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Highlights: [•] Evaluation of new HWP accounting method leads to significant GHG emission reduction for Canada. [•] Use of harvested wood for energy and of construction lead to largest GHG savings. [•] A cascade-use for wood and paper products is paramount for further GHG improvement. [•] The end-of-life effect of using recycled waste wood for energy is delayed due to longer carbon uptake. [•] Cradle-to-cradle utilization of wood waste has an underdeveloped reduction potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Canada has had relatively high vaccination rates against COVID-19, specifically during earlier waves of the pandemic, vaccine hesitancy has continued to serve as a significant barrier to adequate protection against the virus and, more recently, booster vaccine uptake. This paper explores the processes underlying Canadians' perceptions of COVID-19 vaccines and their decisions to take or refuse them, as well as how public policy and health messaging about vaccination has influenced vaccination attitudes and behaviors. Our focus group interviews with 18 vaccinated and unvaccinated adult Canadians conducted during October 2021 reveal that, in some respects, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy conforms to prior knowledge about some of the factors that affect vaccine attitudes (e.g., the influence of known medical providers) but deviates from current theoretical frameworks regarding general vaccine hesitancy. Specifically, these frameworks emphasize a lack of scientific knowledge and literacy ("knowledge deficit" accounts) or individuals' inability to incorporate rational risk perceptions into initial emotional responses to vaccines ("emotionality/irrationality" accounts). In contrast to the knowledge deficit account, we find that expressions of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy were most frequently associated with an information surplus or inability to prioritize information from multiple and often contradictory sources. Furthermore, top-down pro-vaccination messaging often triggered significant pushback against what participants perceived as moral shaming of the unvaccinated. Our findings demonstrate the necessity for a new framework to understand and address vaccine hesitancy. A better theoretical account of vaccine hesitancy has important implications for future vaccination efforts, specifically within the context of new variants and low booster vaccination rates in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Canada, public insurance for physician and hospital services, without cost-sharing, is provided to all residents. Outpatient prescription drug coverage, however, is provided through a patchwork system of public and private plans, often with substantial cost-sharing, which leaves many underinsured or uninsured. We conducted a systematic review to examine the association of drug insurance and cost-sharing with drug use, health services use, and health in Canada. We searched 4 electronic databases, 2 grey literature databases, 5 specialty journals, and 2 working paper repositories. At least 2 reviewers independently screened articles for inclusion, extracted characteristics, and assessed risk of bias. The expansion of drug insurance was associated with increases in drug use, individuals who reported drug insurance generally reported higher drug use, and increases in and higher levels of drug cost-sharing were associated with lower drug use. Although a number of studies found statistically significant associations between drug insurance or cost-sharing and health services use, the magnitudes of these associations were generally fairly small. Among 5 studies that examined the association of drug insurance and cost-sharing with health outcomes, 1 found a statistically significant and clinically meaningful association. We did not find that socioeconomic status or sex were effect modifiers; there was some evidence that health modified the association between drug insurance and cost-sharing and drug use. Increased cost-sharing is likely to reduce drug use. Universal pharmacare without cost-sharing may reduce inequities because it would likely increase drug use among lower-income populations relative to higher-income populations. • There is a gap in the literature pertaining to the effects of drug insurance and cost-sharing in a Canadian context. • We conducted a systematic review of Canadian studies and found that there was consistent evidence that the expansion of drug insurance was associated with meaningful increases in drug use, that individuals who reported drug insurance coverage generally reported higher drug use relative to those who reported no coverage, and that increases in and higher levels of drug cost-sharing were associated with lower use. • Universal pharmacare without cost-sharing may reduce inequities in access to essential drugs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops a framework for a financial, economic, and stakeholder analysis of a residential rooftop solar net-metering program. The empirical focus of the paper is the net-metering program in Ontario, Canada, but the methodology is applicable to evaluating other public programs. The results highlight that without the Federal Government's subsidy for the initial investment cost, net-metered solar systems are not financially viable for representative households. Moreover, the stakeholder analysis reveals that for each additional net-metered system installed in Ontario, non-net-metered households experience financial losses of six times the benefits to the net-metered households. The net losses to the Federal Government of Canada and the Canadian economy are five and nine times the benefit to the net-metered households, respectively. The only stakeholder who benefits marginally is the Government of Ontario. In terms of environmental benefits, our estimate of the cost of greenhouse gas abatement by residential net-metered solar is 325 CAD per ton of CO 2 , which is significantly higher than the current (65 CAD in 2023) and future (170 CAD by 2030) national carbon price set by the Government of Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research pertaining to racial disparities for Black families in child welfare is relatively limited in Canada. Recent research reveals that the overrepresentation of Black families in Canadian child welfare systems typically begins at the reporting or investigation stage and continues throughout the child welfare service and decision-making continuum. This research is occurring against the backdrop of increasing public acknowledgement of Canada's historic anti-Black policy-making and institutional relationships to Black communities. Though there is increased awareness about anti-Black racism, there has been limited exploration of the connection between anti-Black racism in child welfare legislation and how this policy generates disparities for Black families in both child welfare involvement and outcomes – this paper seeks to fill this gap in knowledge. The objective of this paper is to explore the entrenchment of anti-Black racism within the child welfare system by critically assessing the language and absence of language within the guiding legislative and implementation policies. Utilizing a critical race discourse analysis method, this study explores the entrenchment of anti-Black racism within the Ontario child welfare system by critically assessing the language and absence of language within the guiding legislative policies that shape practice for Black children, youth, and families. The findings revealed that though the legislation does not explicitly address anti-Black racism, there were instances where the legislation indicated that race and culture may be considered in responding to children and families. The lack of specificity, particularly in the Duty to Report, has the potential to contribute to disparate reporting and decision-making for Black families. Policy makers should acknowledge the history of anti-Black racism that informed the development of the legislation in Ontario and move towards tackling systemic injustices that disproportionately affect Black families. More explicit language will shape future policies and practices to ensure that the impact of anti-Black racism is considered across the child welfare continuum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened and made visible the embodied consequences of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) inequalities and the relationalities of health in place. This paper combines insights from relational geographies and embodied epidemiology to explore psychosocial concerns among Ghanaian migrants in Canada due to their multiple and simultaneous roles in the WASH space in Ghana, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored this using narratives from in-depth interviews with 27 participants (16 women and 11 men) residing in Ontario, Canada. The case of Ghana offers insight into how social ties with home communities could provide a safety net during emergencies but could also affect the psychosocial wellbeing of migrants. Results revealed four interrelated psychosocial stressors, including social stressors, financial stressors, stressors related to perceived inequality and stressors related to the fear of infection during WASH access. The paper underscores the urgent need for research to move beyond local health implications of WASH inequalities and begin to prioritize how these social inequalities are embodied at distant locations. • The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the global health interconnectedness • Embodied subjectivities of WASH insecurity span across space and time • Migrants embody multidimensional WASH psychosocial stressors because of their social connections with home • Policy responses must address WASH subjectivities beyond the local [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A call for a new research agenda to more explicitly include justice in transitions. • A review of literature examining how different disciplines have addressed the concept of justice. • An analytical framework and set of recommendations for integrating justice in transition research and practice. This paper argues that transitions research more broadly needs to take more account of justice in its analysis. This paper draws primarily from environmental and energy justice literature to engage with the concept of justice in transitions research, as it seeks justice for people, communities, and the non-human environment from negative environmental impacts. This is achieved through different forms of justice: distributive, procedural, and recognition. Our paper concludes with reflections upon the application of a justice approach to sustainability transitions research and offer insights into a potentially new research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid development of new digital technologies for natural resource management has created a need to design and update governance regimes for effective and transparent generation, sharing and use of digital natural resource data. In this paper, we contribute to this novel area of investigation from the perspective of institutional change. We develop a conceptual framework to analyze how emerging natural resource data governance is shaped by related natural resource governance; complex, multilevel systems of actors, institutions and their interplay. We apply this framework to study forest data governance and its roots in forest governance in Finland and Canada. In Finland, an emphasis on open forest data and the associated legal reform represents the instutionalization of a mixed open data-bioeconomy discourse, pushed by higher-level institutional requirements towards greater openness and shaped by changing actor dynamics in relation to diverse forest values. In Canada, a strong institutional lock-in around public-private partnerships in forest management has engendered an approach that is based on voluntary data sharing agreements and fragmented data management, conforming with the entrenched interests of autonomous sub-national actors and thus extending the path-dependence of forest governance to forest data governance. We conclude by proposing how the framework could be further developed and tested to help explain which factors condition the formation of natural resource data institutions and subsequently the (re-)distribution of benefits they govern. Transparent and efficient data approaches can be enabled only if the analysis of data institutions is given equal attention to the technological development of data solutions. • We studied how emerging forest data governance is shaped by dynamics in forest governance. • Forest data institutions may support path-dependency or renewal of forest governance, depending on context. • Innovative data institutions may enable a dynamic governance continuum from closed to open natural resource data. • Future studies should focus on feedback effects of data governance on natural resource governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the perceptions and future imaginaries of a group of union members in Manitoba, Canada, concerning climate change, energy transition, and the roles of unions and workers in climate politics. Based on interviews with 30 rank and file workers carried out through the winter of 2020, the results suggest some starting points for a more active engagement between the labour movement and climate politics—an engagement that is central to climate justice, and that becomes more vital every moment as workers both participate through their waged labour in the production of ecological crisis, and stand to suffer intensely from both climate change and from elite-led energy transitions. • Unionized workers broadly agree with the characterization of "climate emergency." • Participants connect to climate change through expanded spatial and temporal considerations. • There is broad agreement that climate change is a key consideration in unions' protective role. • Union workers' future imaginaries of energy transition do not frequently engage with "system change" narratives. • Union workers characterize transition as something done to, rather than by, workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates stakeholder's perspectives about freight congestion in Canada's major metropolitan regions. Interviews with 28 Canadian stakeholders from different sectors are analyzed using Strauss/Corbin extended approach of symbolic interactionism with the objective of producing an explanatory theory to identify barriers to freight in Canada. By integrating emergent categories with a structured framework of theoretical propositions, we are able to offer insights to understand the perceived barriers to goods movement in the Canadian landscape, as well as to detail a framework of interventions to improve freight mobility. In total, 50 themes emerged as barriers to the movement of goods, which were grouped into nine subcategories, and four overarching categories which broadly frame the issues of goods movements as relating to high infrastructure utilization (Infrastructure Demand Outstripping Supply), the cost impacts of diminishing reliability of distribution (Physical Distribution Headwinds Impeding Commerce), rapidly growing regions and ineffective or absent policy support (Urgent Regulatory Encumbrances), and a lack of a robust data collection, analysis, and information sharing framework (Information and Data Management Complexities). These categories were considered in the frame of addressing goods movement barriers and were argued to be influenced by factors of cost, political risk, implement-ability, and maintainability. A framework was developed identifying four high-level interventions: data and knowledge mobilization; public-private collaborative freight evaluations; government funding and political support; and, capacity alterations: improvements and expansions. The key concepts of the framework are to collect and analyze data to inform public-private stakeholder evaluations of policy interventions, with government funding to support both knowledge generation efforts, policy actions and capacity investments. There is a significant need to expand data collection and information sharing, focus infrastructure investments on public transit and intermodal accessibility, and integrated policy development towards transportation and land use planning to address the physical and policy barriers affecting freight mobility and congestion. The emergent theory is contrasted with selected global regions to assess generalizability and the relevance of international perspectives to the Canadian environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Researchers seeking to identify public policies to reduce automobile use have frequently compared characteristics such as population density and freeway provision across metropolitan regions to identify differences, their causes, and their implications for automobile reliance. One frequent comparison has been between metropolitan regions in Canada and the United States given their similar contexts but differing modal shares. However, past studies have produced inconsistent findings with respect to how Canadian and American metropolitan regions can be distinguished with respect to population densities and freeways. In response to methodological concerns with past research, this paper measures population densities and freeways in the 57 North American metropolitan regions with at least one million residents. Two spatial scales (metropolitan region and central core) are used to measure overall density, population-weighted average census tract density, and density of the top 5% of the population. These same spatial scales are also used to measure the absolute and per capita quantities of freeway lanes. The paper provides methodological explanations using Los Angeles and Vancouver as examples. While Canada's metropolitan regions are commonly portrayed as denser and less auto-oriented than their US counterparts, the six largest of Canada's metropolitan regions do not have population higher densities and fewer freeways than all of the 51 largest US metropolitan regions. Indeed, this generalization holds only when individual results are combined to produce national averages, as there are numerous US metropolitan regions that have density and freeways in the same range as Canada's metropolitan regions. The paper discusses some of the differences and recommends approaches for future comparative research into the causes of variation in transport and land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• New carbon-sequestration geosystem paradigm proposed for screening CO 2 repositories. • Deposition, burial history 1st-order controls on repository attributes, traps, etc. • Genetic understanding of geology enables property prediction away from data control. • Case-study application to heavily industrialized region of onshore Canada. In this paper, I propose a new geoscience paradigm for evaluating potential carbon-sequestration targets. I introduce the term carbon-sequestration geosystem to study and describe portions of sedimentary basins where all the geologic components necessary for the safe and long-term storage of CO 2 are present. The purpose of this type of analysis, most appropriately applied at a basin-screening stage, is to derive a holistic, genetic, and predictive understanding of the geology – the depositional systems, structural setting and other factors that are direct controls on storage, injectivity, potential for induced seismicity, and other critical factors. To illustrate the concepts, I present a re-evaluation of the geologic carbon-sequestration options in Southern Ontario (Canada) where business and environmental needs, mostly associated with hard-to-abate industries, require urgent action. Legacy wireline-logs, core, and outcrop data are the main data sources available in this onshore setting. The results of this new, independent study are broadly similar to those of previous studies: the Cambrian section, a saline aquifer, is the most likely candidate to be a CO 2 repository. However, the methodology used identified several issues (e.g., stratigraphic heterogeneity, proximity to basement) that will need addressing by targeted data collection and/or analysis before site-selection for a test should be undertaken. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Conservation organizations use collaboration and confrontation to achieve goals. • An organization addressing urban bird collisions initially focused on bird rescue. • Soon incorporated data-backed advocacy to make buildings safer for birds. • Successes emerged gradually, and largely from collaboration. • Confrontation occurred indirectly through third parties using their data. To achieve their goals, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) frequently interact with public and private stakeholders. Interactions can be generally characterized as falling within a continuum of collaborative to confrontational approaches, with each approach having advantages and disadvantages. A more collaborative approach may lead to opportunities to share data and access funding; however an NGO may risk its goals becoming compromised. Similarly, a more confrontational approach can draw attention to NGO causes and effect change, but may limit opportunities for partnership. This paper considers how a NGO concerned with preventing bird-window collisions has balanced between collaboration and confrontation with municipal government and commercial properties. While this NGO's strategy has been largely collaborative, its experience also demonstrates that confrontational approaches, while less frequent and indirect, also have a role in attaining objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electoral success of populist movements in recent years has encouraged parties and politicians to incorporate populist themes increasingly into their discourse. While Canada has not been immune to these trends, populism has enjoyed relatively little electoral success in modern Canadian politics. A new People's Party fielded candidates in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections but failed to win any seats in Parliament. Some populist themes such as nativism or authoritarianism have not rewarded their proponents in Canadian elections. Another dimension, distrust of elites, politicians and the media, is more present in Canadian public opinion today, and was a part of past populist movements such as Social Credit or Reform. In this paper, we examine the structure and correlates of populist attitudes held by Canadians, utilizing data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies. In conclusion, we consider the potential for a populist political party or leader to enjoy electoral success in the Canada of today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jurisdictions around the world are responding the to potential of smart grids in different ways. This paper employs a multi-level perspective approach to socio-technological transitions to examine why the Canadian province of Ontario has seen a relatively smooth transition of smart meter technologies from the niche to regime levels as compared with other Canadian provinces, and other jurisdictions in the United States, European Union, and Australia. The paper also examines the reasons for Ontario's advanced legislative and policy framework around Smart Grid development, relative to those of other provinces. The complex institutional landscape around electricity that has emerged in Ontario since the break-up of the province's monopoly utility Ontario Hydro in the late 1990s emerges as a significant factor in both outcomes. The role of the province's municipally-owned LDCs spell out "local distribution companies (LDCs) as the primary agents for smart meter deployment, as opposed to a dominant vertically integrated utility, appears to have had an important mediating effect on public opposition to smart meters. With respect to Smart Grid policy, the diversity of high capacity institutional actors that now define the province's electricity policy landscape has facilitated the emergence of several interagency policy development niches. In a manner consistent with the concept of technological niches in the socio-technical transitions literature, the interagency status of these policy niches has shielded them from the regime level selective pressures that would likely have existed in a more unified institutional structure, and empowered new policy ideas to move from the niche to regime levels. These outcomes have significant implications for the understanding of socio-technological transitions, particularly around the role of institutional complexity in the emergence of niches for technology and policy development purposes and in niche to regime level transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Traffic congestion has a greater negative effect on females' life and work-life balance satisfaction. • Females appear to pay a price off their wages, in order to avoid traffic congestion. • The policy implications are discussed. At equal distance, the impedance created by traffic congestion strongly affects the duration of commute. Extant literature indicates that commute impedance negatively affects wellbeing, distinctly from the distance and the duration of commute. These negative effects are reported to be larger for women. Consequently, workers, especially females, must be willing to accept lower wages if reaching the job location entails fewer traffic congestions and accommodates a speedier commute. Using the Canadian General Social Survey of 2015 and the Census of 2016, the present paper assesses the wellbeing and wage consequences of commute impedance on men and women who drive to work. The study first demonstrates that the negative impact of commute impedance on wellbeing is greater for women. Second, consistent with the greater negative effect of traffic congestion on their wellbeing, women appear to pay a price off their wages, in order to avoid commute impedance. The policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The highly contagious COVID-19 virus spread across the world in a matter of months, beginning in the second half of 2019 and being declared a global pandemic by March, 2020. To limit its continued spread, large parts of economies around the world were shut down, including in Canada and the USA. These actions resulted in levels of unemployment and contractions in GDP not seen since the Great Depression. Superimposed on these truly extraordinary events have been global supply challenges which manifested themselves in an inability of governments to procure critical medical equipment, which exacerbated the health care crisis, increased protectionist sentiments, and led to new protectionist legalisation across many countries. Furthermore, the COVID-19 shock will reinforce trends that were already present globally to shorten supply chains and slow FDI growth, serving as an important tipping point that should encourage governments to consider policies to mitigate the impact of such changes on host economies. This paper considers how these economic, financial, and legislative developments will likely impact FDI patterns for years to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada is endowed with abundant lignocellulosic biomass from agriculture and forestry. These sources provide a foundation for the development of Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept which is supported by government renewable energy policy initiatives. However, the chemical structure of lignocellulosic biomass comprising carbohydrate polymers and lignin makes the structure recalcitrant to deconstruction, thereby constraining the ability of enzymes to convert these polymers into fermentable sugars without expensive and highly capital intensive pretreatment processes. The challenges are further compounded by the diversity of lignocellulosic biomass available in Canada, which typically necessitates commercial pretreatment pathways optimized for each feedstock type. In turn, these conditions constrain the development of viable business models for the commercialization of Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept. In order to address these challenges, Canadian researchers have continued to undertake research to develop pretreatment technologies applicable to several Canadian lignocellulosic biomass sources. The objective of this paper is to review contributions by Canadian researchers vis-à-vis the development of bioconversion pretreatment technologies needed to advance the commercialization of Canada's cellulosic biorefinery concept. These pretreatment technologies include physical, physico-chemical, biological, and processes that combine these methods. This paper also highlights the role of multi- institutional science and innovation collaborative approaches for advancing Canada's cellulosic ethanol biorefinery concept further downstream. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In 2015, a new Liberal Government came to power in Canada, elected on a platform that included legalization and regulation of cannabis for recreational purposes. Their legislation, based on recommendations from a Federal Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation, is due in early April 2017.Methods: This commentary utilizes Canadian Federal policy papers, previous literature, and internal and international agreements to examine two key areas critical to the development of a nationwide regulated market for cannabis in Canada; the need to overcome restrictions to legalizing cannabis in United Nations' drug control treaties, and the unique challenges that non-medical cannabis creates for navigating interprovincial trade policies in Canada.Results: Irrespective of UN conventions that appear to prohibit legalization of cannabis the Government is preparing to bring forward legislation as this article goes to print. At the same time significant squabbles impede the selling of even beer and wine inter-provincially in Canada. This paper identifies the challenges facing Canadian legalization efforts, but also shows how the legalization legislation may provide opportunities to engender significant change beyond the simple legalization of a specific drug.Conclusion: This commentary does not argue for any specific course of action for Canada, but rather explores the nuance of legalization absent from the declaration in the Liberal party platform. The paper argues that Canada's efforts may hasten the dismantling of the UN drug control structure, and provide renewed opportunities for intern-provincial trade in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars assert that Indigenous peoples across the globe suffer a disproportionate burden of mental illness. Research indicates that colonialism and its associated processes are important determinants of Indigenous peoples’ health internationally. In Canada, despite an abundance of health research documenting inequalities in morbidity and mortality rates for Indigenous peoples, relatively little research has focused on mental health. This paper provides a critical scoping review of the literature related to Indigenous mental health in Canada. We searched eleven databases and two Indigenous health-focused journals for research related to mental health, Indigenous peoples, and Canada, for the years 2006–2016. Over two hundred papers are included in the review and coded according to research theme, population group, and geography. Results demonstrate that the literature is overwhelmingly concerned with issues related to colonialism in mental health services and the prevalence and causes of mental illness among Indigenous peoples in Canada, but with several significant gaps. Mental health research related to Indigenous peoples in Canada overemphasizes suicide and problematic substance use; a more critical use of the concepts of colonialism and historical trauma is advised; and several population groups are underrepresented in research, including Métis peoples and urban or off-reserve Indigenous peoples. The findings are useful in an international context by providing a starting point for discussions, dialogue, and further study regarding mental health research for Indigenous peoples around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political scientists have recently noted that we live in an “age of apologies”, in which there is a surge of government apologies for certain wrongs. In Canada, there have been at least 10 major apologies since the late 1980s. This paper reviews these apologies, and the ways they articulate with multiculturalism as a state policy. While these apologies are often considered separately, and in political terms, in this paper I argue that it is important to consider them together. To do so helps illuminate some of the political economic dynamics shaping the rise in apologies and why and how this rise in apologies is co-extensive with significant neoliberal transformations in the Canadian state, and of Canadian ways of understanding diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults are at high risk from influenza and its complications, and are therefore an important population for prevention efforts. In Canada, public health efforts targeting influenza are multi-pronged and include vaccination programs as well as surveillance which informs the national surveillance reporting platform FluWatch run by the Public Health Agency of Canada. Recommendations regarding use of vaccines are made nationally by the National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) and by the Comité sur l'immunisation du Québec in Quebec, while vaccination programs are planned and delivered at the provincial/territorial level as opposed to as a harmonized national immunization program. NACI performs rigorous targeted literature reviews to inform their statements, and recommendations also vary by whether they apply on Individual (pertaining to decisions for individual patients) vs. Programmatic (informing policy decisions for implementation of publicly funded vaccination programs) levels. This unique context results in inter-provincial variation in vaccine schedules and funded vaccine products. In this paper, the importance of influenza vaccination for older adults is discussed; to provide insights from the Canadian context, the evolution of NACI evidence reviews and recommendations on influenza vaccination is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agroecology and food sovereignty have gained a significant foothold in the Global South; however, in the Global North, there are significant challenges hindering the adoption of these concepts. Drawing on participants' insights following an Agroecology Field School and Research Summit held in Ontario, Canada in 2018, this paper presents the context for agroecology's potential expansion in this country. We argue that three key dimensions must be addressed in order for the concept to be advanced: 1) Engagement in food system governance; 2) Building networks of solidarity between academics, activists, and food producers/harvesters; and 3) Realization of Indigenous food sovereignty. • Politics remain one of the most significant challenges facing agroecology in Canada. • Agroecology can strengthen food governance at community and government levels. • Agroecology requires solidarity between academics, organizers, and food producers. • Agroecology must address historical and ongoing injustices facing Indigenous people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Applying a justice in transitions framework to the case study of the Energy Futures Lab. • Operationalizing concepts of environmental justice in transitions projects. • Recommendations for researchers and practitioners for transitions projects. While the concept of 'just transitions' has become more and more prominent in academic and popular discussions of sustainability transition, these conceptions are often framed in purely economic terms, and focus on the economic impact on communities, regions, and nation-states. We argue that a broader conception of justice in transitions, and in particular energy transitions, is required. Questions such as who will win and who will lose as society transitions to more sustainable future, who decides what the transition will look like, how are those historically excluded from decision making recognized, and how are the interests of non-humans and future generations included are important to answer in order to ensure that concepts of justice are included in transitions processes. Answering these questions is critical in "ensuring that system transitions are not only more sustainable, but also more just" (Williams and Doyon, 2019, p. 144). In this paper, we apply the justice and system transition framework (Williams and Doyon, 2019) to the Energy Futures Lab (EFL). We find that while the EFL has made great strides towards justice in transition, the EFL is also a demonstration of the challenges of incorporating justice such as addressing issues of power dynamics and conceptions of diversity and inclusion. We also find that the justice and system transitions framework proves to be a valuable tool in assessing justice in transitions projects. Going beyond the common 'just transition' approach that focuses on distributive justice gives a richer conception of justice and ensures that procedural and recognition approaches are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief article presents a biographical sketch of Friedrich (Fritz) Grein, a Canadian quantum chemist who has had a long scientific career of more than 65 years. His first scientific paper was published in 1958 and his most recent one was published this year (2023). [Display omitted] • Biography. • Distinguished quantum chemist. • Exceptionally long career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This study examines a diverse range of life circumstances and outcomes for youth accessing homelessness services who have a history of involvement with child protection services. • Data presented is drawn from the 2019 Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey—which is the largest study ever conducted in Canada on youth homelessness (n = 1375). • This study presents risk factors that are likely to be associated with the first experience of homelessness, including adverse childhood experiences and involvement with child protection services. Youth leaving or being discharged from child protection services (CPS) are a particularly vulnerable population in Canada that could be at an increased risk of homelessness, which has many adverse consequences including declining physical and mental health, school disengagement, involvement with the justice system, and substance use disorders. In this paper, we examine the extent to which youth accessing homelessness services with a history of involvement with CPS differ from their peers who have not interacted with CPS using the 2019 Without a Home: The National Youth Homelessness Survey—which is by far the largest study ever administered in Canada on youth homelessness (n = 1375). This examination includes a diverse range of life circumstances and outcomes, including quality of life, relationships with friends and family, criminal records, education, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Furthermore, controlling for demographic characteristics, we present risk factors that are likely to be correlated with youth homelessness, including ACEs and the CPS history, and conclude by discussing policy implications and proposing future research avenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the articulation and mobilization of competing notions of energy (in) justice and energy future visions in the struggle over the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMX) in British Columbia, Canada. The TMX is a controversial fossil fuel project because it leads to the appropriation of First Nations lands, gender violence, and the unequal distribution of the socio-environmental costs of tar sands operations. Despite these impacts, the Canadian state argues that the TMX contributes to economic growth, job creation, and increased tax revenues, thereby legitimizing tar sands expansion on Indigenous lands. Drawing upon literature on Indigenous climate/energy justice, we problematize conventional understandings of energy justice and energy futures by examining multiple, interconnected, and often neglected dimensions of justice in the TMX conflict. Through critical discourse analysis, this paper explores how First Nations opposing this pipeline mobilize different notions of justice to envision alternative energy futures. Our study shows how they challenge Canada's fossil fuel future vision by asserting jurisdiction over the lands crossed by the TMX and demanding the cancellation of this pipeline. Centering counter-hegemonic perspectives in discussions about tar sands development provides a starting point for imagining and building more just energy futures. • Indigenous notions of justice problematize Western hegemonic understandings of energy justice. • Energy justice involves Indigenous self-determination, gender justice, and community-led renewable energy development. • First Nations discourses of justice challenge Canada's fossil fuel future vision. • Indigenous energy futures are based on multiple interconnected dimensions of justice. • Just energy futures involves dismantling the settler colonial logic underpinning the TMX project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Census-based deprivation indices have been widely used in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and UK to measure area-based socio-economic inequalities. This paper examines the indicators used in census-based area deprivation indices using a political ecology approach. We question whether the current indicators of deprivation derived from census data are meaningful for the all age groups and minority groups in the population, with a particular focus on deprivation indicators used in New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. We comparatively reviewed methodological papers and reports that describe the indicators of deprivation in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada and the UK from 1975 to 2014. We consider the relationship between the notion of standards of living and measurements of deprivation and explore how hegemonic cultural constructs are implicit in measures of deprivation that privilege a Eurocentric, ageist and gender normative construction of statistics. We argue for more political ecological analyses to studying the relationship between social inequalities, geographies, health inequities and political economy to transform structures of oppression and inequality. This requires turning the analytical gaze on the wealthy and privileged instead of defaulting into deficit models to account for inequality. Studies of deprivation and inequality would benefit from understanding the processes and operations of power in the (re)production of socio-economic and health inequities to inform holistic strategies for social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) is a provincial consortium of twenty-one publicly funded universities in Ontario, Canada. A consortially-built platform called Scholars Portal is our digital library for archiving ebook content and making it available 24/7 to university students and faculty. An Ebooks Committee has responsibility for coordinating the consortial acquisition of ebooks, within the context of an Information Resources Committee. This paper discusses the consortial strategy and philosophy for ebook licensing in OCUL, which involve a focus on ownership and local loading rights, for dual purposes of preservation and immediate access. Key processes, tools, and accomplishments of this innovative service model are highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Material intensities within single-family dwellings have coefficients of variation ranging from 13% to 160%. • Concrete basements are the largest driver of material use by mass and building envelope by volume. • Zoning ordinances incentivize high MI construction. • Understanding the variability in MI facilitates communication of its impacts on LCA findings, bottom-up MFA or circular economy studies, and similar. The need to reduce resource use in the built environment is widely recognized, but quantitative understanding of material use in buildings is limited, especially at neighbourhood and city scales. Existing bottom-up material inventories largely rely on typology-based methods, using representative buildings with little quantification of variability in material use. They also typically focus on advancing material replacement or recycling with less attention to reducing material use. This paper quantifies the material intensity of 40 single-family wood framed dwellings in Toronto, Canada. Design and construction drawings from the Toronto Committee of Adjustment and local building codes were used to estimate material quantities for each building. The variability in material use and intensity is explored per building, floor area and number of bedrooms and the largest drivers determined to identify opportunities for building design modifications to meaningfully reduce material intensity. Variability in the quantities of construction materials used within the single-family dwellings studied is large, with coefficients of variation ranging from 13% up to 160%. Concrete basements are the largest driver of material use by mass (mean 56% of total material mass) and building envelope insulation by volume (37%). This paper advances our understanding of the range of material intensities within a single building type in one city and the largest drivers of material use within single-family dwellings. This provides valuable information for including variability in typology approaches to bottom-up urban material intensity and insights for policy/design pathways for reducing material use in single-family dwellings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This article answers criticisms about the malleability of the resilience concept. • The three necessary features of the resilience concept are clarified. • A parallel concept, 'resistance', is introduced and its necessary features defined. • Introduction of 'resistance' reinforces both what 'resilience' is and what it is not. • Clarifying resilience as distinct from resistance has implications for policy. Despite criticisms that emphasize the ambiguity surrounding its definition and applications, the concept of resilience is featured prominently in studies of regional economies and regionally-based industries. This paper builds on this literature through a case study of Canada's automotive industry, an old industrial region (OIR) situated primarily in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. It also provides heightened definitional rigour to the concept of resilience and in so doing, advances the concept of 'resistance.' We argue that resistance better characterizes regional economies and regionally-based industries whose competitive advantages have eroded, are resistant to change, and remain locked into trajectories of slow decline but persist through shocks, disruptions and interventions, policy-oriented or otherwise. The clarification of resilience as distinct from resistance carries significant implications for policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite frequent calls for Integrated Management (IM) of coastal and marine activities, there is no consensus on the 'recipe' for successful adoption and implementation, and there has been insufficient evaluation of successes and failures of IM to date. The primary rationale for IM is to overcome four major deficiencies of sector-based management: a) management of diverse activities by different agencies using different approaches, b) management generally focused on a subset of primarily ecological objectives that do not properly articulate or evaluate social, cultural, economic and institutional objectives, c) no mechanisms to evaluate or advise on trade-offs among objectives of activities in relation to objectives and d) no mechanisms to evaluate the cumulative effects of all managed activities. To help overcome this gap in knowledge, here we draw on our collective experiences working in Australia and Canada to develop and articulate a framework to help guide the practical implementation and evaluation of IM, which we define as: ' An approach that links (integrates) planning, decision-making and management arrangements across sectors in a unified framework, to enable a more comprehensive view of sustainability and the consideration of cumulative effects and trade-offs.' We argue that IM will be most easily and effectively achieved by linking and modifying existing sector-based plans in an overarching IM initiative that has nine key features: 1) Recognition of need for IM, 2) A shared vision by stakeholders and decision-makers for IM, 3) Appropriate legal and institutional frameworks for coordinated decision-making, 4) Sufficient and effective processes for stakeholder engagement and participation, 5) A common and comprehensive set of operational objectives, 6) Explicit consideration of trade-offs and cumulative impacts, 7) Flexibility to adapt to changing conditions, 8) Processes for ongoing review and refinement, and 9) Effective resourcing, capacity, leadership and tools. Drawing on these features we then articulate a process for the implementation and evaluation of IM that recognises five phases: i) Preconditions and drivers of change, ii) Intentional design and institutional rearrangement, iii) Enablers and disablers iv) An implemented IM process, and v) Review of IM performance and modification. Combination of the nine features of IM with the five phases in IM development provides a framework for implementation and a lens for evaluation of IM processes. We suggest that this framework provides a guide to the appropriate design of practical IM, which will assist in overcoming the current management deficiencies and improve the sustainability of marine resources in the face of change. • Sector-based management cannot adequately address trade-offs and cumulative effects. • Integrated planning and management is required for holistic sustainability. • Integrated Management can build on existing management arrangements across sectors in a unified way. • This paper provides a 'recipe' or framework for successful implementation of Integrated Management. • Nine key features and five phases of implementation provide a lens for evaluation of Integrated Management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infant mortality is a metric influenced by societal, political and medical advances. The way vital events are collected and reported are not always uniform. A lack of uniformity has disadvantaged some groups in society. In Canada, a multi-jurisdictional vital statistics system has truncated our ability to produce infant mortality rates for the Indigenous population. To understand how this evolved, this paper outlines the history of infant mortality, generally and internationally, and then documents the efforts to harmonize the collection and reporting of vital statistics (births and deaths) in Canada. Following this analysis is a historical review of vital event reporting for Canada's Indigenous population. A major finding of this paper is that racism, reframing, and jurisdictional posturing has limited our ability to accurately estimate live births and infant deaths for the Indigenous population. To improve Indigenous infant mortality estimation, Canada's governments need to transcend multijurisdictional challenges and fulfill international reporting obligations to Indigenous communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to find the determinants of Canadian international patent activity at the industrial level. The paper achieves this goal in two steps. In the first step, Canadian worldwide patent applications are mapped into industry classifications. The paper draws on three different methods (Johnson, 2002 [13]; Schmoch et al., 2003 [22]; and Lybbert and Zolas, 2013 [16]) and two different data sources (EPO PATSTAT and OECD Triadic patent families) to do this task. In the next step, Canadian patent applications abroad are modeled by using a modified gravity model. The empirical results suggest that the industrial R&D and value added of Canada and destination countries as well as industrial exports are significant factors of Canadian patent activity abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social inclusion of the illicit drug user. It does this through a comparative examination of policy orientations to the social inclusion of people who use drugs. Six policy documents from Canada and Scotland produced in the years 2000 and 2001 were systematically sampled from 42 known documents. A poststructural content analysis adapted from the work of Maarten Hajer and mapped onto an analytic frame derived from Nikolas Rose's Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self is conducted. Within the years considered, drug policy texts from Scotland signaled a more punitive approach to drug use and a less socially inclusive approach to people who used drugs than drug policy texts from Canada. The differences in policy directions identified were in keeping with a priori interpretations of each country's broad approach to illicit drug use and to the social inclusion of the illicit drug user, if not to social inclusion itself. Methodologically, combining the approaches of Hajer and Rose proved complimentary and useful as well as promising for future application to the content analysis of public discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common perception of a foreign service career emphasizes the role of high-ranking diplomats traveling the world to engage in the high politics of statecraft and negotiation. Critical geographic scholarship, however, has recently turned to examine the more mundane, quotidian, and regularized work of foreign policy professionals in consulates, embassies, and foreign ministries. This paper builds a historical and institutional understanding of the work of Canada's foreign service officers, examining how ideals, practices, and structures related to professionalism, elite status, expertise, and collective bargaining matter for articulating diplomats' self-identity, and how this shapes and is shaped by institutional change in the Canadian state. We look first at the changing "institutional culture" within the foreign service, especially how FSOs understand their work and its relationship to the foreign ministry as a workplace, and how this workplace has changed through institutional shifts in the departmental configuration housing the diplomatic corps. We then examine the role of the Professional Association of Foreign Service Officers (PAFSO), which represents and bargains on behalf of foreign service officers in Canada, in shaping Canadian foreign service officers' sense of themselves, their work, and their place in the Canadian state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on findings from our exploratory qualitative study that aims to advance knowledge around access to and experiences with abortion services among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. We applied an Indigenous methodology to engage with 15 Indigenous Peoples across Canada utilizing a conversational interview method. Our study was informed by an Indigenous Advisory Committee consisting of front-line service providers working in the area of abortion service access and/ or support across Canada. We conducted conversations from September and November 2021. Participants identified with Métis, Cree, Dene, Inuit, Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Mi'kmaq nations, across nine provinces and territories. Participants spoke to six themes encompassing challenges and potential solutions around abortion access experiences among Indigenous Peoples in Canada. These included (1) logistical barriers, (2) poor treatment, (3) stigma, (4) impacts of colonialism on attitudes towards abortion, (5) traditional knowledge, and (6) follow-up care and support. Our study demonstrates that Indigenous Peoples experience abortion access barriers that are different than non-Indigenous Canadians, and that these barriers are closely linked to colonialism. Indigenous knowledges and practices that honor reproductive choice that pre-dates settler colonialism, must be brought forward into today to enhance the quality of abortion care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies barriers and opportunities that Indigenous women in Canada face in energy, mining, and forest sector employment through a review of scholarly and practitioner literature published between 2000 and 2022, and 10 in-depth interviews conducted between May and August 2021 with Indigenous women working in various capacities within (or knowledgeable about) natural resources industries in the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Our findings reveal that it is important to understand the intersections of gender, culture, ethnicity/race, language, and class to respond to the challenges Indigenous women face in natural resources employment. Some of the barriers that Indigenous women encounter in these industries are similar to those faced by non-Indigenous women (glass ceilings, lack of mentors, for example). Indigenous women encounter the added dimension of racism (based on Indigenous status) as well as limitations based on geographic location. Our recommendations for improving the status of Indigenous women in natural resources industries in Canada include implementing specific targets for Indigenous women in professional, technical, and senior administrative positions; enabling the Native Women's Association of Canada to serve as an information and employment conduit to industry associations and employers; and creating mechanisms to enable Indigenous women who live off-reserve to access quality employment opportunities. Enabling Indigenous women to access skilled, well-paid employment in natural resources should be considered a key priority and opportunity for governments, resource development companies, industry associations and gender equality advocacy organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the distribution, stratigraphy and chronology of landslide deposits within the Gouffre Valley to provide a long-term context for the 1663 CE M 7.0–7.5 Charlevoix earthquake, Charlevoix-Kamouraska Seismic Zone (CKSZ), southern Quebec, Canada. Our mapping utilized a 1 × 1 m digital terrain model, and we interpreted deposit age and stratigraphy from 30 new AMS radiocarbon ages, supplemented by 51 regular radiocarbon ages and 23 dendrochronology ages compiled from previous studies. These data provide a robust chronological connection between the 1663 CE earthquake and large-scale landslide deposits that cover about 24 km2, extend about 20 km along the valley bottom, and originated from separate source areas. Eight, relatively small-scale (less than 0.48 km2), prehistoric landslide features are also present in the Gouffre Valley, including three dated landslides, aged between about 7950–7300, 6595–6087, and 1310–1200 cal BCE, a poorly-constrained deposit aged between 4782–4452 BCE and 1663 CE, and four landslides of unknown age. There is no evidence to support an earthquake trigger for any of these prehistoric landslides. Instead, the widespread deposits associated with the 1663 CE earthquake represent the only multi-event, landslide signature in the Gouffre Valley. This, in combination with a long gap between early postglacial and late Holocene mass movement activity in several nearby lakes, is consistent with the 1663 CE earthquake being the largest to occur in the CKSZ over the past about 10 ka. • Large-scale landslide deposits present along lower 20 km of Gouffre Valley. • Robust connection between age of landslides and strong 1663 CE earthquake. • No clusters of older, pre-1663, similarly-aged landslides in valley. • 1663 CE earthquake is largest to occur in CKSZ over the past roughly 10 ka. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to an understanding of overseas professional development of teacher educators through an analysis of the learning experiences of a group of Chinese teacher educators (CTEs) in Canada. Drawing on qualitative data, research findings reveal specific areas of knowledge are deemed by the CTEs as essential for enhancing their own practice and noteworthy characteristics of their approaches to learning overseas. The CTEs' sense-making processes also provide insights into the complexity of overseas learning and the necessity of "unlearning" long-held beliefs and practices, which enables the development of new ideas, knowledge, and skills. • This paper analyses the overseas learning experiences of teacher educators from 31 key Chinese teacher universities. • The teacher educators identify approaches that are essential for the improvement of Chinese teacher education. • Their professional learning is characterised by a pragmatic search of solutions to problems in China. • Their sense-making of overseas learning illuminates the complexity of cross-boundary interaction. • Analysis of cultural differences reveals nuanced but important aspects of professional development in international context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Labour geography has yet to pay full attention to the experiences of public sector workers and their employer (the state). This article addresses this lacuna and provides some insight into the labour geographies of public sector workers through an empirical analysis of the centralization of governance, employment relations, and collective bargaining in Ontario, Canada’s publicly-funded elementary and secondary schools. This case demonstrates how one particular group of public sector workers – teachers – and their unions located and exercised agency in the arenas of politics and collective bargaining through a rescaling of their activities from the local to the provincial level. The paper also argues that the rescaling of politics and collective bargaining is problematic. Questions remain regarding whether or not Ontario’s teachers were able to increase their aggregate bargaining power through centralization or merely transferred agency and authority from one scale to another. Moreover, the paper engages with the fast-developing geographies of education literature, and is consistent with an outward-looking approach that links education to wider political and economic processes. In so doing, it extends the scope of the geographies of education to the employees of publicly-funded schools and their administrative bodies, and suggests value a theoretically- and empirically-informed dialogue between geographers interested in education and those interested in labour. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The paper addresses a critically important area in Canadian immigration and health from both a social and a spatial perspective. It employs multilevel and contextual approaches to examine the social determinants of immigrant health as well as the place effects on self-reported health at a regional and neighborhood scale. The data come from the raw microdata file of the 2005–10 Canadian Community Health Survey (a random national health survey) and the publicly available Canadian Marginalization index based on the 2006 Census. Three populations are compared: Canadian-born, overall foreign-born, and Chinese immigrants. The results suggest various degrees of association between self-reported health, individual and lifestyle behavioral characteristics, and neighborhood material deprivation and ethnic concentration in census tracts. These factors contribute differently to the reported health of Chinese immigrants, Canada's largest recent immigrant group. A healthy immigrant effect is partially evident in the overall foreign-born population, but appears to be relatively weak in Chinese immigrants. For all groups, neighborhood deprivation moderately increases the likelihood of reporting poor health. Ethnic concentration negatively affects self-rated health, with the exception of the slight protective effect of Chinese-specific ethnic density in census tracts. The multilevel models reveal significant area inequalities across Census Metropolitan Areas/Census Agglomerations in risk of reporting unhealthy status, with greater magnitude in the foreign-born population. The vast regional variations in health among Chinese immigrants should be interpreted carefully due to the group's heavy concentration in large cities. The study contributes to the literature on ethnicity and health by systematically incorporating neighborhood contextual effects in modeling the social determinants of immigrant health status. It fills a gap in the literature on neighborhoods and health by focusing on ethnically disparate groups rather than on the general population. By revealing regional disparities in health, the paper adds a spatial perspective to the work on immigrant health. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: A variety of studies have focused on the effect of competition in broadband markets on increasing broadband penetration rates. Few studies however have focused on the extent to which competition also results in innovation in the marketplace, as demonstrated by increased broadband speeds, and other improvements that provide value to broadband users. This paper considers the effectiveness of market competition as a means of encouraging broadband providers to offer innovative services that meet citizens’ increasing needs for affordable high quality and high speed broadband connectivity. The study focuses on the provision of broadband services in Canada, a country where consumers were early adopters of broadband and where the policy environment has encouraged competition in the broadband market from its inception. Drawing on data from the OECD and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the paper demonstrates that Canada’s regulatory regime does not appear to be sufficient to enable a competitive marketplace that results in the provision of innovative broadband services. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In this paper, a comparative review of the community forest models prevailing in two countries is made: the province of British Columbia in Canada and Cameroon in Central Africa. A series of assessment criteria emanating from community forest attributes in both jurisdictions were identified and employed as a basis for assessing and comparing the performance of both models. Results of this study revealed that fundamental similarities and differences exist in the two models and none of the models is superior to the other. However, it is argued that when both models are evaluated against specific criteria, one model often exhibits some sort of dominance vis-à-vis the other. To conclude, the paper prescribes a series of recommendations for improving the efficiency and quality of the community forest model in both jurisdictions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The expert-based approach to landscape assessment developed in North America during the 1970s is still largely used in planning. It has proved its usefulness for the protection and the management of landscapes with remarkable visual attributes. However, facing growing social demands for the quality of surroundings, ordinary landscapes also raise great challenges for planning. But, to what extent is the expert-based approach to landscape assessment able to capture the value of these ordinary landscapes? What might be the more appropriate method for this purpose? This paper addresses these questions through an empirical research project in areas of intensive agricultural use in Quebec (Canada). The aim of this research was to measure and compare the ability of an expert-based approach and of a lay people-based approach, also named experiential approach, to capture the most valued components of ordinary landscapes. These methods were applied to two study areas. The first one has no recognised landscapes in any planning document while the second one has recognised landscapes for regional tourism. Forty-six inhabitants and an expert were invited to evaluate the landscapes of the study areas. The results have allowed comparison of the components valued by the expert and by the inhabitants as well as the criteria used in the assessment. They revealed differences between the expert and the lay people assessment. For inhabitants, the value of ordinary landscapes is based on a set of criteria related to emotion, to everyday experience and to their intimate knowledge of places. Thus, the formal visual criteria used by the expert appear to be clearly less important in the evaluation by lay people. As the expert perspective in landscape assessment is more closely associated to the experience of an individual which cross the territory (ex.: tourist), this paper concludes that to capture the value of ordinary landscapes in a planning perspective, a combination of approaches is necessary. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Has strategic environmental assessment (SEA) finally reached a point of maturity in Canada? Or, is it still stumbling to find its place in the impact assessment family? Strategic environmental assessment has been ongoing in Canada for a number of years, both formally and informally, and under a variety of labels and institutional models. The result is a system of SEA that is diverse, founded on a range of principles and frameworks, and not well understood. This paper provides a critical review of Canadian SEA systems and practices. To accomplish this objective, a manageable and diverse set of past and recent SEA and SEA-like frameworks and applications are described and critically analyzed based on a set of input, process, and output evaluation criteria. Results suggest considerable variability in SEA experience and value added. This is due in large part to the institutional and methodological pluralism of SEA, the boundaries of which are not well defined. Under the federal system, since the formalization of SEA, many applications have been disappointing in light of broader SEA good-practice principles and criteria. Indeed, some of the better examples of SEA have neither carried the SEA name tag nor occurred under formal SEA requirements. Further, many of the same challenges to project-based impact assessment also plague the development and value added of SEA. Of particular concern is the systematic separation of SEA from downstream decision inputs and assessment activities. As Canada commences review of its federal SEA Directive in preparation for the next generation of SEA, this paper reflects on what it has achieved in the prior. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Canadian Medicare, the government financed national health care system, is seen by many as enhancing both social welfare and competitiveness. If true, this will broaden and further existing conceptions of competitiveness in Canada and beyond. Moreover, it will have important implications for the ongoing debate in the social sciences about institutional convergence and path dependence. The central focus of this paper is to evaluate this claim: Medicare’s impact on competitiveness, evaluated by using investment attraction as a proxy, is determined through reference to detailed case analysis and the insight into investment behavior gained from interviews. This paper concludes that Medicare makes a difference for certain reinvestment decisions but no difference for location and initial investment decisions. Several implications are drawn from this finding: Medicare’s impact on reinvestment decisions may stop certain Canadian firms from investing elsewhere but likely would not attract new investment into Canada from abroad. Industries with high labor costs will extract a disproportionately large benefit from Medicare; so, this type of institution is a source of competitiveness to certain industries if not an overarching source of regional competitiveness for Canada. I conclude that, no matter the size and scope of the competitive benefit, social institutions such as Medicare must be considered when evaluating regional competitiveness, having thus far been ignored by mainstream academic competitiveness theories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]