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...
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...
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...
Canada occupies a pivotal position as like-minded nations converge around shared Arctic interests. The Arctic Ocean’s growing accessibility is linking northern waters with the Baltic and the Sea of Japan. A resolute NATO “blue wall” now stretches from Finland to Alaska, with close partner Japan at the far end. Together, these circumpolar democracies form the “Free North,” extending the principles...
This report provides a detailed assessment of Canada's bilateral merchandise trade with China for 2025 — a year defined by structural shifts in export composition from agriculture toward energy and minerals, sharply bifurcated import outcomes as tariff-targeted goods contracted while industrial inputs proved resilient, and persistent geographic concentration and uneven regional distribution. Situating bilateral flows within Canada's broader trade performance...
ICYMI, things aren’t going so good for The Donald. In the “you broke it, you bought it” department, he’s trying to offload a property (the Iran War), bought on spec and not living up to promise, onto a new set of investors (specifically naming China, France, Japan, and South Korea). Turns out they aren’t all that interested in the property...
The controversy around Liberal MP Michael Ma’s comments on forced labour in China is an early test of how Prime Minister Mark Carney’s China policy is being put into practice — and whether it can remain pragmatic without drifting into equivocation, accommodation or self-censorship. Carney’s recalibration — toward a more interest-based approach aimed at stabilizing ties with Beijing while widening...
Canada is facing a housing affordability crisis that is placing a growing burden on households, particularly lower-income households, for whom housing and energy are already the largest areas of spending. Although the residential sector has reduced its GHG emissions since 2005, decarbonization has not progressed at the pace required to meet Canada’s 2030 and 2050 climate targets. Despite improvements in...
Canada’s renewed embrace of industrial policy and megaprojects signals a decisive shift toward an activist ‘nation-of‑builders’ strategy. However, a real test of its success is whether it can support lasting, community‑led prosperity in regions that depend on natural resource extraction or energy generation.
Canada’s housing shortage is no longer just an affordability problem. It is increasingly a constraint on economic growth, labour mobility, and the ability of cities to function effectively. Despite record levels of construction employment and investment, housing supply continues to fall far short of what Canadians need. The core problem lies in a sustained decline in residential construction productivity. Employment...
Economic immigrants selected through the two-step process — first as temporary foreign workers before being permanent residents — generally earn more than those selected directly from abroad. But outcomes vary widely: two-step immigrants with high pre-admission Canadian earnings enjoy substantial and persistent earnings advantages, while those with lower pre-admission earnings often fare worse than one-step immigrants. The findings suggest that...
A one-time northern Ontario fur-trading post, Sault Ste. Marie’s fortunes changed when U.S. industrialist Francis Clergue built a hydroelectric power plant on the banks of the St. Mary’s River more than 100 years ago. The dam brought cheap power to the area and turned it into an industrial hub. Clergue also opened a steel mill, a pulp and paper mill...
Canada is confronting a rapidly expanding illicit nicotine market that has evolved well beyond traditional contraband tobacco. Criminal networks that once focused on cigarettes now traffic in high-nicotine disposable vapes, unauthorized nicotine pouches, and a sprawling ecosystem of online black market platforms. Fragmented regulation, uneven enforcement, and the rise of e-commerce have created structural vulnerabilities that illicit actors are exploiting...
War in energy-producing regions often reveals the hidden architecture of globalization. The ongoing US-Iran conflict is doing precisely that. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has begun transforming energy trade into “risk trade,” where freight insurance, shipping routes, and geopolitical exposure can become as decisive as underlying supply. For China and other Asia-Pacific importers, this shift has two strategic implications...
On October 9, 2025, the Quebec government, through Minister of Justice Simon Jolin-Barrette, tabled Bill 1, entitled the Québec Constitution Act, 2025, in the National Assembly. This unilateral action was taken against the backdrop of a deadlock in the multilateral process of negotiating amendments to the Canadian Constitution and reflects a recent trend toward constitutional unilateralism that is developing not...
Canada’s criminal justice system is failing its most basic test: keeping the public safe. A new report from the Macdonald-Laurier Institute reveals rising crime, falling clearance rates, and a bail system widely seen as broken. The result is a struggling justice system increasingly derailed by delays and struggling to deliver safety or accountability – eroding the trust of the Canadians...
Canada’s economic landscape is profoundly changing. A shifting trade environment, global efforts to reduce emissions and other structural trends are reshaping industries and job requirements. With these shifts, opportunities arise, but so do uneven risks and impacts. Certain communities are disproportionately susceptible to the workforce disruption these changes will bring. In this Policy Brief, we focus on mass layoffs and...
A year ago, it was not obvious that Canada–India relations could be pulled back from the brink. Diplomatic expulsions, public recriminations, and allegations of foreign interference had frozen one of Canada’s most consequential Indo-Pacific partnerships. Yet since Prime Minister Mark Carney and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on the margins of the G7 summit in Kananaskis last June, a different...
Rather than sorting applicants by racial category, universities should focus on ensuring that all prospective students, regardless of race, have the academic preparation needed to compete fairly.
Neepawa, a rural Prairie community of just over 6,000 people west of Winnipeg, has long been shaped by its agricultural roots. It is a place made famous by author Margaret Laurence, whose Manawaka novels drew inspiration from Neepawa and its landmarks, including the stone angel monument in the Riverside Cemetery. But today’s Neepawa is no longer the small, homogeneous town...
In January, Canada and China announced a new trade framework that will lift several Chinese tariffs on Canadian exports as well as Canadian tariffs on Chinese electric cars. Set to take effect March 1, the deal will significantly ease pressure on Canadian exports of canola, pulses and seafood. While the deal is welcome relief, significant damage was done. Saskatchewan’s canola...
From a snail in a bottle of ginger beer to cannibalism to revoking a liquor licence for helping fellow Jehovah’s Witnesses, many seminal law school cases are remembered for their extraordinary facts (Hutchinson 2010). Every so often, however, a case prescribes a legal test that is equally memorable, even when the facts of the case are not. The Supreme Court...
Canada’s first-ever Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS) marks a genuine shift in how Ottawa thinks about sovereignty, security, and economic resilience. After decades of treating defence procurement as a back-office function, the government is now framing it as strategic statecraft — linking military readiness, industrial policy, innovation, and economic security. The creation of a Defence Investment Agency and the adoption of...
Since the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in 2016, the federal government has created certain safeguards and regulatory mechanisms – including data collection – to ensure that people don’t request death because they lack access to care, including palliative care.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s widely praised speech last week in Davos was most notable for its frankness in admitting the hypocrisy behind Western support for a selectively enforced “rules-based international order.” But it also pulled no punches in calling out the coercive measures that great powers — including the United States — are increasingly employing to advance their interests.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s visit to China will stand as one of the most consequential moments in Canada’s foreign policy. It not only reframed Canada’s relationship with China but also signalled a fundamentally new approach to how Ottawa intends to navigate a more fragmented, contested and uncertain world. On the bilateral front, the trip produced three tangible outcomes: a new...
Prime Minister Carney can be pleased with the results of his first official visit to China. Through a temporary trade truce, and a list of political, economic and cultural MOUs, the federal government has effectively reset relations with China to where they were in 2016, before the arrest of Meng Wanzhou at the request of the first Trump administration. The...
Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to Beijing from January 13 to 17, marking the first visit by a Canadian prime minister to China since 2017. The trip comes amid mounting economic and political pressure from the Trump administration and reflects the Carney government’s stated objective to diversify Canada’s economic partnerships and double non-U.S. trade over the next decade. At...
