Canada S Isotope Crisis

The ongoing medical isotope supply crisis is affecting more than Canadians' health. It not only puts at risk our aspirations to nurture a leading-edge innovative industry, it severely limits our options to help reduce the burden on future health care budgets. What got us into this mess is a tale of high minded optimism, missed opportunities and bureaucratic bungling. The more important question, however, is: how can we re-establish Canada's prominence, and secure at reasonable cost the potential benefits that medical isotopes will deliver for our future health'. Addressed in this collection are provocative essays from some of the world's top experts in nuclear physics and nuclear medicine.

A helpful study of pertinent issues relating to university education.

The international community has become increasingly interested in measuring the effectiveness of its activities in war-affected environments. This interest is partially motivated by a need to calculate the costs of these very expensive ventures and partially by the recognition that activities have not always been successful. While stakeholders are interested in measuring the effectiveness of their work in places like Afghanistan, they may be reticent to discover that their military, policing, and humanitarian activities are ineffectual or, worse, have had negative effects on recipient populations recovering from armed conflicts. Sarah Jane Meharg analyses why various mechanisms - results-based management, measures of effectiveness, log frames, essential task matrices - are used in attempts to reduce complex intervention activities to simple success stories. She argues that the stakeholders involved could benefit from a deeper understanding of the theories, concepts, philosophies, and assumptions of other stakeholders in the peace operations and crisis management environment. She suggests ways to achieve this understanding through the strategic exercise of measuring effectiveness in relation to organizational requirements and recipient population's priorities in post-conflict societies.Measuring What Matters in Peace Operations and Crisis Managementprovides policy advice on stakeholder approaches and advances the thinking on measuring progress in general. Primary field research for this book was conducted by Canada's Pearson Peacekeeping Centre.

This report explores the main reasons behind the unreliable supply of Technetium-99m (Tc-99m) in health-care systems and policy options to address the issue. Tc-99m is used in 85% of nuclear medicine diagnostic scans performed worldwide – around 30 million patient examinations every year. These scans allow diagnoses of diseases in many parts of the human body, including the skeleton, heart and circulatory system, and the brain. Medical isotopes are subject to radioactive decay and have to be delivered just-in-time through a complex supply chain. However, ageing production facilities and a lack of investment have made the supply of Tc-99m unreliable. This report analyses the use and substitutability of Tc-99m in health care, health-care provider payment mechanisms for scans, and the structure of the supply chain. It concludes that the main reasons for unreliable supply are that production is not economically viable and that the structure of the supply chain prevents producers from charging prices that reflect the full costs of production and supply.

As the world struggles to meet the growing international demands for electricity, green energy, and alternatives to fossil fuels, the nuclear power sector is experiencing global growth. Nuclear reactors are being designed and constructed at record rates, and Canada is joining the trend, with several provinces considering an expansion of their nuclear presence. Canada, the Provinces, and the Global Nuclear Revival critically examines Canadian nuclear policy in order to show how historic, environmental, economic, and political factors have shaped the direction of the nation's energy industry. Duane Bratt presents a comparative study of the Canadian nuclear sector - using a framework of interest-based coalitions - in its response to the global revival, analyzing nuclear development in Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The book also answers fundamental questions such as: Has Canada seized international opportunities in uranium mining, reactor sales, and cooperation with other countries in nuclear research? To what extent has the industry been consolidated through mergers and acquisitions, foreign investment, and the privatization of crown corporations? A state-of-the-art exploration of Canada's place in the rapidly shifting world of electricity production by an acclaimed expert in the field, Canada, the Provinces, and the Global Nuclear Revival is a major contribution to the international nuclear debate.

Since the inception and design of Canada's Employment Insurance (EI) program, the Canadian economy and labour market have undergone dramatic changes. It is clear that EI has not kept pace with those changes, and experts and advocates agree that the program is no longer effective or equitable. Making EI Work is the result of a panel of distinguished scholars gathered by the Mowat Centre Employment Insurance Task Force to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, and future directions of EI. The authors identify the strengths and weaknesses of the system, and consider how it could be improved to better and more fairly support those in need. They make suggestions for facilitating a more efficient Canadian labour market, and meeting the human capital requirements of a dynamic economy for the present and the foreseeable future. The chapters that comprise Making EI Work informed the task force's final recommendations, and form an engaging dialogue that makes the case for, and defines the parameters of, a reformed support system for Canada's unemployed. Contributors include Ken Battle (Caledon Institute of Social Policy), Robin Boadway (Queen's University), Allison Bramwell (University of Toronto), Sujit Choudhry (New York University School of Law), Kathleen M. Day (University of Ottawa), Ross Finnie (University of Ottawa), Jean-Denis Garon (Queen's University), David Gray (University of Ottawa), Morley Gunderson (University of Toronto), Ian Irvine (Concordia University), Stephen Jones (McMaster University), Thomas R. Klassen (York University), Michael Mendelson (Caledon Institute of Social Policy), Alain Noël (Université de Montréal), Michael Pal (University of Toronto Faculty of Law), W. Craig Riddell (University of British Columbia), William Scarth (McMaster University), Luc Turgeon (University of Ottawa), Leah F. Vosko (York University), Stanley L. Winer (Carleton University), Donna E. Wood (University of Victoria), and Yan Zhang (Statistics Canada).

Few people realize that Canada leads in the world in the production of radio isotopes, the raw material of nuclear medicine and high-tech scanners, and in their use in medicine and industry. In Isotopes and Innovation Paul Litt gives us an in-depth look at MDS Nordion, a company that started as the radium sales department of Eldorado Mining and Refining, the Canadian uranium producer that was a key strategic resource for the Allies during the race to build the nuclear bomb, and went on to become the world's leading producer of radioisotopes.