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Summary. In 2014, TransCanada Corporation pushed for the construction of different pipeline projects, including Keystone XL in the United States and Energy East in Eastern Canada. In November 2014, five strategy documents detailing the communication campaign organized by the public relations firm Edelman to help TransCanada gain social support (and political approval) for Energy East were leaked (Edelman 2014). The documents call for a budget to recruit 35,000 “activists” supporting the project through “grassroots” advocacy by using social media, and especially by paying numerous bloggers and key opinion leaders to defend the interests of TransCanada Corp. The documents explain how to transform public opinion and the economic preferences of the population by creating the illusion that a mass-movement in favor of the pipeline existed. One of the five leaked documents even elucidates that it is necessary to take some lessons from the Keystone XL, where the industry mobilized a million activists and generated more than 500,000 proKeystone comments during the public comment period. As the leaked documents explain:It’s not just associations or advocacy groups building these programs in support of the industry. Companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and Halliburton (and many more) have all made key investments inbuilding permanent advocacy assets and programs to support their lobbying, outreach and policy efforts.
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Summary. For over two decades, the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU) has been advocating for a national pharmacare plan. Now, as the costs of prescription drugs continue to rise, putting pressures on a health care system that is already stretched to the limit, the CFNU is gaining some new allies. There is a growing consensus that prescription drug policies require reform. Advocates for reform include the C.D. Howe Institute (a well-known public policy think tank), the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, provincial and territorial governments, as well as patient advocates from coast-to-coast. Like our premiers, the CFNU is committed to tackling the issue of escalating drug costs, while ensuring access and quality care. The failure to contain the costs of pharmaceuticals is threatening Canada’s ability to provide patients with the health care they need. A national pharmacare program is an urgent priority if our health care system is to provide patients with the medications they need.
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Summary. This blog explores the role of structural incentives and institutional cultures in the systemic suppression of serious threats to public safety and public health.
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Summary. There has been an important development in the study of the right of access to public information and the so-called economics of information: by combining these two premises, it is possible to outline an economics theory of access to public information.
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Summary. When governments ask companies for bribes, it leads to a prisoner's dilemma situation in public procurement processes. However, companies can manage to escape through collusion.
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Summary. By arranging the types of relational corruption most frequently found in Latin American countries from a rational agent perspective, it is possible to identify the corrupt practices that cause considerable damage to institutions as well as to society.
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Summary. Weak public procurement processes in some Latin American countries are undermined in order to fund party politics. This situation presents new methodologies of, and a wide scope for, institutional corruption because it involves, among other things, the creation of ad hoc corporations to establish corrupt relationships with the government.
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Summary. This blog uses a hypothetical case study (based on real-world examples) to show how partnerships with fast food companies can undermine public health and imperil the integrity of public health agencies.
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Summary. We'll stifle the Skypes and YouTubes of the future if we don't demolish the regulators that oversee our digital pipelines.