Johnson-Shoyama Series on Public Policy – serie

Welfare Reform in Canada provides systematic knowledge of Canadian social assistance by assessing provincial welfare regimes and emphasizing changes since the late twentieth century. The book examines activation, social investment, and economic inequalities and provides nuanced perspectives on social welfare across Canada's provinces in relation to trends and issues in the country and beyond. These conceptual, international, and historical perspectives inform in-depth case studies of social assistance reform in each province. The key issues of social assistance in Canada, including gender relations, immigrants, Aboriginal peoples, and the impact of activation programs, are addressed, as is the possibility of convergence taking place in provincial welfare policy.This book is the second volume in the Johnson-Shoyama Series on Public Policy, published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, an interdisciplinary centre for research, teaching, and executive training with campuses at the Universities of Regina and Saskatchewan.

Through Canadian and international perspectives, Bending the Cost Curve in Health Care explores the management of growing health costs in an extraordinarily complex arena. The book moves beyond previous debates, agreeing that while efficiencies and better value for money may yet be found, more fundamental reforms to the management and delivery of health services are essential prerequisites to bending the cost curve in the long run. While there is considerable controversy over direction and details of change, there also remains the challenge of getting agreement on the values or principles that would guide the reshaping of the policies, the structures, and the regulatory environment of health care in Canada.Leading experts from around the world representing a range of disciplines and professional backgrounds come together to organize and define the problems faced by policy-makers. Case studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Nordic countries, and industrialized Asian countries such as Taiwan offer useful reform experiences for provincial governments in Canada. Finally, common Canadian cost factors, such as pharmaceuticals and technology, and paying the health workforce, are explored.This book is the first volume in The Johnson-Shoyama Series on Public Policy, published by the University of Toronto Press in association with the Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy, an interdisciplinary centre for research, teaching, and executive training with campuses at the Universities of Regina and Saskatchewan.

Bringing together top scholars in the field, Universality and Social Policy in Canada provides an overview of the universality principle in social welfare. The contributors survey the many contested meanings of universality in relation to specific social programs, the field of social policy, and the modern welfare state. The book argues that while universality is a core value undergirding certain areas of state intervention—most notably health care and education—the contributory principle of social insurance and the selectivity principle of income assistance are also highly significant precepts in practice.

Bringing together top scholars in the field, Universality and Social Policy in Canada provides an overview of the universality principle in social welfare. The contributors survey the many contested meanings of universality in relation to specific social programs, the field of social policy, and the modern welfare state. The book argues that while universality is a core value undergirding certain areas of state intervention—most notably health care and education—the contributory principle of social insurance and the selectivity principle of income assistance are also highly significant precepts in practice.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that governments can quickly respond to a fiscal crisis without becoming mired in unproductive wrangling. But the pandemic has also revealed the limits of traditional policy instruments in stabilizing the economy, controlling inflation, and fostering economic growth. Fiscal Choices sheds light on the economic dimensions of COVID-19 and examines the state of Canada’s fiscal policy and fiscal health following the pandemic.The book covers a cluster of key fiscal policy topics: the overall capacity of government, the growth of inequalities, the management of sovereign debt, and the troubled institutions of federalism and parliamentary government. The book draws upon candid, in-depth interviews with over 70 former and current politicians, public servants, and academic experts who aim to establish a sustainable future within an accountable political system.The book argues that although those who are entrusted with the instruments of power are intelligent and well meaning, they are reluctant to take risks or abandon well-known, if poorly performing, formulas. It concludes with a set of predictions and prescriptions rooted in a realistic interpretation of Canada’s political economy. Ultimately, Fiscal Choices presents a sober assessment of federalism and parliamentary government as instruments of democratic accountability.