A Healthy Future: Lessons from the Frontlines of a Crisis

An analysis of Saskatchewan’s COVID-19 response that will inspire future reform.

This gripping account of the COVID-19 experience in Saskatchewan goes beyond pandemic memoir to draw lessons we can use to create a healthier future. Filled with moving stories of how COVID changed people’s lives, Ryan Meili’s deeply humane account of the pandemic draws on his unique experience as a doctor and as the leader of Saskatchewan’s official opposition during the first two years of the outbreak. A Healthy Future reveals how the pandemic exposed and made worse problems in health-care, elder care, education, and social support—and details how we can do better.

Written with passion and commitment, this book offers a firsthand look at how the pandemic laid bare the shortcomings of Saskatchewan’s—and Canada’s—public health response, with tragic results. It also provides an inspiring vision of what Canadians can learn from the pandemic to create a healthier and more equitable future.

Ryan Meili is a family physician who focuses on health equity and social justice. He is the author of A Healthy Society: How a Focus on Health Can Revive Canadian Democracy. He has practiced family medicine in rural and Northern Saskatchewan, as well as in Saskatoon and rural Mozambique. In 2017 he was elected as the Member of Saskatchewan’s Legislative Assembly for Saskatoon Meewasin, going on to serve as Leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party and Leader of the Official Opposition in Saskatchewan from 2018–2022. He lives in Saskatoon with his wife, Mahli Brindamour, and their two sons, Abe and Gus.