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- ItemOpen AccessA Race-Based Approach to Housing Vancouver(2022-08) Gray, Jordan C.; Kwok, Siu Ming; School of Public PolicyThis study examines the City of Vancouver’s Housing Vancouver Strategy 2018–2027. It measures its design and associated actions against racialized housing data trends and literature to determine if the strategy by design can make significant progress toward closing racial housing gaps. The study draws on recent literature, census data, and data from municipal housing service providers. The evidence indicates that the Housing Vancouver Strategy has several promising actions to close racial housing inequalities in the local housing market. However, there are also ways in which it may unintentionally do nothing or even worsen racial housing gaps. Area for action includes collecting and disclosing race-based housing data and developing targeted racialized housing programs for Arab, Black, and Latin American residents. These actions are alongside the City, ensuring that existing settlement programs have more significant outreach to racialized newcomers to Canada.
- ItemOpen AccessValue Added Analysis and its Potential Impact on Canadian Military Procurements(2022-01) Montagnes, Joel S.; Boucher, Jean-Christophe; School of Public Policy; University of CalgaryThe Canadian Federal government is currently at a crossroads when it comes to managing its procurement projects for the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). The first choice involves using current practices which are resulting in procurement projects chronically running over budget and behind schedule. This can be attributed to prioritizing domestic economic and manufacturing development by demanding would-be vendors manufacture their capital assets in Canada along with excessive customizations of capital assets to “Canadianize” them. The second choice involves streamlining the entire procurement process. This includes taking the tasks assigned to multiple Departments in the Federal government and amalgamating them into one. It also includes choosing the best vendors and capital assets for procurement based on their merit, competency and quality of merchandise as opposed to their willingness to invest in Canada. The strategy that would best underpin and guide these procurement reforms is called, Value Added Analysis (VAA). To objective will be to make capital procurement projects stay within budgets and on schedule for completion and delivery. Currently, the National Shipbuilding Strategy (NSS), which is an ongoing capital procurement project for both the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and the Canadian Coast Guard Service (CCGS) is an excellent case study to show how aspects of VAA are already being implemented into managing capital procurement projects. The NSS also provides examples of how VAA can be further implemented into managing capital procurement projects.
- ItemOpen AccessAre Alberta's General Practitioner (GP) to Specialist Referral Pathways Aligned with Existing Principles and Best Practices for Patient Empowerment (PE)?(2022) Wong, Sylvia; Leslie, MylesLong wait times, inefficient care coordination, and patient disengagement have been identified as significant issues in Canadian specialist care (Liddy et al. 2018). This lack of patient engagement could be attributed to the common belief that patients do not have the right expertise (Baker et al. 2016; Brekke, Nuscheler, and Straume 2007, 18), which seems to be enshrined in the gatekeeping role that Canadian general practitioners (GPs) routinely play when referring patients to specialists (Forrest 2003). Whatever the origins and intents of deploying GPs to control access to specialists, poor performance in the GP to specialist (G2S) pathway not only delays treatment and care (Liddy et al. 2018), but it can also cause unnecessary harms (i.e., pain, stress) to patients (McCarron et al. 2019; Manafo et al. 2018). Indeed, poor transitions between GPs and specialists can lead to negative health outcomes (Yiu et al. 2015, 24), especially when patients face repeated, but necessary, transitions between HCPs throughout their care.
- ItemOpen AccessClimate Change and Migration Policy: An Analysis of the Gaps in the Canadian Response(2022) Wiskar, Shawn; Boucher, JCThis paper investigates the need for a Canadian public policy approach to climate migration. Using a literature review and undertaking two case studies, this paper reviews and compares the existing policy environment, applicable legal frameworks, and academic consensus on the climate-migrant nexus. Using the literature, similarities and differences between jurisdictions will be identified and used to facilitate a discussion regarding the possibilities for a Canadian climate migration framework. This paper finds that without public policy developments, Canada will be unable to provide substantive support and protection of climate migrants. Using an analysis of American and European frameworks, this paper concludes with four recommendations that will allow Canada to join and affect change on the international dialogue on climate migration.
- ItemOpen AccessBarriers and Pathways for Food Insecure Individuals to Access Mental Health Resources(2022) Singh, Jasmine; Edwards, MeaganThis study aimed to explore the connection between food insecurity and mental health and the barriers and pathways to mental health support for individuals experiencing food insecurity. This qualitative study included interviews with team members at key social organizations in Calgary, Alberta who work directly with food insecure clients. Barriers to mental health support for food insecure individuals were shown to be lack of access to a primary care doctor, racial/cultural barriers, and a prioritization of meeting basic needs over mental health concerns. The common themes uncovered from interviews, as well as literature, identified key recommendations to improve the pathways of food insecure people to improving their mental health. These key recommendations included improvement of access to basic needs such as a food policy, creating free community spaces, a universal basic income and a strengthening of social assistance. Other recommendations included incentivizing better collaboration across social organizations, enabling emergency room and primary care doctors to assist with the unique needs of these clients, and expanding the Canada Health Act to include mental health treatments for more meaningful support.