Think Tank

Jerome Gessaroli

Making it count: A framework for estimating the economic effects of Indigenous engagement in British Columbia

Resource projects in Canada – including mines, pipelines, and energy infrastructure – often require engagement with affected First Nations before they can proceed. When consultation is mishandled or ignored, the consequences extend well beyond regulatory delays: projects can face costly litigation, years of uncertainty, lost investment, or even cancellation. Billions of dollars of economic activity and thousands of jobs can...

Ramona Coelho

It’s time for Parliament to legislate proper MAiD oversight

Rupak Chattopadhyay

What Is Sovereignty? Canada and the Politics of Shared Authority

This October, Canada faces both an Alberta referendum that could catalyze an unprecedented independence vote in that province and a provincial election that could do the same in Québec for the third time in 50 years. As a result, the word “sovereignty” has again entered our national, daily political discourse. As it happens, sovereignty is one of the most frequently...

Sergey Sukhankin

Arctic power networks: Domestic institutions, corporate actors, and ideological drivers in Russia’s High North strategy

Russia’s Arctic strategy is often misunderstood in Western policy debates. Too much attention remains fixed on President Vladimir Putin, military deployments, or short-term geopolitical crises. This obscures a more important reality for Canada, the United States, and their allies: Russia’s Arctic posture is sustained by a durable network of state corporations, regional authorities, security institutions, and ideological organizations that shape...

Edgardo Sepulveda

The integration illusion: Seven decades of electricity trade data and the case against market restructuring in Canada

In May 2026, the federal government published Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy, casting electricity as the backbone of Canada’s economic sovereignty, industrial competitiveness, and climate ambition.

Gina Wilson

Shared Governance, Stronger Outcomes: Developing State Capacity in First Nations-Federal Relations

The federal government’s unpredictable, fragmented approach to funding acts as a constraint on First Nations that are seeking to build long-term governance and community capacity.

Trevor Tombe

Rebalancing Canada: A two-pillar reform of equalization and federal transfers

Federal-provincial transfers are among the most important – and politically contested – features of Canadian public finance, yet they remain among the least understood. Based on the principle that Canadians, regardless of where they live, should have reasonably comparable access to public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation, the equalization system serves a core stabilizing role in Canada’s decentralized...

Brian Cox

Hamas announced it is stepping down in Gaza. It’s time for Canada to step up.

Megan Gaucher

Which families belong? Rethinking Canada’s Family Class Program

Family members make up roughly one-quarter of Canada’s annual permanent resident admissions, and governments regularly celebrate family reunification as a pillar of Canadian immigration policy. Yet, the Family Class Program still reflects a narrow, outdated understanding of what constitutes a family and continues to impose inconsistent, sometimes opaque barriers that prevent many migrant families from reuniting.

Christian Leuprecht, Todd Hataley

Elbows up … or mea culpa? Canada needs to deliver as a trusted and reliable partner on North American security

For decades, Canada’s relationship with the United States was characterized by a binational commitment to security, prosperity, and democracy. Rapidly changing US expectations on policy, priorities, and approach – in a volatile international security environment – have added friction to the bilateral relationship. Given the power asymmetry inherent to the relationship, precedent suggests that Canada comes out ahead when it...

Vina Nadjibulla

Canada Chose NATO on Submarines. Now, it Must Keep South Korea Close.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to select Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS), in partnership with Norway, as the supplier of Canada’s next submarine fleet is one of the most consequential defence procurement choices Canada has made in decades. It will shape the Royal Canadian Navy, Canada’s Arctic and maritime posture, and the country’s defence-industrial partnerships for a generation. The decision...

Isabelle Terranova

A threat from within – Why NATO should suspend Türkiye: Isabelle Terranova

For more than 75 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has existed to do one thing: keep its members secure while anchoring them in democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law (The North Atlantic Treaty 1949, preamble). Canada, as a founding member, plays a critical role in promoting these principles. The Canadian government frames its objective as ensuring...

Vina Nadjibulla, Elizabeth Donkervoort

Explainer: The Risks and Rewards of BYD’s EV Investment in Canada

China’s BYD has emerged as one of the most consequential companies in the global automotive transition. Once known primarily as a battery producer, it is now the world’s largest seller of battery-electric vehicles and a major producer of plug-in hybrids, batteries, and energy-storage systems. BYD’s combination of low-cost vehicles, technological innovation, and control over much of its supply chain has...

Alexander Dalziel

Cracks in the ice: Power, propaganda, and Russia’s nuclear icebreakers

For Canada and its allies and partners, the main response to Russian claims of Arctic dominance is to see through their own icebreaker and Arctic economic development plans.

Tobias T. Gibson, Patrick James

The case for a Canadian foreign intelligence service

Brenda Shaffer

Power and peril – How Chinese EVs, solar systems, and embedded technologies threaten Canada’s national security

China continues to find creative ways to infiltrate and influence the West. When low-cost Chinese electric vehicles entered Western markets, they were an immediate success and sales soared. Soon after, engineers discovered that Chinese manufacturers could surveil these vehicles (Financial Times 2026). Western engineers also found kill switches in Chinese electric buses that could be used to disrupt transportation (Associated...

Nino Melikidze, Steven Paolasini

How Canada’s skilled immigration system went off the rails – and how to fix it

Express Entry was never meant to be a Canadian skilled immigration program. It was supposed to be the sorting system layered on top of the existing federal ones.

Sheryl Saperia, Ches W. Parsons

United in hate – The unlikely “red–green–brown” alliance behind rising antisemitism in Canada

On June 1, 2026, Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered his first major speech devoted to antisemitism, telling an audience at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple that “Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians.” The acknowledgement was overdue and, in important respects, welcome. But the speech fell short in others. For instance, the prime minister did not name the movements behind the...

Annette Hester

From Fragmented Data to Faster Decisions: Building a Sovereign Impact Assessment Agent

Canada’s impact assessment process is structurally fragmented. A new AI-enabled Sovereign Impact Assessment Agent (SIAA) would speed up assessments and save money by using the federal government’s extensive but fragmented troves of data on Canadian land, water, wildlife and atmosphere to pre-populate assessment applications, identify information gaps and help inform regulators’ final decisions.

Rupak Chattopadhyay

The Lesson for Canada in the Anthropic Ban: AI Sovereignty is no Longer a ‘Tomorrow Problem’

On June 12th, the American artificial intelligence company Anthropic —maker of the Claude AI assistant— issued an extraordinary statement, whose opening paragraph reads as follows: “The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including...

Nigel Rawson, John Adams

Portable, accessible, universal health care in Canada: fact or myth?

Andrew Pickford, Wolfgang Alschner, Heather Exner-Pirot

Undermined – Bolstering supply chain resilience through a Canada–Australia resource alliance

Canada and Australia cannot afford to be passive actors in the increasingly turbulent world of resource geopolitics.

Matthew Lau

Government control of child care continues to hurt Ontario families

Dr. Weisu Yu, Philippe Rheault

TCI QuickTake: Canada’s Goods Exposure to China May Be Significantly Larger Than its Export Data Suggest

Chinese import-side mirror data, which capture how China records imports from Canada, point to a larger Canadian-origin goods footprint — and a more complex bilateral trade relationship than headline export figures imply.

Vina Nadjibulla

The Hard Choices of Canada’s China Reset

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Canada this week is significant. It is the first bilateral visit to Canada by a Chinese foreign minister since June 2016, and the most visible sign yet that the thaw in Canada-China relations that began with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January visit to Beijing is moving into a more consequential implementation phase. If...

Stuart Trew

CUSMA review comes into focus - What Trump and the Democrats agree about the future of North American trade

In just over a month, North American governments are expected to decide the future of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). More likely, they will decide how to decide that future. It’s still not clear to anyone, probably U.S. trade negotiators included, how this first six-year review of CUSMA will play out.

Mehdi Moradi

Reckless recognition – Canada’s Palestinian statehood mistake

Over a century ago, Max Weber observed in Politics as a Vocation that “one can say that three pre-eminent qualities are decisive for the politician: passion, a feeling of responsibility, and a sense of proportion.” Once detached from responsibility and objective judgment, passion becomes a mere sentiment staged as action, a gesture absorbed in itself and blind to the consequences...

Dave Snow

Unprincipled – The Supreme Court’s expansion of fundamental justice under section 7 of the Charter

Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms began as something modest: a procedural protection meant to ensure that when the state interferes with “life, liberty, and security of the person,” it does so in accordance with the “principles of fundamental justice.” It was not, at least on paper, designed to place courts at the centre of sweeping...

Stéphane Dion

Danielle Smith's Question Does Not Trigger The Clarity Act

The question that Alberta’s Premier, Danielle Smith, will ask Albertans on October 19 is the following:

Kevin Budning

Beyond Capability: The Strategic Calculus Behind Canada’s Submarine Procurement

By the end of next month, it is widely expected that the Government of Canada will make one of the most consequential military procurement decisions in modern Canadian history under the Canadian Patrol Submarine Project (CPSP). The contract for the acquisition and in-service support of 12 new submarines to replace the aging Victoria-class fleet is estimated to cost approximately $8...

Stéphane Dion, François Vaillancourt

The Effect of National Borders as an Obstacle to Trade Flows: Consequences for Our Economic and Political Choices

The resurgence of protectionism internationally and trade tensions between Canada and the United States have brought the issue of borders in international trade back to the forefront. While at one time many envisioned a future in which national borders would cease to be a significant economic factor, the current situation very much suggests otherwise.

Heather Exner-Pirot

Canadian coal – From dirty secret to critical mineral: Heather Exner-Pirot

Coal is often treated as a relic of the past – dirty, declining, and politically toxic. Yet globally, it remains indispensable, the backbone of electricity systems in Asia and the primary input for global steelmaking.

Geoffrey Sigalet, Kerry Sun, Yuan Yi Zhu

Unseating responsible government: Judicial interference in Canada’s parliamentary democracy

When the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into force in 1982, many warned that it would undermine the foundations of Canada’s system of parliamentary democracy and usher in a new age of judicial supremacy. For a time, those concerns appeared overstated. Canadian courts exercised a degree of restraint, and the basic contours of Westminster parliamentary governance remained intact...

Shawn Whatley

Layers of Medicare dysfunction

Ryan Manucha, Joe Noss

Invisible internal trade barriers: How Canada’s fragmented, opaque procurement systems limit competition and drive up spending

Canada’s declining productivity and weak competitiveness are increasingly tied to structural barriers that limit competition in domestic markets. One of the most consequential – and overlooked – of these barriers lies in public procurement. Accounting for 13.4 per cent of GDP, or roughly $350 billion annually – government purchasing should exert strong downward pressure on costs and expand opportunities for...

Austin Thompson, Jake Fuss

‘Build Canada Homes’ remains clear as mud despite Carney government claims

Vina Nadjibulla

Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy is Now More Robust than Ever. But Will Carney Deliver?

The first year of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s leadership has had a transformational impact on both Canada’s foreign policy and its standing in the world. The shift has been especially evident in the Indo-Pacific, where Ottawa is more active, more strategic, and more ambitious than it has ever been.

Michael Barutciski

Reclaiming control, restoring caution – Fixing Canada’s broken immigration system

Canada’s long-standing openness helped build one of the world’s most respected immigration systems. However, the intellectual establishment’s push for ever-expanding “inclusivity” has driven that openness beyond what many Canadians consider reasonable.

Valérie Lapointe, Benjamin Ferland

Do Candidates in Canadian Elections Share the Same Views as Their Constituents on the Division of Powers within the Federation?

A comparison of two separate surveys conducted during the 2021 and 2025 election years shows a misalignment between the positions of election candidates and those of their constituents on the division of powers in Canada. While the views of candidates and voters were relatively close on this issue in 2021, the gap widened in 2025. The percentage of voters who...

Ben Eisen

Ford government’s minimum wage hike may make it harder for young people to find work

Kevin Page, Djeima Ramos

Preparing the Canadian Labour Market for AI

Canada needs to make workforce upskilling a central pillar to the Pan-Canadian Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy. The global economy is entering an AI accelerating phase. Countries that have relatively large knowledge economy sectors, like Canada, face higher exposure to AI-driven change. Budget 2025 focused on AI infrastructure investments. Budget 2026 must expand the focus to AI workforce upskilling. AI is...

Dan Pujdak

Linking economic and national security means keeping Canadians safe at home

Mary Janigan

Negotiating with the United States Rarely Goes According to Plan. Contemporary Politicians Shouldn’t Lose Sight of 1911

Free trade negotiations with the United States have always triggered acrimonious and deeply damaging debates in Canada and often exposed political miscalculations at the highest levels. During the 1911 federal election campaign, Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier, running on a free trade platform, was denounced in Quebec as a traitor to the French and in Ontario as a traitor to...