Natalie Raffoul and Sarah Hamm

This case study examines Canada’s under-recognized yet foundational role in the development of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Despite decades of public investment, Canada failed to secure access to the intellectual property (IP) underpinning this technology. When COVID-19 vaccines were urgently needed, Canada was forced to negotiate supply contracts from a position of weakness, with no domestic distribution rights or economic benefit from a technology it had helped create.

Dan Ciuriak and Harry Deng

In June 2009, amid the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), Canada’s Conservative government faced a fateful decision: whether to bail out Nortel Networks, once a global telecommunications powerhouse, or allow it to fail. The responsibility fell to a senior official who concluded that Nortel was “worth more dead than alive.” This case study explores the decision-making process that led to Nortel’s liquidation, raising questions about industrial policy, technology sovereignty, and the role of anchor firms in innovation ecosystems.

Barry Appleton

In April 2020, deep into the global confusion surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republic of Korea stood out. As New York and Milan reeled, Seoul was relatively calm. At the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vice Minister Kim Gang-lip reviewed real-time movement data of infected individuals, sourced from mobile phones and CCTV footage. The “epidemiological intelligence system” was already credited with suppressing multiple outbreaks without national lockdowns. But behind the scenes, a fierce debate was growing.

Muna Mohamed

Canada’s digital economy contributes more than CDN$220 billion annually to Canada’s GDP and employs 2.4 million Canadians. This sector’s growth has virtually outpaced the overall economy over the last decade. The digital economy is Canada’s most valuable sector; however, the lack of sovereign computing capacity leaves this sector vulnerable to the interests of foreign actors. Compared to other G7 countries, Canada has the least publicly available computing infrastructure.

Marika Jeziorek and Natasha Tusikov

This case explores the governance dilemmas posed by digital contraceptive technologies through the lens of Health Canada’s 2024 decision to approve the Natural Cycles app as a Class II medical device. Students are invited to grapple with complex regulatory questions: Should algorithmic fertility apps be governed as traditional medical devices? How should equity, transparency and risk be incorporated into digital health oversight?