Latest Policy Bytes

November 3, 2014 - According to a recent report compiled by the Ontario Medical Association, 4,266 physicians, (52 per cent of all physicians today), and roughly 8.6 million patients are committed to a practice in an interprofessional primary care model.[i] The IPC model of healthcare was designed for several reasons, but primarily to provide patients with improved integrated access to care during evenings and weekends, and to encourage physicians to accept new patients.  This innovative model was contingent on transforming the methods in which primary care is funded. As the Ministry of Health and the Ontario Medical Association collaboratively move forward in its primary-care reform initiatives, there is a need to take a balanced view of not only the needs of the province’s physicians with those of the patients, but to access the systems accountability to taxpayers as well. Consequently, it is important to identify the payment methods currently in use, determine what so far might be problematic, and provide evidence-based recommendations in an attempt to monitor the vitals of such an essential system.

October 27, 2014 - School boards are the lowest rung in municipal politics –and much that goes on escapes the attention of all but the most politically-engaged northern Ontarians.

October 24, 2014 - Policy decisions shaped Canada’s rail system and helped define northern Ontario’s development in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some were models of intelligent public policy.  Others were questionable, but ultimately bore fruit when subsequent decisions corrected their flaws.

October 22, 2014 - If one transcontinental railway is good, two are better and three divine.

October 20, 2014 - Some members of the transportation policy community see big decisions looming for Canada’s rail industry. This is particularly so in Northern Ontario, where questions will have to be answered not just about the federally-regulated transcontinental and short line carriers, but also the province’s Ontario Northland and federally-owned VIA Rail Canada.  Add to this the transportation choices to enable the Ring of Fire’s development.

October 16, 2014 - Forty-seven years ago, perhaps in the outsized spirit of Expo 67, the retired major general and author Richard Rohmer put forward a bold proposal in Mid-Canada Development Corridor: A Concept. It described a vast landmass stretching from Newfoundland and Labrador across Quebec, Ontario, and the Prairies, to British Columbia and up through Northwest Territories and Yukon, occupying the area between southern settlements and the treeline—a band dominated by boreal forest. His idea was to implement a national strategy to develop and populate it.

October 14 - 2014 - It’s a common concern that Northern Ontario is not developing industries that will add-value to raw mining and forestry materials before they are exported for use elsewhere. So, why can’t we build processing and manufacturing facilities and then sell the value-added products to the world?

October 1, 2014 - It would be hard to find an adult in Northern Ontario who hasn’t heard of the Ring of Fire or doesn’t know what it promises for the North’s future. Most believe that long term prosperity for workers, industry and First Nations people is at their doorstep.

September 25, 2014 - Recently, Greater Sudbury councillors approved the purchase of land from the neighbouring Idylwylde Golf Course in order to add nearly one thousand parking spaces at Health Science North (HSN). The need for additional parking was driven by patient and visitor complaints that parking was too far away from the hospital, as well as removing the need for shuttle buses for employees and staff who currently park off site at the former St. Joseph Health Centre, (One could question the need for a shuttle when Sudbury Transit’s University via Paris bus already provides the same service).

September 24, 2014 - In an age of rising housing prices, increasing costs of construction material and fewer lots on prime real estate, the necessity of economising in the housing business is on the up-and-up. Technological advancements have been a part of reducing some of the costs associated with housing and the construction of new buildings, however; the hard costs of construction are relatively fixed, particularly in Northern Ontario. In order to overcome this issue, builders and planners worldwide have been investigating an alternative construction material that is recycled, economical, and virtually indestructible. It is called ISBU.