Research

Applying European governance mechanisms to Canadian health care federalism

Katherine Fierlbeck,

Department of Political Science 

Fritz Scharpf has documented, in some depth, the “double asymmetry” of European integration (1988, 1997, 2001, 2002, 2006, 2009). This theoretical analysis explains how a social union cannot be constructed in a federal structure built to accommodate a common market. The starting point for my project is that these dynamics increasingly describe Canadian federalism:  as Ottawa attempts to build a stronger economic union, it is undermining the possibility of a strong social union. This is increasingly clear in the field of health care. My hypothesis for this project is that some of the instruments developed within the EU to act as a counter to negative integration can be applied (and applied more successfully) to the attempt to maintain a national public health care system in Canada.

Research Output

• Comparative Health Care Federalism
  Edited by Katherine Fierlbeck, Dalhousie University, Canada and Howard A. Palley, University of Maryland, USA, June 2015
• The changing contours of experimental governance in European health care was published in the May 2014 issue of Social Science and Medicine. [PDF - 207kB]

International Mobility and Well-Being among EU Retirees

Jacqueline Gahagan,
School of Health and Human Performance

Liesl Gambold,
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology

Jerome Singleton,
School of Health and Human Performance

With the baby boomers entering retirement age, shifts in the demographics and lifestyle choices of the aging will become increasingly salient topics in government policy making and academic discussions alike in the EU and Canada. The project will examine the choice of retirees to relocate permanently outside of their natal country as a personal and economic retirement strategy. The research will use qualitative interviews with EU member policy makers, social and health service providers and diverse populations of retirees, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and two-spirit (LGBTQ2) populations as well as a critical analysis of health and social policies.

Outreach goals include publications and workshops presenting the EU data to Canadian policy makers and service providers so that healthy aging in place models can potentially benefit from the research findings.

Research Output

•  Op-ed on April 7, 2014 titled:
  A sunny prospect: outsourcing the elderly which appeared in The Chronicle Herald - Liesl Gambold [PDF - 515kB]
  
• Interview in the Aging Horizons Bulletin, July/August 2014 on her research with retirees. Read the interview with Liesl Gambold.
• Article Migration, Integration and Health
  for Aging LgbtQ2 Populations in the EU: a Strengths-Based Approach to Policy - Greyson Jones and Jacqueline Gahagan, International Archives of Medicine 2015
  [PDF - 192kB]

Energy systems and energy security in the EU and Canada

An energy system which is secure is essential for the social, economic, and environmental well-being of any jurisdiction.  Although Canada is a major energy exporter, parts of the country, notably the eastern provinces (Quebec and Atlantic Canada) are, like much of the European Union, heavily dependent on imported energy.  The activities proposed in this project are intended to encourage an exchange of both experiences and ideas between academics, policymakers, and members on civil society on how energy security can be improved in jurisdictions with limited domestic energy resources.

Planned project activities include an outreach workshop on addressing issues regarding energy supply and prices and climate change.  The workshop will be open to researchers and practitioners from the EU and Canada. 

Offshore Renewable Energy Governance in Europe and Canada

The offshore renewable energy project will involve collaboration among Canadian and European academics interested in governance issues in the offshore renewable energy context. Jurisdictions in the EU and Canada have begun to experiment with governance approaches, largely based on experience in other sectors. Examples include Scotland’s and Canada’s efforts on tidal energy, and Portugal’s work on wave energy. The work will build on a growing literature on these efforts. 

The project involves two workshops in the first two years to bring together researchers from the EU and Canada on these issues. In year three, we will be working toward a symposium on offshore renewable energy in Halifax, and a publication of papers presented at the symposium.

This project continues research on the relationship between trade and investment treaties and the social dimension in the federal and multi-level government systems in Canada and Europe. It will assess the ongoing Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) negotiations between Canada and the EU given the evolving linkages of trade and social policy during the fiscal crisis. It will develop the implications for federalism in both parties: federal-provincial relationships in Canada and EU-national states interactions in the EU. The implications for democratic practice will also be considered.

The activity will includes outreach activities in Ottawa, Brussels and Italy.  A workshop bringing together stakeholders in industry, NGOS, government and academia, in coordination with other EUCE centres, especially Carleton University where CETA issues are a priority. I will apply to participate at The European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC) as a Federal Scholar in Residence, and engage in academic exchange at the European University Institute in Florence.

Academic research and scholarship involving comparative taxation law in Canada and EU member states, and transnational / international taxation law as developed and applied in Canada, EU member states, and the EU as a whole.

Outreach will be a public lecture on offshore tax evasion and the global “crackdown.” Research will be conducted in two areas:

·         Offshore tax evasion in Canada, USA and the EU

·         Tax havens and state aid

This project will compare and explore Canadian and European Union conceptions (and balancing) of intellectual property, human rights, and innovation. Specifically, this project will propose activities to investigate case studies focused on two different aspects of IP, human rights, and innovation. The first, is a case study on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) an international treaty on intellectual property involving both Canada and the EU. The second, on IP enforcement regimes in both Canada and the EU, and how each balance innovation and human rights.

Activity 1: Panel Discussion on ACTA: Its Legacy for IP & Human Rights

Activity 2: Public Briefing on CETA and its Intellectual Property Provisions

Immigration countries struggle to maintain a balance between demographic concerns dictating the need for immigrants to address declining populations and economic priorities favouring the quest for combinations of compliant mobile labour, the highly skilled, and/or capital bearing migrants. Temporary foreign work programmes have expanded in many contexts. Adopting a transnational vantage point this project questions the implications of migration policy restructuring for migrants, their kin, civil society advocates, migration industry actors, and agents concerned to monitor migration and development agendas.

 An international dialogue between EU academics and migrant advocates and Canadian counterparts will explore the effects of neoliberal policies which deliberately link migrants’ economic goals to home-country development priorities. How do such agenda’s relate to migrant integration in the countries they live and work in temporarily? The Philippines, as a top source country for global migrants provides a model case study. Italy with its active migrant NGO sector provides one of several possible EU comparisons.

Managing migration and other flows of legal and illegal activities across borders is a key priority in the justice and home affairs policy domain both in Europe and North America. The outreach activities proposed in this project seek to foster a transatlantic dialogue between academics, policy-makers and members of civil society on the challenges and opportunities that cross-border flows of people and goods present for host societies, and the policy options available to government and non-governmental actors.

 Outreach will include a workshop on the topic of security and migration in Canada and the EU, with participation of academics and practitioners from the EU and Canada, and a regularly-updated online blog on the topic of border control in Europe.