Disabled people know a lot about social isolation. Many – including those with intellectual and psychiatric disabilities – are relying on the success of COVID-19 containment strategies, and lives are indeed at risk if they are not taken seriously. However, public health measures that restrict visiting rights to those in institutional settings are putting many at risk in other ways.
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Science, Society and Policy
Professor at the School of Epidemiology, Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, uOttawa
Many governments, including Canada’s, have taken too long to recognize the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic when even days of delay can have large effects on the ultimate death toll. Our governments are only now recognizing that successfully flattening the epidemic curve means that we could be self-isolating for more than just a month or two.
Inaugural Director, ISSP (2010-2015)
Full Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, uOttawa
We all know the risk of crying wolf: if we do it too often then people will stop believing us. As a result, risk communicators must not cry wolf too often—but not too rarely either.
In troubling times, sound and timely science advice matters. It helps if you have trusted structures and institutions to rely on for such advice. Canada has been fortunate to have a public that largely trusts its knowledge and science actors.
Core Member, Institute for Science, Society and Policy
Professor of Evolutionary Biology, uOttawa
‘Don’t panic’ says the cover of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Sage advice in any time. Especially now.
To say COVID-19 has changed our lives seems a gross understatement. We are all feeling the impacts of social isolation, whether it is as benign as working from home or as drastic as quarantine, and wondering how long this will last. Anxiety is the new normal. Panic feels just steps away.
Senior Fellow, Institute for Science, Society and Policy, uOttawa
We’ve all observed the halting and surprisingly diverse approaches of governments around the planet to the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 - the official name of the virus causing the coronavirus disease COVID-19. (And yes, it would help all of us if WHO could take the advice of the weather services and come up with simple names for these things.)
Senior Fellow, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs University of Ottawa
Adapted from a Keynote Speech, CN-Tellier Forum on Business and Public Policy: “Working Together to Improve Canada’s Competitiveness”
I arrived in Ottawa in 1972. My first task was to evaluate the industrial R&D promotion programs of the then Industry Trade and Commerce and Defence departments.
Artificial Intelligence has skyrocketed into public attention with stories of promise and peril for humanity. This is the second instalment of a blog post in two parts that discusses AI’s origins and evolution to the present day.
Interview with Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Senior Fellow of the ISSP, University of Ottawa, to BNN Bloomberg News, commenting about the current state of Canadian-Chinese international relations.
Op-ed written by Professor Michael Orsini, Faculty Affiliate of the ISSP, uOttawa, with Professor Natalie Spagnuolo, Carleton University, for CBC News.
This review explores scholarly literature on polarization as a general phenomenon, as well as the state of knowledge over its extent and nature in the energy and environmental domain.
The Nunatsiaq News article, written by Jane George, with a quote by Professor Jackie Dawson, Core Member and Leader of the Arctic Change ISSP Research Cluster.
Decision-makers in the energy and environmental communities occupy two separate realities over energy transition in Canada. The report’s lead author, Positive Energy researcher Dr. Marisa Beck, uncovered the two realities by asking over 40 energy and environmental leaders about their use and interpretation of the term “transition”.
A melting Arctic is opening up Canadian waters and coastlines to the world. Canada needs a vision for how it will handle this new activity and build out the necessary infrastructure in previously inaccessible locations.
Jackie Dawson explains what a Canadian vision for the Arctic might include, and what makes crafting policy for Canada’s North such a unique challenge.
Patrick Fafard, a Core Member of the ISSP, has been awarded funding through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to conduct research on Covid-19. Professor Fafard will head up an international team of researchers that will investigate how senior government officials communicate public health advice. The research will also assess the extent to which the public understands and trusts government messaging. This research will contribute to public health response strategies for mitigating the spread of infectious disease in Canada, as well as in four other countries with similar health systems.
