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The effort to restart and regenerate economies across the country is proving to be more art than science. It’s But it’s a choreography that leans towards improv over planning.  We’ve never faced this before.   So governements, public health authorities and business are having to process this as we go. And there’s only one opportunity to do it right.   How do we do that?   Well, the Toronto Region Board of Trade has laid out a series of measures to help local economies re-open safely.   The report is called RE-IMAGINING RECOVERY….and we’ve assembled our Round Table to explore the ideas.   We are joined by Richard Joy Executive Director Urban Land Institute Toronto, Scott Beck President and CEO Tourism Toronto and Jan De Silva President and CEO Toronto Region Board of Trade  

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the areas of neglect and concern that have been hiding in plain view. That includes the matter of FOOD SECURITY. The coronavirus pandemic has only increased the pressure on an already pressured food bank network across Canada. FOOD SECURITY at the dinner table is one thing.   But what about the SECURITY of the FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN? How do we ensure the food we grow gets out of the ground from the farm, onto the truck, to your local grocer and to your front door in this age of COVID?   Keith Currie is the Vice President the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and President of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. He spoke to us from his office in Collingwood, Ontario  

In this second of two parts of the NEXT NORMAL, we continue our conversation with Professor Nikolai Petrovksy – the director of endocrinology at flinders medical centre with a conjoint position as professor of medicine at flinders university in Adelaide, Australia. He and his team of international researchers are on the forefront of the effort to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Petrovsky says he is "excited" by the vaccine test results from a colony of monkeys. It's a major step forward in the development in the fight against COVID-19 and he says it could mean human trials will begin before mid-summer. Petrovsky’s team is an international coalition of public and private sector contributors and none of them is pursuing this vaccine for profit. It may prove to be the NEXT NORMAL in vaccine research and development. Petrovsky says “I think (governments and public health authorities) are going to be amazed that this model actually does work….and I hope then that governments and global corporations realize this is the model of the future. It’s not massive pharma companies that take years to deliver and consume billions of dollars in doing so. If you can have a small, highly mobile, very fast team doing this hundreds of thousands or a few million dollars and deliver and even better product faster, why are you investing billions in these big corporations that really are dinosaurs when it comes to dealing with a pandemic.”   He expects there will be more than one successful vaccine in relatively short order. But the challenge will be effectively distributing doses around the world in a short period of time.