Without health, life is very challenging. A country’s health system is likewise a critical piece in its culture and politics. Comparing health systems is difficult but there is general agreement that such systems should be accessible, efficient and successful in yielding good health outcomes. A recent study ranked the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and… (read more)

This will mark my 4th review of the pattern of world trade over the past dozen years. Previous efforts described exports among twenty countries in 2013, 2016 and 2020. For the first time, I will use the World Integrated Trade data rather than rely on The Economist magazine’s World in Figures summary.  As before, these… (read more)

Party platforms, or manifestos – as they are known in the United Kingdom, may be a thing of the past. The parties made no effort to get their total package of proposals costed and available to the public until the last 9 days of the election. The publication of these platforms and the submission of… (read more)

A key issue in the current federal election is helping Canadians purchase or rent a home. Each party has set out an approach for building more homes and making them more affordable. Whether they can make an appreciable difference in a $270 B industry is another matter. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have set… (read more)

The context of the current federal election in Canada is a little bizarre. The United States government is trying to extend its sphere of influence across North America and to reshore jobs lost to globalization over the last 80 years. What was supposed to be an election fought over changing a tired and out-of-touch Liberal… (read more)

Last year, I posed the question : “What new approaches will Canadian provinces bring to improving health care?”. Given the completion of 13 agreements between the federal government and the provinces and territories last spring, we now have information to answer that question. I worked from the strategies proposed by the Globe and Mail in… (read more)

Some of the consistent themes arising from the reports of Canada’s National Advisory Council on Poverty include: Of these, I would like to focus on Indigenous poverty and affordable housing – two of the more complex and yet urgent aspects of poverty reduction. Prosperity in a post-colonial Canada The main recommendation of the Council regarding… (read more)

In 2022, I was optimistic that poverty would be addressed in Canada because of the federal government’s 2018 poverty reduction strategy. They had set a new measure for poverty, where the price of a basket of basic food, clothes, housing and transport was set as the poverty line. This line is adjusted regionally and according… (read more)

I first started tracking the main flows of world trade in 2015. Following up in 2018, there were subtle changes in the export of goods from twenty of the largest economies. In today’s post, we will look at the initial effects of the trade deals and conflicts discussed in 2018 and the early impacts of… (read more)