Institutional boundaries and the challenges of aligning science advice and policy dynamics: the UK and Canada in the time of COVID-19

This comparison of institutions of science advice during COVID-19 between the Westminster systems of England/UK and Ontario/Canada focuses on the role of science in informing public policy in two central components of the response to the pandemic: the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and the procuring of vaccines. It compares and contrasts established and purpose-built bodies with varying degrees of independence from the political executive, and shows how each attempted to manage the tensions between scientific and governmental logics of accountability as they negotiated the boundary between science and policy. It uses the comparison to suggest potential lessons about the relative merits and drawbacks of different institutional arrangements for science advice to governments in an emergency

El paradigma emergente en las políticas de cuidados a la salud: el caso de Canadá

El paradigma emergente en las políticas de cuidados a la salud: el caso de Canad

Separated at Birth: The Politics of Pharmacare for All in Canada and Medicare for All in the United States; Comment on “Universal Pharmacare in Canada”

Policy decisions about healthcare coverage in Canada and the United States in the 1960s placed two virtually identical systems on different evolutionary paths in the physician and hospital sectors. However, prescription drug coverage remained outside Canada’s single-payer model, and employer-based coverage continued to be the norm for the workforce population, as is the case across the broad healthcare system in the United States. As a result the current debate about pharmacare in Canada mirrors in political microcosm the larger debate on universal health insurance among American Democrats. In each case the near-term prospects for a single-payer plan appear slim