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Bill C-5, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major projects legislation, became law in late June despite strong and growing opposition from Indigenous Peoples.
It enables the federal government to expedite the approval of large nation-building projects, specifically infrastructure and energy projects deemed in the national interest, as well as breaking down interprovincial trade barriers. The government says the goal is to build a strong Canadian economy to combat U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff and other threats.
The new “one-project, one review” approach replaces the previous multi-step process that Carney says was “arduous” because it forced the projects to undergo multiple steps one after another – including consultation with First Nations and environmental assessments – rather than at the same time.
Indigenous leaders say Bill C-5 was passed without meaningful consultations and fear it will enable the government to override or limit its constitutional duty to consult First Nations in the nation-building project approval process, despite government promises it is committed to Indigenous consultation.
“As Canada moves forward with nation-building projects, the Government will always be firmly guided by the principle of free, prior, and informed consent,” it said in the recent Throne Speech. The same principle was included in Bill C-5.
However, the government’s slow and poorly defined approach to consultations over many years is rapidly igniting the embers of an Indigenous protest movement and the possibility of court challenges.
Ottawa must quickly get on the same page with the First Nations or it will create serious obstacles to its nation-building priorities.
I suggest the existing constitutional duty to consult was not, and is not, the obstacle to embarking on major projects in Canada.
Rather, what is holding the government and First Nations back from being on the same page when it comes to speeding up nation-building projects is two-fold:
First, there is confusion between consultations, consent and veto power (the question of what consultations are supposed to achieve) .
Second, there are discrepancies between the federal government’s guidelines and practices, First Nations’ expectations and legal requirements (the question of which standards should be used).
Consultations – the mechanism Canada tries to use to obtain Indigenous consent – should not be confused with consent itself.
Consent is supposed to be “free, prior and informed.” First Nations insist on that because it is the definition laid out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This became Canadian law in 2021 after both Conservative and Liberal governments refused to sign on to UNDRIP for 14 years and sometimes even actively worked against it.
These governments had no objections to consultations. However, there were worries that committing to free, prior and informed consent would prevent Ottawa from achieving its goals when those goals infringed on Indigenous rights to their land or overrode consent requirements – as has been the practice in Canada.
During the 2020 debate on adopting UNDRIP as part of Canadian law, the late Murray Sinclair, who was then a senator, said the contentious point “has become the question of whether respecting Indigenous rights might be bad for Canada’s economy. The principle of free, prior and informed consent, in particular, has been a concern for some.”
Also in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that free, prior and informed consent means the“right to a robust process.”
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“It is not a veto or a right to a particular outcome,” the court said. It is sufficient that there be a “deep level of consultation and negotiations geared toward a mutually accepted arrangement.”
Justice Minister Sean Fraser created a controversy recently when he said the UNDRIP law does not give Indigenous Peoples “a blanket veto power.” He apologized the next day, saying his statement eroded trust between the government and Indigenous Peoples.
Terry Teegee, regional chief of the Assembly of First Nations in British Columbia, countered that “no government has a veto” and that decisions should be made collectively.
The distinction between consultation, veto power and consent is that the former two can be mechanisms or parameters for obtaining consent, yet they are too often confused for, or erroneously used as synonyms for, the objective of consent.
While First Nations see consultation as the vehicle to achieve free, prior and informed consent, the government’s perspective tries to focus on reconciliation and compromise.
The discrepancies among Canadian government guidelines and practices, First Nations’ expectations and existing legal requirements pose an obstacle to meaningful consultations that can effectively contribute to fast-tracking nation-building projects.
In 2011, Ottawa set out guidelines for meaningful consultations, but its actions have repeatedly fallen short of its own standards and those set out by the court.
A 2016 report to the minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs clearly highlighted the “lack of coordination and consistency on consultation both within the federal government and with the provinces and territories.”
The following year, the Supreme Court said in its Clyde River decision that when a First Nation with a strong rights claim is potentially significantly affected by a project, the National Energy Board should “at least explain” how it considered and addressed the First Nations’ concerns to meet the threshold of deep consultation.
In her 2018 federal court Tsleil-Waututh decision on the Trans Mountain Pipeline, Judge Eleanor Dawson criticized Ottawa’s approach on several fronts – “the Crown consultation team’s implementation of their mandate essentially as note-takers, Canada’s reluctance to consider any departure from the Board’s findings and recommended conditions, and Canada’s erroneous view that it lacked the ability to impose.”
The problem is not that consultations sometimes fail to lead to consent. Rather, the failures in a growing body of past cases concerning resource development – that were not fast-tracked – show that the processes the government designed do not lead to meaningful consultation.
When Carney vows that “consultation, co-operation, engagement, participation is at the heart of C-5,” some of the Indigenous leaders’ skepticism is well-warranted.
For example, former Liberal justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould says it will enable the government to “make decisions and build projects on its own terms, at its own pace and based on rules that it chooses to make up as they go along.”
On the other end of the spectrum, First Nations have wide-ranging interests and expectations that render fulfilment of the duty to consult difficult.
For example, Six Nations of the Grand River have a 13-step consultation procedure. In form and in some respects in content, it differs from the expectations of other First Nations, including that all expenses for consultations must be covered by the Crown.
In addition, when the federal government invited Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, to consult on Bill C-5, she replied that the AFN is “not a one-stop shop” for consultation or a rights holder.
The government’s guidelines to meaningful consultation include providing enough time for Indigenous groups to “assess adverse impacts and present their concerns.” Yet, the government letter to some First Nations leaders asking them to voice any concerns with Bill C-5 within seven days did not give them sufficient time to properly respond.
The discrepancies over what constitutes meaningful consultation – and who should decide what is meaningful – complicate the road to fast-tracking nation-building projects.
In his 2016 report to the minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, consultant Bryn Gray noted: “Early engagement is frequently singled out by both Aboriginal groups and industry as a key ingredient of meaningful consultation.”
He recommended “greater emphasis on engaging Aboriginal groups as early as possible before key components of a project or a proposal are finalized and become difficult to change.”
Yet, this didn’t happen with C-5.
Indigenous leaders were not invited to the first ministers’ meeting on it, despite their insistence, leading Alvin Fiddler, grand chief of the Nishnawbe Aski Nation, to complain that Ottawa was again failing to consult First Nations from the beginning.
Indigenous leaders are concerned that the possibility of free, prior and informed consent that they associate with consultations is already beginning to fade. The Carney government must change its approach and honour its commitments before it is too late.
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We take for granted that schools and hospitals in places like Fredericton, Whitehorse, and Charlottetown are decently funded.
This is the magic of “equalization,” which helps ensure comparable public services in parts of Canada that couldn’t otherwise afford them thanks to federal transfers to poorer provinces and territories. Equalization is the “improbable glue that holds a nation together,” as author Mary Janigan puts it.
But did you know that Indian reserves are excluded from equalization?
About 330,000 people live on reserves. That is more than the population of Prince Edward Island (157,000). And it’s more than the number of people who live in the three territories — Yukon (45,000), Northwest Territories (45,000), and Nunavut (39,000).
And yet, unlike provinces and territories, Indian reserves do not receive a legal commitment to comparable public services from the federal government.
Not coincidentally, basic services on reserves are subpar and underfunded by any provincial or territorial measure. The problem extends to policing, education, child welfare, access to clean water, fire services, and more.
The exclusion of reserves from equalization is a legal omission, all too often overlooked, that has enabled a policy problem to fester.
If you’re Canadian, you’ve heard of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter has 34 sections.
If you’re a lawyer, you’ve probably heard of Section 35, which comes right after the Charter and addresses “Aboriginal rights.”
Lawyer or not, you’ve almost certainly never heard of Section 36. This is the part that mentions equalization: “Parliament and the government of Canada are committed to the principle of making equalization payments to ensure that provincial governments have sufficient revenues to provide reasonably comparable levels of public services at reasonably comparable levels of taxation.”
The federal government distributes billions of tax dollars to deliver on this commitment. In 2024-25, poorer provinces received over $25 billion in unconditional transfers. For example, Manitoba received $4.4 billion (or 18 per cent of its total budget), and New Brunswick received $2.9 billion (or 23 per cent of its total provincial budget). Meanwhile, Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia received nothing.
Like Indian reserves, the territories aren’t explicitly mentioned in Section 36, either. But they nonetheless receive annual transfers to ensure comparable services thanks to a federal law that makes them mandatory. Payments go to each territorial government under a program called Territorial Formula Financing.
So: equalization is the law, supreme or otherwise, for provinces and territories. But not for Indian reserves. They remain separate and unequal.
Surely this is too bad to be true, you might wonder. As a matter of policy, the federal government is often committed to comparable public services on reserves.
For example, federal policy about education on reserves includes an aim that “First Nations students on reserve achieve levels of secondary education comparable to non-Indigenous students in Canada.”
Similarly, federal cabinet and Treasury Board guidelines aim for comparable water services for on-reserve communities.
This seems comforting. But lately the federal government has made a point of distinguishing between its policy commitments and its legal duties, a distinction that confirms the seriousness of the problem.
In a current lawsuit over unsafe drinking water on reserves, the federal legal argument says that “Canada supports First Nations in providing safe drinking water to First Nations members on reserve as a matter of good governance rather than as a result of a legal duty.”
The government adds: “Canada’s spending on First Nations’ water must obviously compete with the rest of its budget allocations.”
Such claims suggest that the federal government will continue to defend its wide discretion in funding services on reserves. This includes the discretion to do more. Or less.
You might also be wondering why Section 36 talks about comparable public services at comparable levels of taxation. How significant are these last four words, given that status Indians on reserves sometimes pay lower taxes on income and consumption than other jurisdictions?
Canadians generally overestimate the scope of these tax exemptions, as Chelsea Vowel has written. However, to the extent the exemptions exist, they could imply that worse services are consistent with less taxation.
But equalization is based on the capacity of a province or territory to generate revenue at hypothetical levels of taxation. So the question becomes: how much revenue would reserves generate with standard taxation? Usually, not much.
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Most of these communities live below the poverty line. The difference between the tax revenue a community would raise with or without existing tax exemptions would usually be modest, if not negligible.
So differences in taxation on reserves cannot serve as an excuse to avoid comparable services.
There’s another part of Section 36 that few people ever talk about. It says: “Parliament and the legislatures, together with the government of Canada and the provincial governments, are committed to…providing essential public services of reasonable quality to all Canadians.”
Throughout the years of negotiations that led to the final wording of Section 36, the federal government argued in favour of using the federal spending power to ensure comparable public services across Canada.
As prime minister, Pierre Elliott Trudeau emphasized our interdependence. If a particular part of Canada were to do a particularly poor job of educating students or promoting health, for example, it would invariably affect other provinces as Canadians moved around freely.
Economists have long argued that it’s more efficient for Canadians to move for economic opportunity rather than for access to better public services.
Trudeau also argued that it is essential to develop a national sense of community to bind Canadians together. One way to do so was to ensure “the provision to every citizen, wherever he lives, of adequate levels of public services — in particular of health, welfare and education services.”
Are Canadians living on reserves not included in that promise?
If our Constitution cares about inequality between provinces, surely it must have something to say about people on reserves living in those very provinces. What is true for the parts of the whole should also be true for parts of the parts.
This article is adapted from material in “Constitutional silence, Section 36 and public services on Indian reserves” recently published in the University of Toronto Law Journal.
Concerns are growing that avian influenza could become a pandemic, resulting in possible widespread lockdowns and potential social as well as economic consequences similar to what occurred during COVID-19.
As cases rise, some argue the United States is repeating the mistakes it made in 2020, making this the perfect time to reinvent Canada’s capacity to respond to this crisis and prevent future pandemics.
One solution is a “deep prevention” approach that involves averting pandemics by preventing zoonotic pathogens from spilling over from animals to humans in the first place rather than responding after outbreaks. This is particularly important given the increase in frequency and severity of emerging infectious diseases, with 70 per cent of them originating from animals.
Deep prevention entails a “one-health” approach – human, animal and environmental – to respond to challenges that require concerted action and that impact multiple policy areas.
Whole-of-government approaches (i.e., policies and actions that are co-ordinated and coherent across the government) enable the implementation of deep pandemic prevention and preparedness.
However, this requires political will and a commitment to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, as well as to develop policies, legislation and strategies supported by continuous financing. These are all issues that Ottawa, the provinces and territories must address to implement a “one-health” approach.
New coronaviruses continue to emerge in animals, demonstrating the need for vigilant monitoring of human, animal and environmental data through co-ordinated surveillance systems to allow intervention at the source of zoonotic spillover.
Similarly, antimicrobial resistance – an infectious disease characterized as a “silent pandemic” – also requires integrated cross-sectoral surveillance systems guided by shared governance, including principles of collaboration and co-ordination across multiple levels and sectors, outcome-oriented management, political sustainability, accountability, transparency and equity.
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While preventing infectious-disease spillover from animals to humans poses significant challenges, the cost of prevention is significantly less than responding to a pandemic. Even marginal preventative gains are cost-effective.
The most significant obstacle to implementing such a deep-prevention approach, however, is gaining political buy-in because the benefits of preventing zoonotic spillover are either invisible or evident only long after governments have come and gone from power, as happened with COVID-19.
While both proactive and reactive strategies are necessary, proactive strategies are less common because the imperative seems greater for governments to respond to crises rather than proactively addressing risks to prevent potential catastrophes.
For example, in 2021, the federal government released its biomanufacturing and life-sciences strategy, which seeks to advance pandemic readiness by strengthening Canada’s capacity to produce vaccines, therapeutics and other countermeasures domestically.
Its central priorities are:
A new agency, Health Emergency Readiness Canada, was recently launched within Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to serve as the focal point for implementing these goals.
The strategy addressed criticism regarding gaps in Canada’s supply chain and dependence on foreign companies, which led to a lack of personal protective equipment to meet the needs of health-care professionals during COVID-19 , as well as concerns regarding the ineffectiveness of the national emergency strategic stockpile due to a lack of co-ordination between Ottawa, the provinces and territories.
However, Canada’s approach to pandemic preparedness – defined by its focus on strengthening domestic capacity to create vaccines, therapeutics and personal protective equipment – is a downstream plan. It aims to contain infection from affecting a wider population only after it has emerged.
The limitations of this approach may be seen through the curtailment just months before COVID-19 emerged of the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, which monitors global developments with the potential to create disease outbreaks. Canada might have experienced less morbidity and mortality from COVID-19 if the network’s surveillance, early warning and response capacities had been maintained and leveraged instead.
Ottawa further took a downstream approach by phasing out the funding of various surveillance and response activities.
The 2022 fall economic statement phased out funding of key surveillance programs over the next four fiscal years. This includes ensuring the safety of air travel, COVID-19 border-testing operations and COVID-19 procurement in 2023-24; funding National Research Council pandemic technology programs in 2024-25; enhancing African swine-fever prevention and preparedness measures in 2025-26; and regulating animal imports in 2026-27.
Similarly, the 2022 federal budget phased out funding of the emergency stockpile after 2022-23, and reduced surveillance and risk assessment funding for the Public Health Agency of Canada after 2024-25.
In addition, relevant federal departments and agencies – Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; the Canadian Food Inspection Agency; the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Environment and Climate Change Canada; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; Health Emergency Readiness Canada; and the Public Health Agency of Canada – undertake one-health and pandemic-preparedness activities with no apparent formal or informal co-ordination mechanism.
Governance systems must be reimagined to unite the fragmented responses to global health challenges. Rather than create another silo, Ottawa should create a one-health branch within Health Emergency Readiness Canada staffed “on loan” with representatives from other departments.
This arrangement would enable them to contribute to the new branch while staying in their home departments their remaining time – reporting vertically to their respective ministers as well as horizontally to the new branch.
This would foster the communication, co-ordination and collaboration necessary to address complex issues in a timelier manner while also integrating one-health concepts and strategies within their home departments.
Potential synergies include the development of medical countermeasures informed by surveillance that detects and notifies the federal government about novel pathogens and emerging diseases, as well as co-ordinated funding for one-health and pandemic-preparedness research set out in the strategy with similar financing as provided by federal research funding agencies.
Ottawa might also consider development and implementation of a one-health strategy that defines targets, methodologies, guidelines, tools, and accountability for deliverable activities including timelines. This would strengthen the capacity of the new branch to aid in establishing a whole-of-government approach that guides and incorporates non-health stakeholders.
Focusing solely on downstream preparedness accepts some level of risk and vulnerability that is partly avoidable. Even marginal efforts toward deep prevention will complement and strengthen downstream interventions, such as those enabled by the technological focus of the government’s biomanufacturing and life-sciences strategy.
A one-health action plan would also better articulate Canadian interests, needs, strengths and weaknesses clearly and consistently. For pandemic prevention, this entails identifying ideal and alternative outcomes based on tradeoffs, costs and acceptability.
It is imperative to ensure that Canadian public policies are coherent, co-ordinated and converge around these interests and needs to better address the next pandemic.
Just as SARS created momentum to establish the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2004, COVID-19 (SARS CoV-2) could hasten establishment of the one-health branch and strategy that is imperative to address risks on the horizon.
A reorientation to a whole-of-government approach would address a key gap in Canadian public-health policy while strengthening the development and implementation of current priorities that better protect Canadians from future pandemics.
The authors would like to thank Tarra Penney for her feedback and guidance on previous versions of this article.
Nearly one in four people in Canada — 8.3 million residents — are immigrants. Yet, the classifications that greet them upon arrival are far from equal.
Despite making up about half of Canada’s international migrants, women are much more likely (about 21 per cent more likely) than men to enter Canada categorized as spouses or dependents. As of early 2025, an estimated 3.1 million people additionally hold non-permanent status — including international students and temporary foreign workers — for whom similar disaggregated data remains elusive, and significantly so.
This trend of gendered discrepancy is problematic, especially if it remains unchecked, as it reinforces economic dependence and limits opportunities for national integration and mobility.
In December 2022, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) introduced a temporary two-year expansion of open work permit (OWP) eligibility to include spouses and dependents of many international students and foreign workers. Previously, only such parties in specific high-skill occupations were eligible.
OWPs allow foreign nationals to work for any employer, with certain exceptions, whereas the alternative — closed work permits — only allow recipients to work for a specific employer. According to the government’s news release, the changes sought to address Canadian labour shortages while aiming “to improve the emotional well-being, physical health and financial stability of workers by keeping families together.”
Yet, as part of a broader announcement in September 2024 to address rising concerns around population growth, housing supply, and affordability, IRCC gave notice that OWP eligibility is again limited to only spouses and/or dependents of certain masters and doctoral students, as well as foreign workers in certain employment training, education, experience and responsibilities (TEER) categories. With these changes, children of foreign workers are no longer eligible at all.
This policy rollback disproportionally harms women, who are more likely to arrive as dependents and who already face greater challenges finding work, with or without OWPs. Researchers have found that married Canadian immigrant women have a harder time integrating into the workforce than immigrant men, leading to higher unemployment levels and lower incomes. This lack of access to work permits forces many women into economic dependency, directly reducing their ability to support their families, gain permanent residency, and build lives of their own.
Immigration lawyers warn that many spouses must now enter Canada on visitor visas in order to keep their families together. Given the abrupt nature and low visibility of the IRCC announcement, aspiring migrants on visitor visas or with plans to use the open pathway might not be aware that it was changed.
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As migrants with visitor records have been turned away at the border due to interpretation and application issues, spouses or dependents attempting to enter the country without a work permit may face increased chances of separation from their family. What is more, migrants currently in Canada may not be aware that they need to eventually apply for a different visa to remain documented, which means that this lack of communication risks migrants losing their legal status.
Without status enabling them to legally work — which is not afforded by a visitor visa — spouses cannot contribute financially to their household. Indeed, in cases where it is the primary income earner who loses the right to work, families are left facing even greater risks of financial strain, which affects housing affordability and basic living costs.
Being unable to legally participate in the workforce also means that many women and children will be unable to access important benefits such as provincial health care and other social services, and may be forced into irregular work that leaves them even more vulnerable to exploitation. This is already a concern for many dependents; even if they are able to sustain their visa status through a partner’s sponsorship, they are not allowed to access social assistance.
Beyond economics, the immigration system’s structural design flaws create other serious power imbalances. When women are listed as dependents, they rely on their spouse — the principal applicant — for documentation, updates, and decision-making. This can lead to misinformation, exclusion from official correspondence, and limited awareness of updates to their own legal status.
Dependent spouses in abusive relationships are also vulnerable to having their declared status used against them, and may fear that reporting any harm could have repercussions on their immigration process. With limited options and no independent status, escape from abuse becomes nearly impossible. Moreover, for migrants living in lower socioeconomic conditions, the risk of conjugal conflict only increases when tensions arise from stress, frustration, and fatigue.
Other specific exchanges, such as sending money back to their home country, can also contribute to this conflict, and thus to women’s vulnerability. Restricting women’s access to work and self-sufficiency only exacerbates these risks.
In terms of specific steps toward constructive reform, the federal government could start by ensuring that Canada’s commitment to gender equality extends to its immigration policies. It is essential that gender-based analysis plus be applied to migration pathways, and that the immigration system be updated to account for the different ways that women can be disenfranchised through the process of migration as opposed to their male counterparts.
As well, IRCC should ensure that immigration information is communicated clearly in multiple languages and across accessible platforms. Legal aid and outreach programs are critical to helping spouses and dependents understand their rights and to prepare for policy changes.
In the case of rights being further restricted, having effective information campaigns is paramount to ensuring that spouses are aware of all changes and have time to adequately prepare other strategies for remaining in Canada. Proactive notification, especially for those at risk of losing their status, is vital to ensure that migrants can find safe alternate solutions.
More ambitiously, the government should create a mechanism that grants OWPs to dependents who are recognized as being financially or personally vulnerable. While this approach will face challenges such as language barriers and bureaucratic hurdles, it is nevertheless necessary to protect those most at risk and to ensure that Canada’s immigration policies do not inadvertently perpetuate structural gender inequalities.
Ultimately, Canada should reinstate OWP eligibility for all spouses of international students and foreign workers. This would allow more migrants to contribute meaningfully to Canada’s economy and to society while also helping future citizens build their personal capacity.
These initiatives would help significantly with the positive re-assessment and updating of the federal immigration program, and add consistency in supporting Canada’s values of gender equality.
Ontario’s child welfare sector has been subjected to frequent financial audits – reviews that track spending and revenues in a bid to ensure fiscal accountability. However, these audits rarely address systemic issues that directly affect the well-being of the children in the provincial system.
Instead, the Progressive Conservative government should create a comprehensive child protection system that engages diverse communities, addresses racial inequities, strengthens regulatory mechanisms, requires public data reporting and funds wraparound social supports that prevent child maltreatment.
The most recent provincial audit, announced in October, of 37 non-Indigenous child welfare agencies is too financially focused and misses deeper structural problems.
For example, recent data from provincial freedom-of-information requests reveal that 354 children associated with the child welfare system died between 2020-22 – almost one death every three days.
This illustrates the serious lack of oversight for child protective services and residential care providers such as group homes.
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Ontario’s ombudsman has detailed severe failures by some Children’s Aid Society (CAS) agencies where children such as Brandon remained in unsafe and “horrible” living situations, despite alerts from educators, doctors and caseworkers.
A young Indigenous girl named Misty was supposed to be under the care of a private foster agency when she went missing seven times, was physically and sexually assaulted, and overdosed from drugs. This and other documented cases provide further evidence of systemic problems within child welfare.
Because Indigenous-led CAS organizations are not included in the October audit, inequities affecting First Nations children – who are 3.6 times more likely to be the subject of child maltreatment-related investigations than non-Indigenous children across Canada – remain unexamined.
The problem affects many other marginalized groups across Ontario.
In 2018, the latest year for which data is available, Black children were disproportionately overrepresented in the province’s child welfare system – more than twice their population share.
Also in 2018, Latin American children were 2.3 times more likely than white children to be the subject of investigations by Ontario child protective services.
Newcomer children were also 2.8 times overrepresented in the province’s child protection services in the same year, compared to non-newcomer children.
There has been no province-wide data on Black, Latin American and newcomer children’s representation in child welfare since research based on the 2018 Ontario Incidence Study, so it is difficult to discern the disparities that these and other identity minority populations currently experience.
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Child protection services often lack anti-racism training, inclusive target policies, engagement from diverse communities, and effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms. The overrepresentation of racial minority and immigrants in the child welfare system reveals not only disproportionate interventions but also inequities in how these communities experience provincial systems.
In 2020, the Doug Ford government announced a child welfare strategy focused on prevention and early intervention, but funding and implementation remain lacklustre at best.
Target programs such as One Vision, One Voice, funded by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, have the potential to address racial disproportionalities and disparities, but there is no mechanism for mandatory implementation or enforcement measures to ensure CAS compliance.
A policy directive requires the collection of identity-based data to increase transparency on racial and other disparities, yet the data is still (eight years later) not publicly available.
In 2019, the Ford government also repealed the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth Act – a key child advocacy law – and transferred investigative powers but not youth-led advocacy from the dismantled Ontario Child Advocate’s Office to the provincial ombudsman’s office.
As the ombudsman’s 2023-24 report notes, the move was made without adequate communication, misleading many children and service providers within the child welfare sector to think that there was “no longer anywhere for young people to call.” This limited children’s awareness of, and right to, access complaint mechanisms that are in place to protect them.
The Ford government’s redesign of the child welfare system has resulted in little to no change in service delivery. Its words have not aligned with meaningful outcomes for children.
In October, when the provincial government announced the latest audit of child welfare in Ontario, the Ford government noted budgetary concerns, saying CAS’s child welfare expenditures have not decreased even though there are fewer children in care.
The focus on cost reduction contradicts the preventative model outlined in 2020, which required increased upfront spending on mechanisms to prevent children from entering care, unlike the current antiquated funding model based primarily on the number of children in care.
According to estimates by the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, the provincial government has allocated $3.7 billion less than required to fund existing ministry programs and announced commitments for 2024-27.
The Ford government should deliver on its promise of a thorough, holistic child welfare overhaul by taking several steps, including:
Ontario cannot afford to look the other way while vulnerable children slip through the cracks. Only a transparent, equitable and prevention-focused system will keep every child safe. That’s where we must invest.
In June 2024, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government voted down Bill 192, a private member’s initiative supported by the New Democrats and Liberals that would have established a cap on the number of patients under the care of each nurse per shift.
But nurses haven’t backed down. Armed with evidence showing how this policy improves the quality of care and the work environment, health-care professionals across the province rallied, organized and fought for a patient-to-nurse ratio at an institutional level. This long, exhausting fight has entered arbitration with the Ontario Hospital Association.
The fight also continues in the provincial legislature. Bill 19 – essentially a reintroduction of Bill 192 after the election earlier this year – offers the Doug Ford government a renewed chance to show it values nurses and is committed to improving the health of Ontarians. It deserves a serious review in committee, along with opportunities for both professionals and the public to be heard.
The bill would set a maximum number of patients a nurse can care for during one shift, depending on the clinical setting and the complexity of care required.
For example, patients in intensive care units require more attention, so nurses must spend more time performing procedures, administering medications and assisting with activities that are often one-to-one.
On the other hand, patients in rehabilitation facilities may be fully ambulatory and require far less monitoring. They are often able to manage their daily activities independently, meaning nurses are needed mainly for oversight and support. In such settings, one nurse can typically care for four or five patients effectively.
A good ratio should take into account the specific demands of each clinical setting, including specialized procedures, such as ventilation or wound care, and variations in the workload between day and night shifts.
Time and labour are finite resources. When the number of patients increases beyond what is manageable, nurses must allocate less time and effort to each patient. This leads to poorer patient outcomes, a higher risk of errors and reduced patient satisfaction.
This simple arithmetic is backed by evidence. In 1999, California implemented a patient-to-nurse ratio, leading to a significant reduction in patient mortality. Queensland, Australia, adopted a similar policy in 2016 and saw improved patient outcomes, shorter hospital stays and lower readmission rates.
A good patient-to-nurse ratio would also create a more sustainable environment for retaining nurses.
A 2024 study by the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario found that many of its members were negatively affected by the nursing shortage and increased workloads. Due to limited time and resources, its members reported being unable to provide the level of care they felt was necessary.
This increased pressure has created significant psychological strain, with nearly half of practical nurses considering leaving the profession. Among those planning to leave, 63 per cent said they intend to exit health care altogether.
The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario reported similar findings regarding job dissatisfaction and workload challenges for its members.
With the ongoing nurse shortage already straining the health-care system and causing emergency department closures across the province, urgent action is needed.
When practical nurses planning to leave were asked what would make them reconsider, 72 per cent cited a better patient-to-nurse ratio as a key factor. Evidence shows this policy can reduce the risk of occupational injury, increase job satisfaction, decrease burnout risks and improve retention.
However, during last year’s debate on Bill 192, the Ford government expressed no concerns about the quality of patient care or the burdens placed on nurses. Instead, it argued that an increase in the patient-to-nurse ratio would lead to an increase in the number of nurses needed in the province and a resulting increase in provincial spending.
The trend is in the opposite direction.
For every 100,000 Ontarians in 2021, there were 668 registered nurses. By 2022, this number dropped to 661 and despite the government’s so-called significant investments in the area, the number fell even further in 2023 to 651.
These numbers are the lowest in Canada where the national average is 825 per 100,000 people. However, the nurse-per-capita metric in Ontario has decreased by seven per cent in the past decade. This is a staggering failure and it is shameful to treat nurses and patients this way.
Nurses are fed up with the status quo. The system continues to show little regard for its staff, despite growing concerns about patient health. Those in power remain indifferent, even when presented with clear evidence. The persistent stubbornness and dismissiveness are disheartening. Beneath the frustration and sadness lies a deeper truth: nurses are exhausted.
The health-care system is approaching a breaking point. Ontarians are frustrated with long hospital wait times and emergency room closures, yet we gave Ford and his party another mandate in the February provincial election.
The government should repay this trust, listen to nurses, engage in meaningful constructive discussion and support the implementation of an effective patient-to-nurse ratio cap.
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To improve population health and well-being, a health-care system must deliver results—that is, it must create value. But how do we define and measure that value?
This is a critical question at a time when health systems around the world seem increasingly overwhelmed. Population aging is often blamed, but that was a predictable trend. What needs deeper scrutiny is how health systems are organized—and how they must evolve.
The best way to create value in health care is to achieve the Quintuple Aim (defined by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement). This model targets five goals: better patient experience, a healthier population, lower per capita costs, improved care team well-being and health equity.
Health systems are defined by how they are administered, financed, and—most crucially—how care is organized. This third element must be central to any transformation and grounded in a clear, adaptable architecture.
The model I propose is evolutionary. It supports building the most appropriate service offering for a given population, tailored to local needs rather than one-size-fits-all solutions imposed by health authorities.
A well-designed architecture to reduce care variability is essential. Today, patients consulting multiple teams for the same issue often receive inconsistent treatment. This lack of coherence, long documented, impedes performance and makes it harder to create value.
Architecture evolves in response to external factors – such as changes in demographics, clinical practices, resources, and regulations – and internal system principles linked to patients, care teams, and operational excellence.
External factors and guiding principles point to seven levers for transforming a health-care system into focusing on adding value. They fall into three groups:
High-performance systems require agile, resilient governance. Clear roles, responsibilities, structures, processes and rules must support both daily operations and long-term transformation. Clinical governance, focused on value for patients, must actively engage all stakeholders.
This governance must be solid enough to withstand crises and agile enough to adapt quickly to change.
Multilevel governance (a minister, the Department of Health, national and regional agencies and health-care providers) requires clear definition of roles and responsibilities. It also relies on a management system, at all levels, that ensures continuity of daily operations while executing the transformation strategy without compromising performance.
The second lever requires resource management to be precise and dynamic. Human, material, technological, building and financial resources must be carefully identified, deployed, and maintained. This can mean regularly reviewing team structures or creating new job categories, redesigning care spaces to improve productivity and care capacity.
Human resources, the system’s most valuable asset, are too often taken for granted. A flexible structure should allow remuneration to be decoupled from rigid job structure. This would allow adaptation without losing staff.
In some jurisdictions, working conditions are negotiated before determining what services the system should deliver – an inversion that constrains innovation. Instead, remuneration should follow service design, not drive it.
Three tools are needed to link system-wide vision to local action.
First, we need to improve citizens’ health literacy, so that they better understand their health status, the services available and how to access them, as well as their responsibility for their own health. Among health-care professionals, we need to improve digital literacy to take advantage of the technological tools essential to transforming the health-care system.
Second, care pathways must be simplified. That includes monitoring service access in real time, accompanying vulnerable clients throughout their care journey, updating clinical knowledge on practices and prevention, fostering interdisciplinary teams, integrating precision health, and optimizing care transitions.
Streamlined care pathways reduce inefficiencies and shift expensive interventions to cost-effective ones. For example, early cancer screening or quit-smoking programs can prevent the need for complex treatment later.
Third, digitization is essential. A unified digital health record, expanded telehealth, and task automation (e.g., laboratory analyses or supply transport) can dramatically improve efficiency.
A proactive system requires real-time monitoring of both population health status and system performance. Agility comes from being able to adapt quickly to these internal and external signals.
Financing must also evolve. Instead of paying for volume, we must pay for value. Organizations—not individuals—should be compensated based on their performance in achieving the Quintuple Aim. A health-care delivery network could, for example, be funded based on the efficacy of their screening outreach programs or post-surgical complication rates.
The levers act on five key design parameters: the four standard care pathways (episodic care, long-term conditions, infants, youths and seniors), the distribution of expertise across levels of care (primary, specialized, superspecialized), care settings (home, community, hospital), team geography, and care transition mechanisms.
By drawing on external and internal factors, transformation levers and design parameters, we can build an architecture focused on value creation, in which the service offering is a means to achieving the Quintuple Aim.
Achieving the Quintuple Aim has effects far beyond the health-care system: a healthier population participates more fully in society, fostering economic and social development and increasing the State’s capacity to invest in other key sectors, such as education, the environment, housing, public safety and, of course, health care.
Editor’s note: This article is the first of two by the author. A second article will outline a roadmap for implementing these ideas.
The mercenary spyware industry develops and sells advanced tools that can covertly gain complete access to a cellphone’s microphone, camera, messages, photos and historical data – all without its user clicking any malicious links. The technology notoriously facilitates human rights abuses worldwide.
In Canada, NSO Group’s Pegasus was forensically identified in 2018 on the phone of a Canadian permanent resident and Saudi activist in exile, Omar Abdulaziz, who had been messaging with a close contact, Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
An analysis from the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab attributed the spyware deployment to an operator linked to Saudi Arabia. Not long after the discovery of spyware on Abdulaziz’s phone, Khashoggi was killed in a Saudi consulate in Turkey.
More recently, a March report from Citizen Lab marks the first time a Canadian police service has been directly linked to the mercenary spyware industry. The report identified the Ontario Provincial Police as a possible customer of a spyware company founded in Israel called Paragon Solutions. It also uncovered a growing ecosystem of spyware capability among police services in several Ontario cities.
Hours after the report was published, the CBC reported that Ontario’s privacy commissioner said it “raises significant concerns” and that none of the police services named in the report had consulted with the commissioner.
“We have made it clear in the past that our office should be consulted before new policing technologies with significant privacy implications are procured, adopted or used,” the commissioner’s office added.
The report and the commissioner’s response escalate the urgency of addressing gaps in Canadian laws, which are stuck in the era of 1970s wiretap technology and fail to draw any real boundaries around today’s advanced spyware.
Its findings also underscore the renewed need for action by federal lawmakers and privacy regulators across Canada to address the specific dangers of spyware technology, through both legislative reform and comprehensive oversight.
This is not a new problem. In 2022, the RCMP admitted it had been using on-device investigation tools (ODITs) – law enforcement’s euphemism for spyware – for many years. The RCMP refused to disclose its source of spyware technology, despite the fact that wiretap laws impose parliamentary reporting obligations on law enforcement agencies.
The RCMP’s admission that it had been using ODITs for years without Parliament being explicitly notified illustrates the many dangers of shoehorning new spyware technology into decades-old wiretap laws.
In response to the 2022 RCMP admission, a parliamentary committee recommended numerous law reforms. Notably, it concluded that the federal government should review Part VI of the Criminal Code governing police interception of private communications “to ensure that it is fit for the digital age.” But three years later, no efforts have been made to move this legislative needle.
The apparent inertia wasn’t always the case.
Historically, the federal government has played an important role by defining law enforcement powers according to democratic standards. For example, the 1969 Ouimet Report set the stage for far-reaching reforms to Canada’s justice system. It led to the adoption of Canada’s current intercept regime in the 1970s to respond to the privacy dangers of the surveillance technologies of that time.
But Canada has fallen behind.
Our intercept regime is substantially out of step vis-a-vis the dangers born of the mercenary spyware industry. The expansive and intrusive capabilities of spyware make wiretap technology seem quaint in comparison.
A 2024 report by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe set out minimum safeguards to comply with the rule of law and human rights for countries considering the use of spyware. On several fronts, Canada’s intercept laws fall short of even these minimum safeguards.
For example, the Venice report recommends the use of spyware be limited to a narrow set of serious offences. In Canada, Marco Mendicino, former public safety minister, emphasized in 2022 that Part VI would allow spyware deployments to investigate only “a limited number of very serious offences.”
But contrary to the Venice report’s recommended limits, the long list in Part VI contains nearly 200 offences that could be cited by law enforcement to justify spyware use in an investigation. It includes non-violent, petty offences such as mischief or theft; copyright or competition law offences; or obscure offences such as possessing unstamped vaping products or making an indecent communication with the intent to “annoy” someone.
The Venice report also calls for restricting spyware used to target persons suspected of a serious offence and recommends strict protections for professional privileges and groups historically targeted, including journalists, human rights defenders and government critics. Save for some measures concerning lawyer-client privilege, none of these limitations exist in Canada.
At its core, Part VI fails to distinguish and circumscribe the circumstances where targeted surveillance may be conducted with spyware instead of traditional, less-intrusive tools. This lack of precision means that upon authorization, any method – including spyware – may be installed and maintained to conduct an investigation.
It bears emphasizing that even if the federal government were to follow through with its study and reform of Part VI, there is no guarantee that new laws would be constitutional or human rights compliant. For example, Austria’s constitutional court struck down a proposed spyware law in 2019 because it disproportionately interfered with human rights.
In Canada, Part VI is still only part of the picture.
By signing the 2023 Joint Statement on Efforts to Counter the Proliferation and Misuse of Commercial Spyware and the recent G7 Leaders’ Statement on Transnational Repression, Canada has recognized that the commercial spyware industry is a threat to human rights and our national security.
However, the federal government has not put forward any concrete regulations to prohibit procurement of such spyware, as the United States did with Executive Order 14093.
Most people think of surveillance abuse as a problem in authoritarian countries. But Citizen Lab’s investigation into Paragon Solutions also led to the discovery of dozens of spyware victims in non-authoritarian countries, including documented cases in Italy targeting human rights groups, government critics, journalists and a priest.
Given that the company had sought to differentiate itself by citing internal safeguards, the March Citizen Lab report suggests: “Paragon’s claims of having found an abuse-proof business model may not hold up to scrutiny.”
Since the report’s publication in March, further reporting has revealed that even more journalists in Italy were targeted. These recent abuses echo what Citizen Lab also uncovered in Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Poland and Spain, showing it is a problem in democratic countries, too.
Authorities in democracies, including Canada, can also be tempted to abuse their power – and clearly many do. Without proper safeguards, it will be inevitable that spyware abuses will emerge here.
Spyware also represents a serious cyber and national security threat. In 2023, the cyber arm of the United Kingdom’s GCHQ warned that the commercial spyware industry “is creating an expanding number of elements for cyber defence to detect and mitigate.” Hackers-for-hire “raise the likelihood of unpredictable targeting or unintentional escalation through attempts to compromise a wider range of targets.”
As a result, when Canadian authorities use mercenary software, they fuel an industry that can create vulnerabilities in the smartphones we all use. The federal and Ontario governments have signalled they will have a more proactive role on cybersecurity. But cybersecurity stewardship should also mean recognizing when the call is coming from inside the house.
In its 2023 annual report, Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Review Agency announced it has been reviewing how Canada’s national security agencies and the RCMP handle “zero-day” vulnerabilities. Zero-day vulnerabilities include the powerful tools that cyber mercenaries wield to compromise our devices.
But who is tasked with asking these questions of local or provincial police services in Canada? Certainly, the judges currently tasked with authorizing spyware deployments are not mandated, nor necessarily technically fluent enough, to identify cyber risks with nationwide security implications.
Ontario’s privacy commissioner, who has a mandate over next-generation law enforcement technologies, will undoubtedly have a critical role to play, given that numerous police services in the province appear to have begun using one of the most controversial surveillance technologies of our time.
Federal leadership will also be crucial to make good on Canada’s commitment to address the human rights and national security dangers.
But as a starting point, lawmakers and privacy regulators both need transparency and accountability from law enforcement institutions themselves for our democratic systems to be meaningful.
In the Policy Options piece “Is addressing anti-Black racism in Canada still a policy priority?, Tari Ajadi and his co-authors have courageously initiated a conversation that many institutions would prefer to avoid.
Their examination of eroding anti-Black racism commitments provides essential accountability at a time when equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives face mounting backlash across North America. However, their analysis perpetuates a fragmented approach that could ultimately undermine anti-racism efforts.
A focus on anti-Black racism as distinct from other forms of discrimination risks falling into what scholars term the “Oppression Olympics.” It’s a dynamic where marginalized groups compete to prove themselves more oppressed than others, comparing relative suffering based on race, gender, religion, sexuality, and other identity factors.
But as Elizabeth Martínez warned in her foundational work, “no competition of hierarchies should prevail.” When anti-Black racism is segmented from anti-Indigenous racism or other discrimination, it inadvertently leads to competing narratives that can divide marginalized communities. This fragmentation serves the interests of existing power structures by encouraging oppressed groups to fight against one another rather than addressing systemic inequities collectively.
It’s true that EDI and anti-racism are not synonymous. But attacks on EDI initiatives are fundamentally attacks on anti-racism work. When political leaders employ “dog-whistle rhetoric about ending wokeism,” as the authors mention, they are targeting the entire infrastructure designed to address systemic discrimination.
Across Canada, EDI backlash is dismantling decades of progress. The University of Alberta, for example, is “rebranding” EDI. U.S. multinationals with a Canadian presence are slashing EDI programs. The Trump administration ordered the U.S. federal government in January to end EDI programs, and some governments in Canada are eliminating diversity roles. These represent a systematic rollback of human-rights protections. To treat this as separate from anti-Black racism efforts is to misunderstand the interconnected nature of oppression and resistance.
Our public institutions have made significant strides in developing policy-analysis frameworks, from Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+) to intersectionality-based policy analysis. But these approaches remain insufficient for addressing the complexity of our multicultural society. Current policy frameworks, though well-intentioned, often create what researchers call “tick-box exercises” that provide an appearance of progress without addressing structural inequities.
GBA+ requires policymakers to consider how policies affect different identity groups, while intersectionality-based policy analysis examines how forms of oppression interact. However, these frameworks often operate in silos, examining specific identity categories rather than understanding the complex cultural dynamics that shape lived experiences. They tend to focus on teaching information about different cultures without developing the deeper capabilities needed for effective cross-cultural policy work.
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What policymakers truly need is a more comprehensive framework: cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence, or CQ, is a globally recognized way of assessing and improving effectiveness in culturally diverse situations. Unlike traditional cultural competence programs, cultural intelligence develops four core capabilities: CQ drive (motivation to work across cultures), CQ knowledge (understanding cultural differences without stereotyping), CQ strategy (planning effectively across cultural contexts), and CQ action (adapting behaviour appropriately).
Cultural intelligence is a more holistic approach that recognizes culture as the broader context within which all identity categories operate. It acknowledges that effective policy must go beyond checking boxes for different demographic groups to understanding how cultural values, communication styles, and worldviews shape how policies are received and implemented.
Cultural intelligence predicts success across domains relevant to policymaking: judgment and decision-making, negotiation, trust-building, innovation, and leadership. In policy contexts, culturally intelligent approaches create more effective, equitable, and culturally sensitive policies that resonate with diverse populations.
Rather than asking whether a policy affects Black Canadians differently than other groups, a cultural-intelligence lens would require policymakers to understand how cultural factors shape the entire policy environment. This includes recognizing how cultural values and norms significantly shape policymaking, and how policies that are not culturally sensitive may be met with resistance or fail to achieve intended goals.
Implementing cultural intelligence in policy work requires several key shifts. First, policymakers must develop cultural competence and sensitivity (CQ drive and knowledge) that enable them to better understand the needs of diverse cultural groups and develop policies that are responsive to these needs. This goes beyond demographic analysis to understanding how cultural frameworks shape policy reception and effectiveness.
Second, policy development must incorporate cultural impact assessments (CQ strategy) and engage with diverse stakeholders to gather insights into cultural values and norms. This requires creating systematic processes for cultural intelligence among policymakers and public officials through targeted training and education that develops motivation, strategic thinking, and adaptive cross-cultural skills.
Third, policy evaluation must regularly assess cultural responsiveness, checking in with policymakers to adjust based on how policies perform across different cultural contexts (CQ action). This is a fundamental shift from static policy lenses to dynamic, culturally intelligent governance.
The EDI backlash does indeed represent a critical moment for policymaking. But rather than retreating into separate initiatives for marginalized groups, a more nuanced approach needs to acknowledge the interconnected nature of oppression while fostering bridges across communities. Cultural intelligence provides this framework by focusing on the cultural contexts that shape all identity experiences.
This does not mean abandoning targeted anti-racism initiatives. It means embedding them in a broader cultural- intelligence framework that recognizes how culture shapes the entire policy landscape. When policymakers develop cultural intelligence, they become better equipped to design policies that address systemic racism while building coalitions across marginalized communities.
The authors’ call for moral fortitude in the face of backlash is well-taken. However, moral fortitude alone is insufficient without analytical tools to understand and respond to cultural complexity. By embracing cultural intelligence as a foundational policy competency, institutions can move beyond fragmented approaches to build more effective, inclusive, and transformative governance systems that serve all Canadians equitably.
The conversation initiated by the authors is an important step. The next step will be to broaden that conversation to include the cultural-intelligence framework, which can transform policy approaches in an increasingly diverse society.
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The federal government is acting on its promise to eliminate remaining federal-level barriers to internal trade by July 1. The Carney government fast-tracked Bill C-5 – a key part of this effort – through the legislation process. This is a principal component of a broader effort to create a more seamless economic union within Canada – or what Ottawa calls “one Canadian economy.”
While these are promising signs, given the economic potential, it’s important to recognize that most internal trade barriers exist at the provincial level. Different regulations and requirements among provinces add friction to the sales of products, services and the mobility of labour. Ultimately, the actions of provincial governments will determine how liberalized Canada’s internal market becomes.
Seizing this momentum, some provinces such as Nova Scotia and Quebec have introduced legislation to eliminate some barriers. Others, including Ontario, have also signed bilateral memorandum of understanding with other provinces, embracing the idea that what is good enough for one province is good enough for the other.
But amid this shift, it’s worth recalling that many of the barriers now being dismantled were put in place under the framework of the existing Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which came into effect on July 1, 2017. The CFTA still allows considerable leeway for provinces to protect local industries and carve out exceptions. Until recently, provincial protectionism was often seen as politically advantageous – a way for premiers to be seen defending local jobs and businesses.
And while today’s context – defined in part by U.S. tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, and a renewed focus on economic resilience – may have made the public more receptive to internal trade liberalization, we would be mistaken to think this support is deep and durable.
Indeed, new data from the Confederation of Tomorrow survey suggests that public attitudes on one key aspect of internal trade have remained strikingly consistent – even with the latest push to remove barriers. When asked whether provincial and territorial governments should be allowed to favour local businesses by preventing businesses from elsewhere in Canada from selling their products, the responses in 2025 look almost identical to those in 2019 (see Figure 1). A significant share of Canadians still believe that local favouritism is acceptable – or they are at least ambivalent, depending on the product or sector.
Twenty-two per cent of Canadians say that their provincial government should be able to prevent businesses from elsewhere in Canada to favour local businesses, almost identical to 23 per cent in 2019. The most common answer, “It depends,” might seem like a cop-out. At the very least, it’s certainly not a ringing endorsement of free trade among provinces. Fewer than one in four Canadians – both today and in 2019 – firmly oppose allowing provinces to block goods from others.
By many measures, Quebec is the province with the most trade barriers – and also the most “protectionist” public opinion. Thirty-seven per cent of Quebecers say their provincial government should be allowed to block business from other provinces while only 14 per cent say it should not.
The same pattern – with more people in favour of barriers than opposed – is found in all provinces except three: British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia. British Columbia and Alberta are also the two provinces where we see the largest proportion saying government should not be allowed to block businesses from other provinces.
On internal trade, public opinion will be highly susceptible to framing. If the issue is presented as lowering costs for consumers and increasing national economic growth, support for liberalization grows. If it is framed as protecting local businesses and jobs, it diminishes.
For instance, research on support for supply management – a barrier to free trade – has shown that support for supply management “increases when respondents are primed to think of the policy as a way of protecting farmers and decreases when they are primed to think of its costs to consumers.”
Right now, Canadians are primed to think of freer internal trade as a way to counter dependence on the U.S. and bolster the Canadian economy. But this framing won’t stick forever, especially during elections when premiers and local candidates search for local and regional votes.
In fact, one reason for binding free trade agreements, such as the ones that governed the flow of goods and services between Canada and the U.S. until recently, is that they immunize both countries from the protectionist urges of local voters and legislators. But Canada’s internal trade agreements are not nearly as binding.
With only one in four Canadians firmly opposed to interprovincial trade barriers, it is likely only a matter of time before commitments are watered down.
Two lessons from the free trade debates of the 1980s are worth recalling. First, the economists who championed Canada-U.S. free trade were generally up front about short-term pain; some industries in Canada would fail with U.S. competition. (Many economists considered this a feature of the doctrine of comparative advantage, and not a bug.)
Breaking down interprovincial barriers can tackle the housing crisis, too
Today, it’s unclear that provincial premiers are willing to engage voters in a similar “short-term pain” discussion.
Second, although the incumbent government won the 1988 free trade election, a majority of Canadians opposed free trade itself. Public opinion is not generally free trade’s friend.
This is why provinces and the federal government should be thinking seriously about institutional reforms. Liberalization can be reversed as quickly as it started without mechanisms to ensure lasting progress.
Others have outlined some options that have received less government attention amid the current climate in favour of quick liberalization.
One area of focus is the governance structure of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement itself. Strengthening the dispute resolution mechanisms, introducing more transparency in exemptions and tightening the criteria for justifying trade barriers could help provinces resist protectionism.
The federal government could offer fiscal incentives to encourage liberalization – rewarding provinces that implement mutual recognition of credentials or streamline regulatory processes. Federal transfers could be tied to specific benchmarks, like past health or infrastructure funding agreements.
Together, these steps could serve as guardrails – ensuring that today’s progress is not lost to political shifts or economic pressures. Internal trade liberalization is not a one-time achievement; it is a governance challenge that requires durable solutions.
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For more than 50 years, tax reform has been a recurring theme in federal election campaigns. Every party pledges to make the system simpler, fairer, and more modern. Yet the facts show that little has changed.
The last comprehensive review of Canada’s tax system was in 1967, with the Royal Commission on Taxation chaired by Kenneth Carter. Since then, every major party has promised to tackle this complex issue, but none have followed through once in power.
The Liberals once again included it in their election platform. But now that they form the new government, the issue no longer seems to be a priority. Neither the throne speech nor recent remarks from the prime minister have mentioned reform.
As part of a study on the need to reform Canada’s tax system, we examined proposals from the five main parties in the last federal election.
We did not seek to compare all tax-related proposals or analyze specific measures. Instead, we focused on identifying the promises linked to a reform or simplification of the tax system in each platform, along with the mechanisms proposed to achieve these goals.
Let us begin with the Liberal Party of Canada.
In its Canada Strong platform, tax fairness and system reform were grouped under the theme of “Build,” with ambitious measures such as:
The promise was clear: reform the tax system to modernize and mobilize revenues to finance social priorities. But so far there is little evidence such a reform is underway.
Key questions remain. Does the government intend to review and reform the tax system? If so, what will be the mandate and scope, and will it lead to real reform or superficial adjustments?
Over the years, a number of legislative changes have affected the tax system. Some, like the proposed increase in the capital gains inclusion rate, were never implemented. (That increase was recently cancelled by Mark Carney.)
Many changes have been piecemeal. What is needed now is a comprehensive approach to ensure the tax system is coherent and aligned with today’s economic realities.
It is understandable the government is concentrating on immediate crises that require the full attention of decision-makers: housing, inflation, tariffs imposed by the American president and national security. These are legitimate priorities, but they must not overshadow the importance of structural tax reform.
And if there is one issue that could unite the minority government with opposition parties, it is the tax system. Despite differences in policy approach, all major parties agree it needs an overhaul.
Our study found that all the major political parties included commitments in their platforms to make the tax system fairer and more equitable. Some also proposed ideas to simplify it for taxpayers.
Even with a minority Liberal government, there appears to be cross-party support for a broad review of the tax system.
The Conservative Party of Canada proposed a task force, including farmers, entrepreneurs, and workers, to develop a simpler, fairer tax system.
The Bloc Québécois suggested simplifying federal programs, allowing Quebec to administer a single tax return, and reducing administrative duplication.
The New Democratic Party believes that a rebalancing of the system is necessary to tax wealthier taxpayers more and reduce the tax burden on working people.
The Green Party of Canada proposed a wealth tax (on assets of $10 million or more) and the establishment of a permanent independent tax commission to evaluate fairness.
Despite ideological differences, all parties recognize the need for an in-depth review.
Tax reform is not just a technical exercise for experts. It has concrete effects on the daily lives of taxpayers, on the resources available to finance public services, and on equity between individuals, regions and sectors.
Neglecting reform means letting inequalities deepen and delaying updates to a system designed for a different economic, social and international era.
The coming months will be a test of the government’s intentions. Tax reform requires political will and pressure from opposition parties, experts and civil society.
Opposition parties, whose platforms included similar reform goals, could use the power of their critical influence to push the government into action.
The Liberal government still has time to act. But the longer it waits, the more likely it is that the promise be added to the growing pile of other unfulfilled pledges for reform.
Simplifying the system, reinforcing fairness, and modernizing corporate taxation would help reposition Canada in relation to the U.S., and bolster trust in public institutions.
Simplifying the system, reinforcing fairness, modernizing corporate taxation: these objectives can support Canada’s repositioning vis-à-vis the United States, and enhance the legitimacy of public institutions.
Postponing reform risks worsening the system’s flaws and eroding public confidence.
In a volatile geopolitical environment, it will also be important to advance fair and consistent international tax rules — an area where Canada has already pledged to lead.
The parties agree, at least in part, on the need for reform. Will they make it a real issue in Parliament? The actions of all parties — not just the government — will shape whether tax reform moves forward or fades away once again.
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Minimum wages are going up – Quebec raised its rate on May 1 and Ontario and British Columbia followed on June 1. Some see the increases as insufficient to meet current costs of living while others argue they are too costly and will lead to massive layoffs.
Clearly the only people who will benefit directly from higher minimum wages are those who are employed or find a job. For a long time, economists considered minimum wages as harmful to employment, assuming competitive markets would make firms unprofitable if they raise prices or wages.
With help from business lobbyists, they succeeded in convincing policymakers for decades. Minimum wage purchasing power went through a prolonged decline. Between 1995 and 2005, the Ontario minimum wage increased by about 10 per cent while the cost of living, measured by the consumer price index, increased twice as fast.
However, several empirical studies have since shown that minimum wage increases have only a minimal impact on employment. Many sectors and regions are dominated by a few large firms with significant market power – firms that can raise prices and underpay workers relative to the value those workers generate. Companies like Amazon could pay a higher minimum wage without going bankrupt.
Some studies even suggest that raising minimum wage could improve worker purchasing power, stimulating the economy and employment. These findings have shifted the consensus and since 2005 the minimum wage has grown at about the same pace as the median wage, and faster than the cost of living.
Should it have grown even more?
While experience has shown there was room for the minimum wage to grow, there remains a limit to how far it can rise above inflation without causing economic harm. Firms can only absorb higher costs and increase prices so much before becoming uncompetitive or unprofitable. Not all firms have the pricing capacity or the profit margin of Amazon. The risk of job loss differs across sectors, but it is highest for inexperienced workers in small businesses.
In Canada, a full-time minimum wage worker earns enough to be above the official poverty line but not enough to live a healthy life. Research suggests that a healthy, living wage would require boosting the minimum by more than 50 per cent – a move that would almost certainly lead to job losses.
Paradoxically, minimum wage hikes can hurt the very people the policy is meant to help. Job losses and hiring slowdowns often harm students and entry-level workers – those seeking a foothold in the labour market or trying to pay for education.
Moreover, many minimum wage workers do not live in low-income households. This weakens the policy’s effectiveness as a tool for reducing inequality and introduces what economists call “deadweight loss.”
There may be more efficient ways to support equality and low-income workers. One option could be to expand the Canada Workers Benefit (CWB), which tops up the earnings of low-wage workers. This program currently pays a single individual a maximum of $1,518 per year (or $29 per week). That’s not enough to help a vulnerable low-income Canadian thrive or provide an incentive to work more hours.
Raising the CWB maximum could put money in the pockets of people who need it and incentivize work. It could be restructured to act like a negative income tax or partial basic income, providing some money to those out of work. Recent studies show that the labour disincentive effect of this type of measure is likely small and it could help reconnect people to the labour market. Provinces could tailor the program to local needs.
A big problem with the current program is the timing of payments – they are made quarterly or annually. Low-income workers often live paycheque to paycheque and cannot afford to wait the next fiscal year to pay their groceries. In the digital age, there is no reason the Canada Revenue Agency couldn’t work with employers to integrate the benefit into weekly paycheques.
It is true that expanding the CWB would carry a fiscal cost. But it could be financed by a new payroll tax similar to how employment insurance is funded. Payroll taxes have a smaller negative impact on employment and would likely be more acceptable to small businesses.
A complementary option would be to strengthen labour protections and collective bargaining power. It is disturbing that Canada has no mandatory minimum number of paid sick days outside federally regulated sectors. Stronger employment standards and policies to promote unionization would help rebalance bargaining power between workers and employers.
Governments appear to be going in the opposite direction. Their tepid response to the closure of recently unionized Amazon warehouses was a missed opportunity to support workplace rights.
Setting minimum wages high enough to guarantee a decent living can backfire, putting people out of jobs and making it difficult for vulnerable people to find one. Since employment is one of the most important factors for securing mental health and wellbeing, the unintended consequences of minimum wage increases must be taken seriously.
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney isn’t pitching a sweeping public service overhaul — but his government is nudging changes to how Ottawa works. The passage of his signature major projects bill, a wave of senior leadership moves, and a new risk policy all point to a system being quietly rewired to deliver — and faster.
Carney doesn’t appear to have a grand theory of public service reform — but change is happening anyway. The system is being reshaped piece by piece, not by design, but by the demands of what he’s trying to get done.
“I think Carney has some things he needs to get done — and he’ll do what he has to do to change things in order to make that happen,” said one senior official not authorized to speak publicly. “But the changes are a consequence of the desire to get things done, not of some grand theory of government or public service reform.”
The first signal in that shift came with Bill C-5 – also known as the “One Canadian Economy Act” – which passed just before the House rose for summer. The legislation, voted on in two parts, is designed to break down interprovincial trade barriers and set out how a shortlist of nation-building projects will be chosen and fast-tracked. (Think: highways, railways, ports, airports, oil pipelines, critical minerals, mines, nuclear facilities or power grids.)
The legislation lays out a blueprint for doing government differently. It aims to build in new wiring for execution, forcing bureaucrats to focus on delivery, not just compliance.
The goal is to force departments out of their silos with internal trade review; speed up project reviews, cutting decision timelines from five years to two, and introduce a “one project, one review” model to streamline assessments. Projects deemed in the national interest would be fast-tracked – marking a clear shift from box-ticking compliance to faster delivery and economic growth.
It also creates a major projects office, a single federal point of contact to help priority projects through assessment and permitting.
The government is also starting to get the people in place to implement that plan. On the same day the bill passed, Carney shuffled his senior ranks — a first wave of appointments seen as an early step in retooling the leadership to drive his top priorities. With Michael Sabia set to become Clerk of the Privy Council on July 7, more moves are widely expected.
The departure of Jean-François Tremblay, deputy minister at Environment and Climate Change Canada, to become ambassador and permanent representative to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is a big loss for the federal public service.
He’s one of the most experienced deputies – and among the last still serving from the Harper era. His career moved at uncommon speed by today’s standards, with seven deputy minister roles in under two decades, including top posts at ESDC, Natural Resources, Indigenous Services, Transport, Infrastructure and, most recently, Environment.
Tremblay was known for bridging policy and operations in both social and economic portfolios. One senior official called him “the Swiss Army knife of the deputy community,” trusted with both line departments and central agencies.
Now, the baton at Environment passes to Mollie Johnson, the current deputy secretary at PCO for plans and consultations. She brings deep credentials in energy and environment, having previously worked at both Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada, where she served as associate deputy minister and as an adviser on decarbonization to Clerk of the Privy Council John Hannaford.
Environment’s core challenge is aligning climate and economic policy — rather than treating it as a choice between the two. Johnson’s appointment comes as the Carney government pushes to integrate both in a drive to build a new Canadian economy.
Earlier in her career, Johnson was director-general of NRCan’s major projects management office, created to co-ordinate large resource and infrastructure projects across departments. The office was wound down after Bill C-69 shifted project reviews to the new Impact Assessment Agency — a move critics say added layers of review and slowed approvals.
Now, under Carney, a new major projects office is being set up — this time inside PCO — with a mandate to speed up decisions and cut through red tape to deliver results faster.
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At Finance — a key department for both Carney and Sabia, who each once served as a deputy minister — Alison O’Leary has been promoted to associate deputy minister, the department’s second-highest role. She moves up from leading Federal-Provincial Relations, following the departure of Suzy McDonald to head Stanstead College in Quebec.
All eyes are now on whether Sabia, as incoming clerk, will put his mark on the public service by shaking up departments central to Carney’s agenda — Finance, Infrastructure and Housing, Natural Resources, the Treasury Board, or even PCO itself, which some insiders say has become top-heavy and stretched beyond its lane. Another shuffle could land as early as this summer.
Ministers and secretaries of state without full departments — like the new portfolios for Artificial Intelligence and Nature — are getting senior public servants assigned to support them directly. It’s essentially a deputy minister-style role.
Kaili Levesque, associate deputy minister at Fisheries and Oceans, will support the secretary of state for nature. Mark Schaan, deputy secretary to the cabinet for AI at PCO, will support Evan Solomon, the first minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation.
In other moves, Nancy Hamzawi, executive vice-president at the Public Health Agency, steps up as president following Heather Jeffrey’s retirement.
Meanwhile, the government made another move to shake the public service out of its longstanding risk-averse, compliance-heavy culture — rolling out a new risk and compliance policy. It’s not a headline-grabber, but it marks a clear pivot: less bureaucracy, more pressure on deputy ministers to show their departments can deliver. Less box-ticking, more accountability for results.
The new policy, in the works long before the Carney government took over, replaces the 20-year-old management accountability framework (MAF) as the central tool for tracking how departments manage risk, performance, and compliance. Critics long argued MAF had become overly bureaucratic and backward-looking, adding to the reporting burden while doing little to improve outcomes.
MAF was a centrally driven audit. Treasury Board assessed departments and handed down ratings — so departments focused on looking good on paper rather than fixing real problems.
The new policy flips that model. Deputy ministers now self-assess their department’s performance, compliance, and risk exposure — and personally attest to the results. Treasury Board reviews those attestations and can follow up on any red flags. It’s a significant shift: from asking whether targets were met to managing the risks that could prevent meeting them — while still following the rules.
Since returning to office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric toward Canada has veered from casual disdain, such as referring to former prime minister Justin Trudeau as “governor,” to outright provocation, including the suggestion that Canada should become the 51st U.S. state.
Following the April election of Mark Carney, Trump changed his tone again, proposing that the U.S. extend its proposed “golden dome” missile defence system to Canada, but hiking the price tag to US$71 billion – unless Canada agreed to become the 51st state.
These provocations have resonated deeply in Canadian public discourse and sparked lively debate among scholars, spurred by a thought-provoking commentary by Frédéric Mérand who argued that Canada should consider applying for membership in the European Union.
His proposal is designed to signal that Canada has meaningful geopolitical and economic alternatives beyond its powerful southern neighbour and his idea is as strategic as it is provocative. The symbolism is powerful, but the practicalities are daunting – as argued by most of his colleagues responding to his commentary.
An easier and potentially better alternative would be for Canada to consider joining the European Political Community (EPC), an emerging diplomatic forum designed to enhance dialogue and policy alignment across the continent with 45 member states including most European countries other than Russia and Belarus.
Canadian accession to the EU would entail a complex array of principled concerns, derogations and institutional adjustments, especially in areas such as migration and monetary policy.
More importantly, such a process would take years, if not decades, and could provoke further tensions with the current U.S. administration – a partner too large and influential to ignore, especially with the possibility of more conventional politics returning to Washington after Trump.
Given these constraints, the likelihood of Canada joining the EU remains remote. Nevertheless, this debate opens the door to alternative avenues for deeper transatlantic co-operation.
Canada and the EU already have a long-standing, close economic and political partnership most recently formalized through the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which together establish a framework for economic, political and security co-operation.
The EPC was born from French President Emmanuel Macron’s 2022 initiative in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and it serves as a biannual intergovernmental forum for political co-ordination. Its aim is to foster co-operation in areas of shared concern, such as security, stability and prosperity, without duplicating or replacing existing institutions.
This flexible framework is rooted in earlier efforts to rethink Europe’s security architecture, echoing former French president François Mitterrand’s 1989 proposal for a European Confederation – a visionary plan designed to stabilize Europe in the uncertain aftermath of the Cold War.
Canada (and the U.S.) even participated in exploratory talks about the confederation in the early 1990s but the idea did not bear fruit because most Central and East European countries ultimately opted for membership in NATO and the European Community, which later became the EU. But the geopolitical map has shifted with a Russia that is increasingly hostile and a U.S. president who is no longer a reliable political ally.
Unlike the EU, the EPC imposes no legal obligations, requires no treaty ratification and places no restrictions on membership beyond alignment with its values and objectives. Yet it holds considerable symbolic and practical value. It brings together countries that are not necessarily EU or NATO members but that share common interests in European stability.
In principle, Canada could join almost immediately and participation could take effect through simple consultation. Other countries have joined after its establishment, such as the U.K. in September 2022. Denmark will serve as the host of the next meeting in October, which might be a window of opportunity for Canadian participation.
For Canada, joining the EPC would be a strategic move. As a member of both NATO and the OSCE, Canada already plays a vital role in European security. However, both organizations are under pressure – NATO due to persistent uncertainties about Trump’s policies and threats targeting allies such as Canada and Denmark; and the OSCE because of Russian isolation which has brought the organization close to dysfunctionality.
In this context, the EPC provides a new multilateral space to align Canadian and European priorities more closely, especially at a time when transatlantic co-ordination is more important than ever.
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Joining the EPC would also allow Canada to deepen its engagement with European partners without provoking Washington. Rather than a dramatic geopolitical shift, this would represent a pragmatic enhancement of Canada’s existing European ties.
It would also allow the EPC to develop into a transatlantic umbrella for relations between Europe and third countries, embracing (differentiated) integration with Southeast and East European countries, with the European Economic Area (including Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) and bilaterally with Switzerland. All of these countries are members of the EPC and have relations with Canada.
It would strengthen Canada’s voice in shaping Western responses to global challenges from democratic backsliding to energy security and climate change while avoiding the diplomatic fallout that might accompany a symbolic tilt toward Brussels.
Ultimately, Canada’s foreign policy must balance its deep integration with the United States against its desire for strategic autonomy.
While EU membership remains a theoretical and largely unattainable proposition, deeper co-operation with Europe through the EPC (and NATO) – as well as strengthened bilateral relations with European partners and regional organizations such as the Nordic Council – represents a viable and forward-looking alternative going beyond existing ties.
It reflects Canada’s long-standing commitment to multilateralism and offers a timely platform for defending liberal democratic values.
Rather than dreaming of EU membership, Canada would be better served by positioning itself as a transatlantic bridge – connecting Europe and North America in an era of renewed geopolitical uncertainty.
When Mark Carney stood before Canadians on June 9 to announce a bold leap toward NATO’s defence spending benchmark of two per cent of GDP, the subtext was revolutionary.
What could have been framed as an act of geopolitical compliance or national security enhancement was instead narrated as an economic renaissance. “Rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting” was not just rhetorical symmetry, it was the architecture of a new political economy.
What we are witnessing is not merely a budgetary shift, but the articulation of a distinctly Canadian form of Keynesian militarism — one rooted not in jingoism or expansionism, but in a sophisticated fusion of fiscal credibility, productive state intervention, and strategic narrative control.
Carney, a central banker by training, came to the nation’s leadership as a technocrat equipped with the moral authority of global financial stewardship. His past roles — governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, as well as UN climate finance envoy — signaled prudence, not militarization.
And yet in this moment he is recoding the defence portfolio not as a drain on the nation’s social model, but as a scaffold for its economic durability. This is a profound departure from Canada’s historical ambivalence toward defence spending, typically treated as a necessary concession to external pressure or a token gesture toward NATO cohesion. Carney is recasting defence as a source of sovereign economic agency.
What makes this moment particularly complex is that Carney’s militarism does not carry the traditional baggage of military nationalism. This is militarism without spectacle, without the boots-and-flags theatre often associated with defence expansion in larger powers. There are no sweeping declarations of global posture, no hints of expeditionary ambition. Instead, the language is resolutely domestic, even intimate: “protecting Canadians,” “resilience,” “strategic autonomy.”
It is in this quiet reframing that the ideological breakthrough occurs. Defence is no longer a siloed ministry of war; it has now been recast as a lever of economic security, a form of insurance against both kinetic threats and systemic shocks.
This discursive shift mirrors what scholars like Karl Polanyi might call a re-embedding of the economy into the social fabric. In the post-COVID landscape, where global supply chains fractured and state capacity was tested, Canadians have become more amenable to state-led investments in national capability.
Carney is leveraging this disposition, reframing military expenditure not as an exception to welfare economics but as an extension of it. In this narrative the state’s coercive arm is reconciled with its redistributive one — a subtle but profound shift in Canada’s economic self-conception.
Canada’s postwar political economy was long anchored in a model of embedded liberalism, wherein open markets coexisted with a strong welfare state. Defence spending never functioned as an economic cornerstone. It was peripheral, restrained, and often outsourced to the protective umbrella of U.S. hegemony.
Carney’s move signals a mutation of this model into what might be termed strategic productivism: a system where state-led investment is deployed to build national capability in geopolitically sensitive sectors.
What differentiates this from classical Keynesianism is the instrumental specificity of the spending. This is not a generalized stimulus à la New Deal or post-recession infrastructure plans. It is targeted, purpose-built, and future-oriented — defence as both narrative and node in a larger strategy of industrial autonomy. And while the numbers themselves are not staggering by global standards (two per cent of GDP is modest relative to Cold War peaks) they are symbolically maximalist in the Canadian context.
For a country that has long struggled to reconcile defence with domestic priorities, the emerging Carney Doctrine suggests that Canada no longer has to choose between the two.
The political genius of Carney’s militarized Keynesianism lies in its aesthetic of restraint. By presenting the policy as fiscally disciplined — paid for through reallocation, efficiency, and the cancellation of politically unpopular tax cuts — Carney neutralizes opposition from both deficit hawks and social democrats. The moral anxiety that often accompanies military spending in Canada is soothed by the promise that the money is not just for tanks, but for jobs, skills, and sovereign capability.
This duality of security spending cloaked in economic virtue echoes the U.S. Cold War model, where Pentagon budgets were justified through their civilian spillovers such as aerospace, computing, and interstate highways. Yet Carney’s Canada is not replicating that model wholesale. It is instead adapting it to a context where citizens are wary of overreach, sensitive to social tradeoffs, and alert to the risk of dependency on foreign supply chains.
By framing defence as a productive good rather than a consumption item, Carney aligns himself with what some political economists term supply-side progressivism — a mode of statecraft that prioritizes national capability, public goods, and structural investment over short-term redistribution.
One of the more subtle but critical dimensions of Carney’s doctrine is the deprioritization of geopolitics in favour of geoeconomics.
While the language of his defence spending announcement nods to threats (Russia, China, and a less reliable United States), the dominant register is economic. The justification for spending is not fear but strategic necessity. The implication is that defence is no longer about foreign adventurism but about domestic industrial survival in a world of increasingly transactional alliances and volatile supply chains.
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This is where Carney’s vision departs most starkly from prior Canadian governments, who tended to view NATO commitments as diplomatic obligations. Under Carney, NATO is not just a military alliance, it is an opportunity for national renewal. Meeting the two-per-cent funding target becomes a signal of economic seriousness, a down payment on credibility not only with allies but with markets and voters. In this way, Carney subtly repurposes the postwar logic of alliance-based deterrence into a logic of market-oriented resilience.
Still, every paradigm shift brings its shadows. The risk of this new synthesis lies in the normalization of defence as a central pillar of economic planning. While it may be wise to invest in national capabilities, it is less clear that the logic will remain bounded. If defence becomes a politically bulletproof form of stimulus — more palatable than welfare, more permanent than infrastructure — it may begin to crowd out more deliberative forms of industrial strategy. Once militarism is moralized as economic stewardship, the line between strategic investment and path dependency can blur.
Moreover, this framing could alter the political calculus around social spending. If Carney’s technocratic militarism becomes the default framework for high-impact government action, other areas — health care, education, green transition — may struggle to compete for attention. Defence, long the underdog in Canada’s public finance debates, may soon become its sacred cow.
What Carney has done in a single speech is more than announce a defence budget. He has changed the grammar of Canadian political economy, elevating military expenditure from a reluctantly borne cost to a generative force of national renewal. In doing so he has crafted a new Canadian doctrine, one where Keynesian logic, fiscal credibility, and strategic capability coalesce under the rubric of resilience. It is a bold move, not because of its scale but because of its narrative in which the arsenal is no longer a symbol of war, but a tool of prosperity.
Whether this fusion holds, and whether Canadians will continue to see their armed forces not only as protectors but as engines of economic well-being, will define the next chapter of the Carney era.
For now, however, it signals that Canada is entering a new ideological terrain, one where guns and butter are not opposed, but harmonized in the key of Keynes.