Lessons From Crisis
Overview
The government response to COVID-19 has highlighted the importance of policy learning in the face of uncertainty; meanwhile, varying provincial government responses throughout Canada suggest that officials are responding differently to the same uncertainty frameworks. In this project, we consider the role of public and elite understandings of risk (including how risk is communicated through various media), different structures of government (especially regarding governance of public health), and trust in/reliance on science. This project will contribute to theories of policy learning and participatory democracy, analyze the ways learning does and does not occur in crisis situations, and gain a better understanding of variation in Canadian pandemic responses, both among provinces and over time.
Visit the Lessons from Crisis project website for more information:
Featured Publications
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School Closure Decisions in Alberta and Ontario during COVID-19: Discourse and Data
The COVID-19 pandemic led to significant disruptions in Canada’s public schools, with sudden and prolonged school closures. Using publicly available data, we find that community-level rates of COVID-19 cannot explain the differences we observe in school closure decisions in Alberta and Ontario during spring 2021.
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Building trust means letting the public be part of COVID-19 decisions
Policy-makers who engage the public in “collective puzzling” and listen to its feedback will find more room for error as they navigate the pandemic.
