The Case for a Recovery Blueprint:

Achieving Well Being through Convergence, Collective Action and Collective Impact

by Bernie Miller

The 40 years prior to the pandemic was far from a “golden age of shared prosperity in North America” and it was more like the “Gilded Age” of the late 19th Century.

In March 2020, when COVID-19 changed lives across the globe, Nova Scotia – and many other societies — were faced with puzzles policymakers were unable to solve like child poverty, systemic racism, wage disparity, food insecurity, unequal access to housing, addictions, and mental health challenges. The political system was treating the symptoms at great cost, but not the underlying cause. The limits of government’s ability, on its own, to solve complex challenges with funding announcements and government run programs should be clear by now.

Despite past policy pronouncements about eradicating poverty, hunger, or homelessness, and notwithstanding commitments to reconciliation, elimination of racism and achievement of equity, diversity and inclusion, these challenges seemed to get worse under the old paradigm, or at the very least did not improve.

As each new crisis emerged over this period, from the opioid epidemic– a crisis of despair– the mental health crisis, the housing crisis, to the child poverty crisis and others, the inability of the existing paradigms and systems to effectively respond became more and more apparent.

Then, along came the COVID-19 pandemic. Will it be a catalyst for dramatic change, even a paradigm shift?

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