, too.
Child & Family
Wait for core Ontario autism services tops five years: advocates
Families starting to receive funding now to pay for core therapies including applied behaviour analysis, speech language pathology and occupational therapy are people who registered for the program five years ago… more than 84,000 children are registered in the Ontario Autism Program to seek autism services and 19,600 of them are receiving funding to access core services… Less than one quarter of children registered for the Ontario Autism Program have been given access to the therapy that they were promised
The federal government tables bail reform bill: 5 ways to strengthen Canada’s bail system
We offer concrete solutions that will enhance fairness, public safety and democratic accountability…To build safer communities, the federal government should follow through on its commitment to invest in support services while also helping provinces better monitor and enforce bail conditions. Doing so will ease pressure on the legal system while improving outcomes for people and communities.
Education
It’s not just penny-pinching premiers that teachers are up against
When teachers call for reduced class sizes, more support and better teaching conditions — better learning conditions — they’re not being self-serving. They’re thinking about every kid in every classroom. They’re thinking about the collective future we want those kids to create. Too bad the politics of narrow ignorance keeps getting in the way.
Ontario’s colleges were founded to serve local and regional needs — have we forgotten that?
By the late 1980s… per-student funding had already fallen by roughly one-third. The trend accelerated in 1995 when $120 million was cut… Davis’s legacy is being dismantled by chronic underfunding. The future of our colleges depends on renewal. We must reclaim these values and call on our federal and provincial leaders to support a truly public system of higher education that serves the communities it was created to serve.
Employment
It’s no coincidence these 232 tariffs are aimed at every one of Canada’s high-tech success stories: auto, trucks, steel and other basic metals, soon to be joined by aerospace, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, industrial machinery and more… we must at all costs defend the successful high-tech industries we have — every one of which is now in Trump’s crosshairs.
Canada needs a sovereign wealth fund
This fund must operate as an investor – not a grant dispenser. It should back Canadian-owned businesses through direct investments, co-investments and fund commitments, in a way that attracts private capital rather than crowds it out… This is not about picking corporate winners. It’s about ensuring that industries essential to sovereignty remain anchored in Canada.
Equality
Reconciliation includes recognizing Residential Schools are not the only colonial atrocity
… Residential Schools were one part of a much larger colonial strategy to assimilate Indigenous Peoples and erase Indigenous cultures, languages, traditions, practices and governance systems… consider learning even more about the many other tactics. This way, we can acknowledge past harms, work to address current realities and look to foster meaningful engagements with Indigenous communities.
When mental-health diagnoses become brands, the real drivers of our psychic pain are hidden
The mental-illness health epidemic is growing alongside a crisis of economy and political legitimacy in Western societies. The distress and insecurity produced becomes another source of profiteering in the marketized economy where personhood is socially produced through individualized consumption… this enables distraction from social causes of distress such as poverty, inadequate housing, social injustice, discrimination, exclusion, and chronic financial insecurity; alongside militarism, and appalling levels of violence inflicted by governments on global citizens they control (or try to control).
Health
The type of pharmacare most advocates want to see the policy evolve into is a universal, single-payer model, where governments would foot the majority of prescription drug costs for all Canadians… tens of billions of dollars Canada shells out on prescription medications annually would be better spent within the country’s borders, bolstering domestic production capacity… The gaps exposed by COVID-19 — the procurement chaos, supply chain woes, equipment shortages and expiring oversupply — make some believe pharmacare holds the potential to strengthen Canada’s autonomy and security, too.
B.C. showed how to fix the family doctor crisis — but Ontario’s not listening
The real issue is that a growing number of family physicians — now 1-in-5 — opt out of comprehensive general practice and pursue focused roles, like ER shifts or walk-in clinics. The number of physicians rejecting cradle-to-grave care has nearly tripled since the 1990s… Ontario’s $1.8‑billion investment in Family Health Teams — partnerships linking family doctors with services like nurses, social workers and mental health providers — addresses these issues and improves care.
Inclusion
Canada will reduce international student permits by more than half, budget reveals
The 2026-28 plan will allocate 239,800 permanent residence spots for economic immigration, and 84,000 for family reunification programs, including the sponsorships of spouses and parents/grandparents. The share of skilled immigrants will go up from 59 per cent to 64 per cent, while spaces for protected persons and resettled refugees from abroad will drop from 68,350 this year to 56,200 in 2026 and 54,300 in 2027 and 2028.
The federal government recruits skilled immigrants to come to Canada, but then those immigrants see their credentials turned down by individual provinces or regulatory bodies… The increased training money will help mitigate a shortage of people trained in the skilled trades — a gap that is expected to grow over the next decade… The government also announced a temporary federal tax credit of up to $1,100 for personal support workers.
Social Security
A basic income can be a strong investment in mental health
Research shows how poor mental health is a direct consequence of poverty. Money not only helps meet people’s material needs but also alleviates their worries. Reducing poverty translates into significant savings for the economy and the public purse. Canada could save $4 to $10 for every dollar spent on mental health supports. Poverty is not caused by personal failings. It is the social environment people live in that has the greatest impact on life trajectories.
Why the Canada Disability Benefit won’t end disability poverty, and how it could
It won’t be a game-changer, but it could help many if eligibility and access expand and clawbacks are not allowed to erode possibly its entire value… Though the benefit will not fill the poverty gap for hundreds of thousands of people, it could still reduce their depth of poverty… If it is intended to fill the poverty gaps in provincial and territorial social-assistance programs, the benefit amount should reflect that… Poverty is a policy choice – one that is inconsistent with Canada’s human-rights obligations.
Governance
It’s time to admit our Charter rights are under attack
Too many premiers are testing citizens’ willingness to accept gross power grabs, the targeting of vulnerable groups for political purposes, the weakening of groups they dislike, by invoking the notwithstanding clause… Are they seeking to normalize its use? To normalize breaches of rights? … “What we’re seeing is an erosion of that very, very basic principle of human rights as a way to structure relations in society, and provide a check on government power”
When governments trample on our rights, the courts must be free to weigh in. Full stop
Can courts still declare whether a law that’s subject to the notwithstanding clause is unconstitutional? Doing so would have no effect on the law’s operation as long as the notwithstanding clause applied, but as a judicial declaration, it would constitute an authoritative statement, alerting the press and general public to active government efforts to violate Canadians’ rights.
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