By: Warren Bernauer. In April, the Federal Court of Canada issued a decision backing two Inuit organizations from Nunavut that sued the federal minister of fisheries and oceans over a controversial decision to reissue licences for offshore turbot and shrimp fishing to a partially Indigenous-owned company based in Atlantic Canada. The case shows that Ottawa continues to use Nunavut’s resources to solve commercial fishing crises in Atlantic Canada – in this case by reissuing licences and quotas to Clearwater Seafoods Limited, now owned by a partnership that includes a Mi’kmaq-owned company. Ins ..read more

By: Habib Massoud. (Version française disponible ici) While other global leaders in research and technology engage in concerted scientific diplomacy, Canada’s efforts have been haphazard and ad hoc. Ever since the Italian Galileo elaborated on the work of the Polish Copernicus in the 17th century to advance the heliocentric model of the solar system (to the Pope’s dismay), international collaboration has been a feature of scientific pursuit. Fast-forward to four centuries later, when governments began getting involved in international scientific collaboration to support and promote such inter ..read more

By: Aftab Ahmed. (Version française disponible ici) This is part two of a two-part series. Part one examines how the Canadian regulatory framework has limited competition, encouraged greater concentration of companies and hindered the arrival of new players. Business-minded Canadians are acutely aware of the hurdles that entrepreneurs face in making headway against restrictive rules and red tape that stifle competition and discourage entrepreneurial risk-taking. They’ve seen the harm done to the economy writ large. The important question is: What low-cost, high-impact public-policy measures c ..read more

By: Shaimaa Yassin, Gillian Petit and Yasmin Abraham. Income and wealth inequality is a persistent and growing challenge in Canada. This is occurring at a time when the cost of living has risen sharply and the lowest-income households find themselves without adequate income or savings to afford basic necessities. Action is urgently needed. To reduce widening disparities and alleviate pressure on the lowest-income households, governments should expand and target income supports to those who need them most, make the tax system more progressive, enhance social-assistance programs and remove syst ..read more

By: Greg Marchildon and Bill Tholl. For 40 years, the Canada Health Act (CHA) has not only protected universal health coverage in Canada but helped define our identity as sharing and caring Canadians. Today the act not only affords less protection than we may think, but could be in danger in the next few years. We have a choice: either “spring forward” with a redesigned act to safeguard and improve medicare or continue to “fall back” and allow the further erosion of this cherished national program. The problem For an increasing number of Canadians, medicare has become a failed promise. It was ..read more

By: Adam R. Houston, Matthew Herder and Srinivas Murthy. As governments move on from the COVID-19 pandemic, the policy conversation has shifted to the next threat. Whether that’s H5N1 – a strain of influenza virus currently spreading among cattle and in some instances to humans – or some unknown “Pathogen X,” Canada and other countries are allocating significant sums to get ahead of whatever comes next. In theory, this could mean not only that Canada will be more prepared for the disease itself, but also that it is laying the groundwork to finally deliver on the federal government’s longstand ..read more

By: James K. Stewart and Hugh O’Reilly. The 2020s have posed unprecedented domestic and global challenges for governments in Canada and other advanced economies. In Canada, unaffordability rates for homes sit just below four-decade highs and rents continue to skyrocket – critical problems that have eluded solutions from all three levels of government. In health care, overcrowding continues in emergency rooms while millions of Canadians lack access to family doctors. Globally, the polycrisis from overlapping shocks – COVID-19, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and catastrophic weather event ..read more

By: Jessica Shadian. Canada needs long-term and venture capital to build infrastructure, innovate and develop its critical minerals to meet the global net-zero energy transition. Pension funds are key to that goal. While Canada’s debate does circles about the merits of mandating that our pension funds invest more at home, a different conversation is unfolding among our Western allies who focus on the strategic necessity to counter China’s global geopolitical dominance over critical minerals, which are essential for modern technologies ranging from defense technologies to renewable energy. The ..read more

By: Aftab Ahmed. (Version française disponible ici) This is part one of a two-part series. Canada’s economy is dominated by a few large corporations – a trend that has accelerated over the past two decades – leading to numerous adverse outcomes: higher prices for goods and services, limited choices for consumers, lower wages, deteriorating working conditions for the middle class and rising income inequality. A select group of large companies benefits from this concentration by boosting profits through reduced market competition. This business environment erects tangible and psychological barr ..read more

By: Cherise Burda. (Version française disponible ici) Solving Canada’s housing affordability crisis requires addressing the mismatch of housing supply and need. For too long, we have focused on building “sprawl and tall” – expensive houses further afield and small, costly units in high-rise buildings while neglecting critical segments of our housing system needed to accommodate a range of household incomes and sizes. Unsold supply amid a housing crisis Here is one stark mismatch: This year, the average vacancy rate for rental housing across the country reached its lowest level since 1988, the ..read more