Health

"Support for a Canadian 'Vaccine Passport'" is the second piece in a six-part series focused on attitudes about COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy, public trust and support for government, and how this is all changing over time. The project is authored by Dr. Peter Loewen and is based on data collected by the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO).

“The Waiting is the Hardest Part” is the first piece in a six-part series focused on attitudes about COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy, public trust and support for government, and how this is all changing over time. The project is authored by Dr. Peter Loewen and is based on data collected by the Media Ecosystem Observatory (MEO).

"We're going to send our helpers in and we're not going to stop." The Kenora Chiefs Advisory, an Indigenous-led health and social services agency, got to work right away in the nine First Nations it serves to stop COVID from entering. And so far, it's worked.

In Spring 2020, threat actors wearing lab coats instead of trench coats were infiltrating our labs in hopes of stealing valuable COVID-19 vaccine research. It forced Canada’s top secret intelligence agency CSIS to step out of the shadows and warn those most at risk.

Prior to COVID-19, Prince Edward Island struggled to keep up with demand for mental health and addictions services. This account tells of the pivot to virtual care which sees P.E.I. with more psychiatrists on-call and more options for support. Good thing, because the long-term stresses brought by the pandemic have made these services more critical than ever before.

Little did Alberta Health Services' Digital Experience team know this moment would shift the province’s whole pandemic strategy, and become the core of Alberta’s COVID response. Their assessment tool with online booking and results would get attention from across North America, and spark a form of collaboration that would cast lasting doubt on the way things have always been done.

By shifting its policies on technology procurement and embracing a more collaborative development approach with Canadian innovators; government could also enable Canada’s technology sector to compete more successfully in global markets.

PPF's new series chronicles how public servants throughout Canada responded in real-time to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). First up: A new email notification service, Get Updates on COVID-19, turns traditional methods of government communications on its ear. How did it come to be in weeks, not months?

With COVID-19 raging out of control in the U.S., the last thing most Canadians want to contemplate is more entrants from abroad. But it could be a year before a vaccine arrives and much longer until it is administered globally. If COVID has taught us anything it is that, this time, we have to be ahead of the curve on border control.

Disinformation can stymie policy responses to public health, environmental threats and crises. COVID-19 provides a unique albeit troublesome opportunity to investigate phenomena like the erosion and corrosion of public trust through the spread of disinformation and misinformation (the former purposeful, the latter flowing from ignorance). PPF is working with partners and its members to understand the nature of the problem of science and health mis- and disinformation in Canada, map the range of current proposed solutions, and build the conceptual framework for new policy pathways to address the issues.

Participants of PPF and Telfer Executive Programs’ new Public Policy Leadership Program (PPLP) stopped in Smiths Falls for their Bright Spots visit to understand how the legalization of cannabis affects stakeholders at the local level and then heard from their own colleagues on how this complex policy came into being.

Canada can stem the tide of the opioid crisis. Among Canadians, there is hope that hastening access to treatments that work, learning from and scaling up best practices, and continuing coordinated efforts between all stakeholders will positively impact the pathways to treatment services - beyond just overdose treatment. This report discusses opportunities for policy makers to engage on harm reduction, equitable access to treatment and support, and collaboration and coordination following a PPF roundtable on opioid misuse in December 2018.

Canada is a great sporting nation, but we need values-based sport to prevent unethical practices from undermining the integrity of sport. Concrete actions must be taken by stakeholders in Canadian sport to make values-based sport the foundation of their policies and practices. This report outlines the game plan for government, media, corporations, philanthropists, educators, coaches and athletes.