Public Policy Responses to the Pandemic, and Building Back Better

What are the health, economic, and social policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic?

How did these choices arise?

What comes next?

COVID-19 has sparked rapid policy responses to gaps in our social, economic and political foundations. The learnings from this crisis, and the solutions to help Canada rebuild, need to be captured as it plays out in real time.

Public Policy Responses to the Pandemic, and Building Back Better is an interdisciplinary virtual learning experience about the Canadian policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the debate around whether, and how, to “build back better” — to use the occasion of the pandemic to bring in other fundamental policy reforms.

You will learn the economic and social impacts of, and responses to, COVID-19 in Ontario and across Canada — as well as the ideas, tools, and skills available for each of us to shape the recovery.

Together we will explore a variety of topics:

• how long-term and temporary income support programs provided assistance for basic living expenses and helped prepare individuals for finding work;
• what gaps and perspectives are missing in the health and healthcare system to help us understand the transmission and spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 and SARS;
• what we need to do to help people inform themselves and not be misled; and
• whether Canada should, or even can, radically rethink some of its policies coming out of the pandemic.

Welcome & Introduction: What Are We Doing Together?

• Define key pandemic terms: pandemic, flattening the curve, herd immunity, and complementary frameworks
• Understand the use of traditional data collection tools and scenario modelling when identifying early signs of emerging threats like pandemics
• Recognize the socio-economic impact and relationship between public policy, public administration/governance, and politics

This module will help learners explore policy study characteristics that impact the public during crises like pandemics. By the end, learners will demonstrate an understanding of different policy goals that contribute to ending COVID-19.

As the exponential growth in the number of Covid-19 cases starts to sink in, the exponential growth in the economic calamity is also becoming apparent. It is unprecedented in our lifetime. The potential destruction of individuals’ economic lives, security and well-being is staggering. As governments try to deal with the health emergency, they are also dealing with an economic shock unlike any they have ever felt.

Unlike any other economic downturn

The number of Canadians who applied for Employment Insurance was almost 930,000 last week, compared to 27,000 for the same week last year. And as staggering as those numbers are, they dramatically understate unemployment because over ⅓ of Canadians who were employed two weeks ago are contract workers or the self-employed. They aren’t represented in those numbers.