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The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a major shift in project management practices, offering a unique opportunity to assess organizational resilience and sustainability. This study explores how project professionals in Quebec adapted to the early months of the pandemic, focusing on emergent practices in communication, decision making, stakeholder engagement, resource management, and scheduling. Using the most significant change (MSC) method, we collected and analyzed 114 stories from practitioners operating at both strategic and operational levels across multiple sectors. The findings reveal how project contributors reconfigured their practices to sustain value delivery amid disruption—adopting digital tools, modifying governance structures, and redefining engagement strategies. Operational contributors showed greater adaptability, while strategic actors experienced challenges with control and oversight. These stories illustrate not only reactive adaptations but also the foundations of more resilient and sustainable governance frameworks. By surfacing lived experiences and perceptions, this research contributes methodologically through its use of MSC and conceptually by linking crisis response with long-term sustainability in project contexts. Our study invites reflection on how temporary adaptations may evolve into embedded practices, reinforcing the interconnection between adaptability, resilience, and sustainability in the governance of project-based organizations.

Complex agricultural problems concern many countries, as a result of competing economic and environmental objectives. In this work we model three common agricultural problems through optimization techniques: a water-scarce area with overexploited surface and groundwater resources due to over-pumping for irrigation (Greece); an area facing water quality deterioration caused by agriculture (Canada); and an intensified animal farming area facing environmental degradation and increased greenhouse gases emissions (Ireland). Multiple goals are considered to optimize farmers’ welfare and environmental sustainability. The proposed approaches are new applications for each case-study, providing useful insights for most countries facing similar problems.

Objectives The Reach Out and Read program (ROaR) is associated with increased parent–child book reading and improved language development in children. Though children of adolescent parents may have an elevated risk of language delay, ROaR has never been specifically studied among adolescent-headed families. This pilot evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of ROaR among adolescent mothers and their children. Methods This randomized controlled pilot followed thirty adolescent mothers with children aged 6–20 months in a teen-tot clinic in downtown Toronto. At each of three consecutive well child checkups, intervention families received a new children’s book, reading-related anticipatory guidance customized to the mother’s developmental stage, counselling from a librarian, and a public library card. Control families received routine care. At baseline and study completion, all mothers completed a survey on family reading patterns and the Beck Depression Inventory-Revised (BDI-IA). Results Though regression models were not statistically significant, bivariate analyses at study completion revealed that intervention mothers were significantly more likely than controls to report reading as one of the child’s favorite activities (29 vs 0 %) and had significantly lower maternal depression scores (7.0 vs 12.5; ≥10 = clinically significant depression). Trends for all other variables, including time spent reading together and maternal enjoyment of reading, were also in the direction of benefit. This program was implemented at minimal cost and adopted permanently following study completion. Conclusions This feasible and developmentally appropriate intervention shows promise in promoting shared book reading and reducing maternal depression within adolescent-headed families, warranting investigation with larger trials.

Background Despite having access to medically necessary care available through publicly funded provincial health care systems, some Canadians travel for treatment provided at international medical facilities as well as for-profit clinics found in several Canadian provinces. Canadians travel abroad for orthopaedic surgery, bariatric surgery, ophthalmologic surgery, stem cell injections, “Liberation therapy” for multiple sclerosis, and additional interventions. Both responding to public interest in medical travel and playing an important part in promoting the notion of a global marketplace for health services, many Canadian companies market medical travel. Methods Research began with the goal of locating all medical tourism companies based in Canada. Various strategies were used to find such businesses. During the search process it became apparent that many Canadian business promoting medical travel are not medical tourism companies. To the contrary, numerous types of businesses promote medical travel. Once businesses promoting medical travel were identified, content analysis was used to extract information from company websites. Company websites were analyzed to establish: 1) where in Canada these businesses are located; 2) the destination countries and health care facilities that they market; 3) the medical procedures they promote; 4) core marketing messages; and 5) whether businesses market air travel, hotel accommodations, and holiday tours in addition to medical procedures. Results Searches conducted from 2006 to 2011 resulted in identification of thirty-five Canadian businesses currently marketing various kinds of medical travel. The research project began with what seemed to be the straightforward goal of establishing how many medical tourism companies are based in Canada. Refinement of categories resulted in the identification of eighteen businesses fitting the category of what most researchers would identify as medical tourism companies. Seven other businesses market regional, cross-border health services available in the United States and intranational travel to clinics in Canada. In contrast to medical tourism companies, they do not market holiday tours in addition to medical care. Two companies occupy a narrow market niche and promote testing for CCSVI and “Liberation therapy” for multiple sclerosis. Three additional companies offer bariatric surgery and cosmetic surgery at facilities in Mexico. Four businesses offer health insurance products intended to cover the cost of obtaining privately financed health care in the U.S. These businesses also help their clients arrange treatment beyond Canada’s borders. Finally, one medical travel company based in Canada markets health services primarily to U.S. citizens. Conclusions This article uses content analysis of websites of Canadian companies marketing medical travel to provide insight into Canada’s medical travel industry. The article reveals a complex marketplace with different types of companies taking distinct approaches to marketing medical travel.

The prejudicial linking of infection with ethnic minority status has a long-established history, but in some ways this association may have intensified under the contemporary circumstances of the \"new public health\" and globalization. This study analyzes this conflation of ethnicity and disease victimization by considering the stigmatization process that occurred during the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in Toronto. The attribution of stigma during the SARS outbreak occurred in multiple and overlapping ways informed by: (i) the depiction of images of individuals donning respiratory masks; (ii) employment status in the health sector; and (iii) Asian-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian ethnicity. In turn, stigmatization during the SARS crisis facilitated a moral panic of sorts in which racism at a cultural level was expressed and rationalized on the basis of a rhetoric of the new public health and anti-globalization sentiments. With the former, an emphasis on individualized self-protection, in the health sense, justified the generalized avoidance of those stigmatized. In relation to the latter, in the post-9/11 era, avoidance of the stigmatized other was legitimized on the basis of perceiving the SARS threat as a consequence of the mixing of different people predicated by economic and cultural globalization. Le fait préjudiciable de lier ensemble infection et minorité ethnique est établi depuis longtemps dans l'histoire, mais cette association semble s'être intensifiée d'une certaine manière dans les circonstances actuelles de la «nouvelle santé publique» et de la mondialisation. Dans cette étude, nous analysons cet assemblage d'ethnicité et de victimisation liée à la maladie, en examinant le processus de stigmatisation qui a émergé lorsque le symptôme respiratoire aigu grave (SRAG) s'est déclaré en 2003 à Toronto. Au cours de cette éclosion du SRAG, la désignation des boucs émissaires s'est faite de manières multiples qui se recoupaient les unes les autres : (i) la représentation visuelle de personnes portant des masques respiratoires, (ii) le statut d'emploi dans le secteur de la santé et (iii) l'ethnicité canadienne asiatique ou sinocanadienne. Par ailleurs, la stigmatisation pendant la crise du SRAG a ouvert la voie à une sorte de panique morale permettant au racisme de s'exprimer et de se rationaliser au niveau culturel à partir d'une rhétorique de nouvelle santé publique et de sentiments anti-mondialisation. En ce qui concerne ces derniers, l'emphase portée sur une autoprotection individuelle au sens sanitaire a justifié une mise à l'écart généralisée des personnes stigmatisées. Cette mise à l'écart dans le contexte de l'après-onze septembre a légitimisé le fait d`éviter tout Autre stigmatisé, en s'appuyant sur la perception de la menace du SRAG, vue comme une conséquence du mélange de peuples divers, tel que prêché par la mondialisation économique et culturelle.

An optimal control model is used to investigate the effect of government agricultural support programs on wetlands conversion in Canada's pothole region. Under existing grain programs, about 19 percent of land is left in an unimproved state conducive for waterfowl habitat; in the absence of government subsidies, 43 percent of agricultural land is left unimproved. The shadow values of marginal land are estimated to be $50-$60/acre. Given that habitat preservation programs pay farmers no more than $30/acre to maintain waterfowl habitat, and since Canadian programs have no conservation compliance provisions, it appears that current policy is misguided.

International oil companies (IOCs) are preparing for Iraq's second licensing round. Forty two oil companies attended the 25 August road show, in Istanbul, for the 10 contract areas, which include the Majnoon (38bn barrels), West Qurna-2 (31bn barrels), East Baghdad (27bn barrels) and Halfaya (16bn barrels) fields. Contract awards are due by mid-December. Iraqi officials hope the inclusion of these large fields will result in greater interest than in the first bid round, which saw just a single concession agreement signed, with BP and China's CNPC, for the Rumaila field.