Policy Options Politiques Magazine

It is no secret Canada’s population is aging and aging quickly. For the past decade, much of the public conversation has treated immigration as the only answer to population aging. Advocacy groups and political parties at all levels of government have clashed over immigration. More recently, as public opinion shifts and governments reduce immigration targets, immigration can no longer be the default solution. Immigration does remain an important part of Canada’s demographic strategy.

It took more than a century to build the electricity network we have today in Canada – from the first hydroelectric projects in the late 1800s to today’s provincial grids. Ottawa’s new national electricity strategy commits to doubling Canada’s power supply by 2050. The scale of this ambition is staggering. Federal analysis suggests that modernizing and doubling Canada’s electricity output by 2050 could require investments of up to .

(Version française disponible ici.) The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) made history in 2018 and 2022, winning two of the largest majorities in Quebec’s political history. Positioning itself as a credible economic alternative to the Quebec Liberal Party and a nationalist alternative to the Parti Québécois, it embodied a “third way” based on economic pragmatism, identity politics, and autonomist nationalism. However, this electoral dominance has not translated into lasting popular support.

Five Canadian provinces as well as the Northwest Territories will hold municipal elections this year. Increasing political polarization often occupies centre stage in larger debates about democracy, but hostility and intimidation are a growing concern for municipal politicians as well. Just over of those surveyed last year identified harassment as somewhat of a problem or a big problem in their municipalities. Canada can learn from other countries how to prevent this issue from worsening.

Canada’s national security is increasingly under threat. Territorial claims of the Arctic, targeted attacks on public cyberspaces and the growing hostility of our largest trading partner leave policymakers scrambling for an effective response to an unprecedented national security environment. We address this via three interconnected policy domains, concentrating on centering resilience by design. The domains are economic, cyber and Arctic security.

(Version française disponible ici) Every government that sets out to fix its health system eventually reaches for the same instrument. It centralizes. It consolidates authority, clarifies who is accountable and standardizes how things are done. The logic is sound and Quebec, like much of Canada, had real reasons to want a clearer line of sight from policy to performance.

Canada’s debate about immigration usually revolves around borders, population growth and labour shortages. Far less attention is paid to another critical question: Who is paying the price for the highly educated immigrants on whom wealthy countries increasingly depend? In many cases, the answer is the Global South. Canada, like many OECD countries, increasingly relies on skilled immigrants who were educated and trained elsewhere.

(Version française disponible ici.) Many First Nation communities in Canada are islands of poverty within an otherwise prosperous, developed country. Yet, some First Nations thrive. Why do some First Nations manage to break the cycle of poverty and overcome the damage of historical injustices while others do not? Those different outcomes are not due to differences in work ethic or business choices, ethnicity or culture.

Canada’s emerging industrial and resource-development agenda is increasingly focused on accelerating major infrastructure and resource projects in the name of economic competitiveness and energy security. Yet beneath this renewed development push lies a growing policy contradiction: Canada is attempting to manage an advanced, multi-decade sustainability transition while underinvesting in the scientific, regulatory and research capacity required to support it.

The world we knew is no more. Change is essential. That is Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mantra, and there’s no doubt that change is needed. We are confronted by a hostile neighbour, face a disrupted global geopolitical landscape and have a structurally weak Canadian economy. The question, however, is less what the government intends to do, but rather can it deliver on the new policy directions it is promising?