For immediate distribution – February 4, 2016
Montreal – The Institute for Research on Public Policy is pleased to announce the appointment of Jennifer Ditchburn as editor-in-chief of Policy Options.
An award-winning parliamentary correspondent, Ditchburn is one of Canada’s best-known and most respected analysts of politics and public policy. She brings to Policy Options two decades of experience covering the public debates that shaped the country, and a deep understanding of the complexity of the policy issues facing governments.
“I am delighted to welcome Jennifer to the Institute,” said IRPP President Graham Fox. “Throughout her career, she has demonstrated a unique ability to get to the heart of the story and an unwavering commitment to journalism as public service. Those values are critical to the success of Policy Options as it continues to establish itself as the premier online forum for thoughtful policy debate.”
Ditchburn began her journalism career in Montreal in 1995, as a reporter-editor for the Canadian Press. She went on to work in the agency’s Toronto and Edmonton bureaus, landing in the nation’s capital in 1997. Ditchburn made the leap to television in 2001 as a national reporter for the CBC, filing reports and participating in live broadcasts from across the country and abroad. She returned to the Canadian Press in 2006.
Ditchburn is a three-time National Newspaper Award winner. In 2015, she was honoured with the prestigious Charles Lynch Award for outstanding coverage of national issues. That same year, she was named one of the ten most influential Hispanic-Canadians.
She has been a frequent contributor to television and radio public affairs programs, including the CBC’s “At Issue” panel, Power and Politics, and The Current. She holds a bachelor of arts from Concordia University, and a master of journalism from Carleton University.
“I am thrilled to join the dedicated team at Policy Options and the Institute. The magazine is a positive, creative space where meaningful policy conversations take place,” said Ditchburn. “I look forward to fostering that intelligent exchange of ideas, and ensuring that the magazine remains a must-read for Canadians who care about public policy.”
Under her leadership, Policy Options will continue to expand its presence in digital space and bring new and different voices to the public square. It will continue to innovate in its use of new technologies to better inform policy debates, and will strive in all ways to reflect the diversity of Canada.
Her appointment is effective March 7, 2016.
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The Institute for Research on Public Policy is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal. To receive updates from the IRPP, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media Contact: Shirley Cardenas   514-594-6877   scardenas@nullirpp.org
For immediate distribution – February 3, 2016
Montreal – After an incredibly successful year at the helm of Policy Options, editor Dan Gardner is leaving the magazine to write his next book and take on a significant new assignment in the Prime Minister’s Office.
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During his time at the IRPP, Dan completed the magazine’s transformation into a fully digital platform for public policy debate. He greatly increased the number and diversity of authors who contribute to it, as well as the breadth of policy issues explored in its pages. Under his watch, Policy Options has become the leading digital forum for policy debate in Canada.
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At the PMO, Dan’s work will focus on advising the Prime Minister and his senior staff on analyzing complex information to arrive at better decisions. In other words, Dan is being asked to put into practice the methodology he described in his bestselling book,Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction (co-written with Philip Tetlock).
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“Working with Dan was a real pleasure, and we are all sorry to see him leave. But of course, I completely understand his desire to answer the call to serve. I want to thank him for his leadership and his contribution to the growth of Policy Options, and I wish him great success,” said Graham Fox, president of the IRPP. “Together with the talented Policy Options team, he created a multimedia web platform that now attracts over 50,000 page views per month. He leaves a magazine that remains committed to its original mission of vigorous and thoughtful debate, but that has been completely re-imagined for the digital age.”
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“It was an honour to take charge of an institution as venerable as Policy Options and a thrill to re-think it fundamentally and create something new for the digital era. Thanks so much to Graham and the terrific staff of the IRPP. I can’t wait to see how Policy Options evolves,” said Dan.
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The new Policy Options editor will be announced tomorrow.
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The Institute for Research on Public Policy is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal. To receive updates from the IRPP, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media Contact: Shirley Cardenas   514-594-6877   scardenas@nullirpp.org
For immediate distribution – January 6, 2016
Montreal – The economy is weak, the price of oil has collapsed, and the loonie is doing a swan dive, but Canadians are remarkably happy with the performance of the federal government and the general direction of the country, according to a new survey conducted by Nanos Research for Policy Options magazine.
A large majority (60%) rated the performance of the new Liberal government good or very good. That’s a record in the nine years the annual survey has been conducted. The previous high came after the Conservative victory in 2011, but that peak was only 40% positive.
More surprisingly given present economic woes, Canadians are almost as bullish on the general direction of the country. Sixty-three percent said Canada “is moving in the right direction” – only a hair below the 66% who said the same in 2007, when the economy was booming.
The most dramatic change recorded by the survey involves federal-provincial relations, which slightly more than half of Canadians felt had improved – a positive assessment more than double the highest response since 2007.
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Policy Options, Canada’s leading policy magazine, is published by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP). The IRPP is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal.
To receive updates from the IRPP, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media contact:   Shirley Cardenas   tel. 514-594-6877   scardenas@nullirpp.org
Montreal – Companies in Canada and abroad are increasingly restructuring their operations internationally through outsourcing and offshoring. Will increased integration into global value chains provide economic benefits for Canada? In an advance chapter from the forthcoming volume Redesigning Canadian Trade Policies for New Global Realities, IRPP research fellow and trade expert Ari Van Assche examines how firms are changing their international business practices and the implications for Canadian trade policy.
The chapter will be available on the IRPP’s website (irpp.org) on Tuesday, April 28, 2015, at 12:01 a.m. ET.
| Redesigning Canadian Trade Policies for New Global Realities, edited by Stephen Tapp, Ari Van Assche and Robert Wolfe, is the sixth volume of The Art of the State. Thirty leading academics, government researchers, practitioners and stakeholders, from Canada and abroad, analyze how changes in global commerce, technology, and economic and geopolitical power are affecting Canada and its policy. |
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 The Institute for Research on Public Policy is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal. To receive updates from the IRPP, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media Contact:           Shirley Cardenas  tel. 514-594-6877  scardenas@nullirpp.org
Montreal – The first Indian prime minister to visit Canada in over 40 years arrives tomorrow. Narendra Modi’s three-day trip is being hailed by leaders of both countries as an opportunity to broaden the Canada-India economic relationship.
Someshwar Rao, IRPP Research Fellow and author of the forthcoming study The Potential to Grow Canada-India Economic Linkages: Over-Sold or Overlooked?, is available for media comment.
For more details or to schedule an interview, please contact the IRPP.
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The Institute for Research on Public Policy is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit organization based in Montreal. To receive updates from the IRPP, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media Contact:   Shirley Cardenas   tel. 514-594-6877   scardenas@nullirpp.org
AÂ growing number of health professionals, patients, community groups and even politicians are calling for national pharmacare. But many Canadians likely wonder what pharmacare is and whether Canada is ready for it.
Let’s start at the beginning. Affordable access to safe and properly prescribed prescription medicines is so critical to patient health that the World Health Organization has declared governments are obligated to ensure such access for all of their citizens.
Unfortunately, Canada is the only developed country with a universal health-care system that does not include universal coverage of prescription drugs. The negative consequences for our health and economic wellbeing are significant.
Without universal coverage of prescription drugs, one in 10 Canadians cannot afford to fill the prescriptions their doctors prescribe. When patients don’t fill prescriptions they need, it hurts them and our economy because they end up needing more health care in the long run.
But pharmacare is about more than just drug coverage. Insurance companies can do that. What national pharmacare must do is to ensure sustainable, equitable and affordable access to medicines that are safe and appropriately prescribed.
In the Canadian context, this is a public responsibility. And, to be clear in this election year, it will require federal engagement–and not just in the form of cutting cheques for provincial pharmacare programs, but real leadership.
More so than other aspects of health policy in Canada, the federal government has responsibility for matters that affect the safety, availability, use and cost of prescription drugs. Here are four things the federal government could do to make national pharmacare work for Canadians:
1. Commit to a clear and comprehensive pharmacare plan. Not a patchwork of private and public insurance and not income-based or “catastrophic” drug coverage. Research has consistently shown those systems don’t work well and are unnecessarily costly.
Canada needs a universal, public, and comprehensive pharmacare system that will meaningfully integrate medicines into medicare in ways that lead to safer, more affordable use of medicines for all Canadians. We’ve known this since the 1960s. Time for a government to commit to make it their legacy for Canada.
2. Get on with the task of improving prescribing in Canada. About one in three seniors receives prescriptions known to pose health risks for older adults. The preventable problems of overuse, underuse and misuse of medicines cause one in five hospitalizations in Canada. Cutting these problems in half would save Canadians billions.
The federal government should fund the development and implementation of a national strategy to improve prescribing. Done in partnership with patients, professionals, and the provinces, this national strategy should aim to establish a culture of safety and appropriateness, to put an end to questionable drug marketing practices, and to put credible and usable information in the hands of patients, prescribers and policy makers.
3. Quit applying antiquated drug price regulations. We live in a world where most comparable health systems have abandoned the blunt instrument of price regulation in favour of more sophisticated tools of price and supply contract negotiation. When done well, negotiations with suppliers lead to more competitive prices and more assurances of a secure supply of the medicines the country needs.
The federal government should take the $11-million spent enforcing antiquated price regulations and invest it in joint capacity for negotiating, monitoring and enforcing contracts on behalf of public drug plans and hospitals from coast to coast. This would not only level the playing field within Canada, it would also make Canada much stronger on the world market.
4. Finally, sustainability of any system to encourage access to medicines depends to a great extent on timely and vigorous generic competition. Yet Canadian regulations create unnecessary barriers to generic drugs entering our market.
The federal government should create a clearer, faster and fairer path to generic entry following required periods of market exclusivity for patented drugs. This would save Canadians millions–and wouldn’t cost the federal government a dime.
If done right, a pharmacare plan would effectively integrate medicines into Canadian medicare and ensure that the Canadian principles of universal access to high quality, affordable healthcare do not end when doctors give patients prescriptions to fill. It is within reach with the right plan–and leadership.
Steve Morgan is a professor in the UBC School of Population and Public Health and an expert adviser with EvidenceNetwork.ca. On Feb. 27, he is presenting a webinar with the Institute for Research on Public Policy on the question, “Is Canada ready for a national pharmacare program?”Â
Montreal – Stephen Harper’s approval rating has reversed a two-year slide, jumping 11 points over 2013, according to a new survey conducted by Nanos Research for Policy Options magazine. The poll also revealed Canadians are slightly more positive about the direction of the country.
The 8th annual Mood of Canada tracking conducted in November 2014 showed that 37 percent of Canadians rated the federal government’s performance under Harper as “very good” or “somewhat good.” That’s up from 26 percent a year ago, when the Conservatives had spent the year reeling from a Senate expenses scandal that reached into the Prime Minister’s Office.
The percentage of Canadians who believe the country is headed in the right direction also rose 6 points – to 37 percent, which is however still the second-lowest number since the first year of poll in 2007. The mood of Canadians remains below what it was during the optimism of Harper’s first years in office: this year, 48 percent of those asked still believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.
“There has been a bit of a recovery in 2014 from 2013, but many of the variables are still net negative,” said Nik Nanos, chairman of Nanos Research.
The research was conducted between November 15 and 18, reaching 1,000 Canadians through a combination of land and cell phones as well as a random online survey. The results were statistically checked and weighted by age and gender using the latest census information and the sample is geographically stratified to be representative of Canada. The margin of error for a random survey of 1,000 Canadians is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
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Policy Options is published six times per year by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. The IRPP is an independent, national, bilingual, not-for-profit think tank headquartered in Montreal. To receive updates from the Institute, please subscribe to our e-mail list.
Media Contact:    Shirley Cardenas   tel. 514-594-6877   scardenas@nullirpp.org
