Canada should seize the opportunity to lead on global health challenges and cooperation

Abstract

Greater cooperation in global health is needed to tackle challenges and to harness new opportunities. Canada should take a greater leadership role, write Jocalyn Clark , Timothy Evans , and Kelley Lee In the past two years we have been involved in an expert panel convened by the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences on Canada’s past and future global health role. Our report, published on 27 March 2025, aims to provide strategic insights and advice on Canada’s role in global health for the next two decades.1 The need for global leadership in health is clear: growing economic and climate threats, divisive politics, backlash against human rights, and powerful waves of misinformation threaten past gains in global health and cooperation. As we enter a new era shaped by isolationist geopolitics and the US retreating in global affairs, Canada’s role as a middle power, actively engaged in multilateralism, is more important than ever.2 Greater clarity around Canada’s global health role is also relevant to current domestic affairs. The new leader of the Liberal party, Mark Carney, was appointed as the country’s prime minister in March 2025, after …