The recent bout of inflation and interest rate increases appear to have brought about a particular phase of economic hardship that has spilled over into personal lives, and that hardship appears to be across the board in terms of demographic and income groups.
A key issue is that Canadians accustomed to a long period of stable inflation and low interest rates have taken this for granted and built it into their economic expectations. The recent spike in inflation and especially interest rates has been an inconvenient lifestyle surprise.
We have not thought out the economic and social impacts of the change we are unleashing when one provides not just a computer but a machine that replicates the human mind. The future could be as dark as our most dystopian sci-fi stories.
The decadent, irresolute, and unfocused West appears to have dealt with COVID after all, managed to develop the better package of vaccines, is solving its energy security issues, and is now rapidly coming together in cooperative behaviour to push back against both Russian and Chinese government assertiveness.
There is nothing preventing the federal government from coming up with its own indicators based on available provincial data and creating a new grant that would complement the existing Canada Health Transfer, which would remain operating as it has.
We are in the curious position of being one of the biggest spenders on health in the developed world and yet marked by growing shortages of services as well as mediocre performance on many health indicator outcomes compared to countries that are spending less than we do.
Who was able to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic largely depended upon the sector. For those that could, however, hybrid models of remote work are likely to persist given the preferences that have been formed.
Ontario and Canada in the aftermath of the strains of the COVID-19 pandemic are in a protracted health system crisis marked by waiting lists, ER shutdowns and shortages of critical…
The belief has persisted that the future would be one of excess labour supply and unemployment. Yet technological change and the pandemic disruption has actually made labour shortages a more pressing problem.
Canada has been simultaneously decentralizing and centralizing since the 1970s, becoming more decentralized at the federal-provincial level and more centralized at the provincial-local level.
