More than 20 per cent of Quebecers currently don’t have a family doctor
By Krystle Wittevrongel and Maria Lily Shaw Quebec’s health-care system is suffering from poor accessibility. More than 20 per cent of Quebecers currently don’t have a family doctor. The overcrowding of hospital emergency wards and the long wait times that result are also notorious. A key to improving the health system’s capacity is to address…
Subsidize parents instead
In order to increase access to daycare services, the Quebec government recently announced the creation of 14,000 new subsidized daycare spaces over the next two years. But with 51,000 children on the waiting list for subsidized child care, there is not a single space available. And despite the government's good intentions, even this modest increase…
His campaign has a steep hill to climb
On the occasion of his 2012 departure from Quebec provincial politics, I wrote a column asking: Is it au revoir Jean Charest? Although Charest was relatively young (54) and had spent most of his adult life in politics, it was hard to see a future for him. Now he’s back. And he’s running for the…
The Conservative leadership hopeful is attempting to rewrite history
Jean Charest joined the federal Conservative leadership race on Mar. 10. His campaign team immediately began to tout his experience as a former Progressive Conservative leader and cabinet minister, and former Quebec Liberal premier. That’s a predictable strategy. What’s also predictable is that Charest and his team initiated the long, arduous process of attempting to…
Dragging Quebec’s health care system into the 21st century
Calls for substantial health care reform have been ringing across the province of Quebec. It’s time to answer those calls and transform our monopolistic health care system into a mixed, universal system that embraces the value of parallel resources to improve both access and quality of care for patients. The good news is these solutions…
It certainly isn't any sense of national purpose
As long as I’ve been following politics (which is almost as long as I’ve been alive), the question of what defines Canada has provided unsatisfying answers. Polls typically tell us that some combination of the Charter of Rights, our health care system, and the fact that we are not American top the list. Canadians generally…
What's next? A tax on fat people?
Our patience is running thin as we plod through yet another wave of COVID-19. We’re starting to get annoyed at political and medical leaders, who we loved and trusted at the beginning of the pandemic – and only because they haven’t got us through it yet. Deep down, we know that everyone is doing the…
A sensible government would immediately recognize that it is playing with fire
On October 15, I penned an opinion piece on Bill 96. It remains clear to me that this bill needlessly sows confusion regarding the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of anglophone Quebecers to receive health care in English, and would also prove a major hindrance to Quebec companies seeking to tap into the vast potential…
Much of Alberta's revenues end up in provinces such as Quebec via federal transfers
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre Nearly 62 per cent of Alberta voters endorsed removing equalization from the Constitution in a recent referendum. Constitutional scholar Ted Morton, a former Alberta finance minister, argues that the province has leverage to force the issue. Others argue that equalization has a weak constitutional status, which…
Quebec turning itself into an object of international ridicule
Just as the world is suffering through a natural gas shortage and prices are soaring, Quebec is thumbing its nose at the chance to become a leader when it comes to locally produced energy. Against all economic and even environmental logic, the Quebec government recently decided to definitively ban fossil fuel exploration and development in…
Quebec companies that do business abroad will have an incentive to base some of their more vital operations outside the province
Representing barely two per cent of the North American population, Quebecers have always had good reason to feel sensitive when it comes to the vitality of French. Concerns about linguistic and cultural assimilation have led to several waves of government intervention aiming to protect the language of Molière. Bill 96 is only the latest manifestation…
To attract the investment required to develop resources, mitigating the risks of policy uncertainly needs to be a top priority
By Jairo Yunis and Elmira Aliakbari The Fraser Institute The COVID recession has hurt Canada’s natural resources sector, with supply disruptions, commodity price declines and greater uncertainty regarding future demand. Not surprisingly, capital investment in the Canadian mining industry has dropped to its lowest level since 2009. Of course, business investment should be a key…
The Quebec system offers an opportunity to dive deeply into outcomes. The results aren’t promising for children
Advocates of state-run child care saw opportunity in the COVID-19 crisis. It’s an old idea but not a great one. Working parents returned home to care for their children, some able to continue paid work from home and others not. As a result, calls for universal child care grew louder than they had for 15…
Given that infections don’t by a long shot equal hospitalizations, civil libertarians are rightly sounding warning bells
On Sept. 18, Israel became the first developed country to launch a second COVID-19 lockdown. It came four months after the first lockdown – instituted in March – ended. How Israeli citizens have reacted to the unsustainable nature of renewed lockdowns is instructive for the Canadian jurisdictions that have increased a rhetoric of fear about…
The entire Democratic Party strategy – to make the election a referendum on Trump – now lays on the floor, discarded
In another October, in another democratic contest, a man’s disability – a man’s health – almost changed everything. In October 1995, Quebec was voting in a second referendum on independence. The federalist side had been winning – until Quebec’s separatist premier passed control of the campaign to the younger and more popular leader of the…