FROM THE EDITOR

Someone should have reminded President Donald Trump that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a boxer. After being dragged into the ring for an incredible weight class mismatch, the government should be complimented for escaping disaster by striking a new trade agreement (USMCA) in September. Following a draining ten-round bout of negotiations, brought about by the US-imposed forced destruction of an existing NAFTA agreement, the government stood tall and salvaged a long-standing mutually beneficial trading relationship. Prime Minister Trudeau and Canada may have been outmatched but not outclassed.

Now, the government must return its focus to the many other fights ahead on the Card. At the Sixth Estate and on Before the Bell we continue to explore those issues ringside.

In this issue we start with the prospect of a national pharmacare program. Dale Smith highlights the season premiere of Before the Bell in his piece Universal Pharmacare: Prescribing a Solution, recapping the jurisdictional challenges, costs, and now ramifications of extending intellectual property protections in the new USMCA - all elements Dr. Hoskins will have to consider when he completes his report next spring.

And Pamela Fralick, president of Innovative Medicines Canada, argues in Getting it Right on Pharmacare that any universal pharmacare program must have three pillars: be patient centric, responsive, and provide value and sustainability.

Next, in Accelerating Cleantech in Canada, a Sixth Estate Spotlight on growing the cleantech sector, Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, used the platform to make a major funding announcement. The session, in conjunction with the annual public meeting of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, looked at the broadening scope of cleantech companies in Canada.

Finally, in separate sessions in advance of the US midterms, Before the Bell looked at two areas that are expected to have a major impact on the outcome: millennial voter intentions and the role of the media. Special expert guests included John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, and Emmy award-winning journalist Betsy Fischer Martin, now executive director of the Women and Politics Institute at American University. Providing a Canadian perspective to discuss if what we are seeing in the US is a harbinger for our own upcoming election was David Coletto, CEO of Abacus Data, and Shawn McCarthy with the Globe and Mail. You can read their opinions in Millennial & US Midterms: Passionate but are they predictable and Media Today: Media or the message.

We hope you will continue to join Before the Bell for the many remaining rounds and watch what will be a marathon of fights for the government leading to the Title – next October’s federal election.