Patrick Fafard's Avatar

Patrick Fafard

@pfafard

Professor Emeritus/ Visiting Professor Graduate School of Public & International Affairs and Chair in Science Diplomacy, University of Ottawa. Research Director, Global Strategy Lab, York/UOttawa .

1,298
Followers
332
Following
587
Posts
26.09.2023
Joined
Posts Following

Latest posts by Patrick Fafard @pfafard

Suspected (not yet confirmed) #Ebola case in DRC.
Original article: "Santé : Ebola menacerait-il à nouveau Beni ?" www.netic-news.net/sante-ebola-...
h/t to #GPHIN, from whence I heard this first.

10.03.2026 16:00 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

It was never the rules-based international order that wouldn't allow us to kidnap leaders, invade other countries, or bomb the everloving god out of poor countries

It was that we agreed not to, because it led to very bad outcomes. And we created the rules to reflect this

The rules are not your mum

09.03.2026 14:11 👍 218 🔁 54 💬 2 📌 7

Meme war.

09.03.2026 15:13 👍 23 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1

Until Trump can claim that “L’Etat, c’est moi !”, he’ll satisfy himself with “L’Etat, c’est à moi !”

09.03.2026 02:18 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

If you are in Edmonton or nearby and interested in the intersection of art and liberal democracy and especially Ostrom’s concept of ‘tragedy of the commons’ a show you may want to see:

08.03.2026 15:49 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The people who created international law weren’t pacifist ninnies. No, they had gone through war and were determined to never go through that again.

08.03.2026 15:21 👍 94 🔁 26 💬 0 📌 2

“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through while we’re waiting in line at the grocery store.”

08.03.2026 08:47 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Sir Chris Whitty: Relying on weight-loss drugs to stop obesity would be 'societal failure' England's top doctor says the drugs should be for a minority and more effort is needed to prevent obesity in the first place.

💊 Relying on weight-loss drugs to tackle #Obesity would be a “societal and medical failure” says England’s Chief Medical Officer

"Is our answer to say ‘give up on #PublicHealth’ and then just rely on drugs to get us out of this hole?”

#Diabetes #Cancer #HeartDisease

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

08.03.2026 07:16 👍 9 🔁 7 💬 6 📌 2

There's something deeply obscene and broken about the fact that Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are bombing elementary schools in an illegal war of aggression, and there's still a sense among the opposition that it has to be explained in terms of gas prices in order to get American voters to care.

08.03.2026 02:12 👍 17821 🔁 4803 💬 617 📌 251

Cutting aid to spend on defence sounds great to the bloke down the pub

But it never works

Aid is a pittance compared to defence budgets. Cut the entire aid budget to buy two tyres on a fighter jet

Canada’s defence budget is ~$80bn or 16% of federal budget. Aid is $6bn or 1.2%

07.03.2026 18:32 👍 14 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
Elizabeth Renzetti: We’re gambling with men’s health. Here’s why that’s bad for all of us The percentage of men reporting “very good” or “excellent” mental health has fallen from 70 per cent 52 per cent in a decade

Gambling is being rebranded as “prediction markets” or “gaming." There are clear losers in the explosion of micro-gambling: Young men and boys, whose health is being harmed by having gambling dens on their phones, by @lizrenzetti.bsky.social www.thestar.com/opinion/cont... via @thestar.com

06.03.2026 22:50 👍 41 🔁 19 💬 2 📌 2
Post image

Très content de retourner à Tout le monde en parle dimanche soir, pour parler de la guerre en Iran:

06.03.2026 20:49 👍 12 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 1

After the trials for crimes against humanity will come the trials for crimes against logic.

06.03.2026 18:57 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

You can also read the newly posted joint submission to the #HESA study on #AMR from @stoptbcanada.bsky.social & @resultscanada.bsky.social
EN www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Comm...
FR www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Comm...

03.03.2026 04:22 👍 3 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

More than a few of those people are doing other things at the very same time …

06.03.2026 16:05 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

The supposed explosion of the federal public service looks less explosive if you put it in per capita numbers and draw a line graph back to the mid-80s.

06.03.2026 14:36 👍 137 🔁 72 💬 7 📌 6

"Canada has long been complacent about foreign policy and national security: it could afford to neglect the pressures and incentives of the realities of power, comfortably sheltered as it was by a mostly benevolent United States."

05.03.2026 22:53 👍 17 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 0

If the government gets to decide if you have them, they're not human rights.

05.03.2026 15:04 👍 3655 🔁 881 💬 114 📌 35
Scattered multicolored capsules and pills on a light blue background with ample empty space in the center.

Scattered multicolored capsules and pills on a light blue background with ample empty space in the center.

📄 Want to understand antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in humans, animals & food?

The EFSA–ECDC Plain Language Summary 2023–2024 explains key trends, high-resistance bacteria, and why careful antibiotic use matters — in simple terms 👇

link.europa.eu/Fmm6Bm

#AMR #EUFoodSafety | @ecdc.europa.eu

05.03.2026 07:30 👍 13 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 1

Be it resolved that Prime Minister Carney's government is a government like any other, weighed down by inevitable inconsistencies, internal disagreements and bureaucratic politics, and intractable trade-offs.

04.03.2026 17:21 👍 24 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 1

What is NOT on my news feed since the weekend:

Ukraine (about 50% of previous)
ICE (about 25% of previous)
Climate change (about 10% of previous)
Epstein Files (about 5% of previous)

The US/Israel war against Iran is, for obvious reasons, distracting me/us from many other issues.

04.03.2026 11:04 👍 49 🔁 18 💬 2 📌 1
Preview
Carney Says Middle East War Shows Death of Rules-Based Order Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his support for US military action in Iran came “with regret” because the current conflict is another example of the failure of the international order.

And then GAC panicked when it turns out, nobody else can decode fine diplomatese, and the statement read to normies like Canada endorsed bombing Iran

Hence the clarification from Carney today that reads like a u-turn but I suspect wasn’t intended to be

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

04.03.2026 00:31 👍 25 🔁 9 💬 3 📌 1

March 19th 16h30 to 18h30 (EST)

03.03.2026 22:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

Public lecture & online: "Ethical, epistemic, and effective: At the heart of transdisciplinarity in urban health"
Public health, ethics, transdiciplinarity, cities, and so much more. calendrier.umontreal.ca/activite/eth...

03.03.2026 22:14 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
Fusionner l’INSPQ et l’INESSS? Une analyse au prisme de la gouvernance de la santé publique Ce billet a été co-écrit avec Elisabeth Martin, professeure agrégée à la Faculté de sciences infirmières de l’Université Laval, et avec Marie-Eve Couture-Ménard, professeure titulaire à la Fa…

Après la pandémie, les institutions de santé publique de plusieurs juridictions ont perdu leur autonomie, voire ont été simplement supprimées. Autre exemple, le gouvernement du Québec propose de supprimer son institut de santé publique, l'INSPQ. Voir excellente analyse : kubernan.ca/2026/01/29/f...

03.03.2026 20:42 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Public health institutes are a key institution in several countries. Doing away with the INSPQ is a powerful signal of the downgrading of the #PublicHealth function in Quebec. An autonomous voice disappears. Here is hoping that a PH voice function can be preserved in the new, larger institute.

03.03.2026 20:38 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Post-pandemic #PublicHealth institutions in a number of jurisdictions have lost their autonomy if not abolished altogether. Another example, this time from Canada. The gov't of the province of Quebec is proposing to do away with its public health institute, the INSPQ.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

03.03.2026 20:33 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 1

Question for students of rhetoric, logic, and psychology:

what is the relationship between outrage and evidence?

03.03.2026 15:46 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

👏

03.03.2026 15:19 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a
theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed”

Eisenhower’s ‘Chance For Peace’ address in 1953 is worth re-reading

www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/sites/defaul...

03.03.2026 00:20 👍 21 🔁 9 💬 0 📌 0