Editor’s note: Among his many accomplishments, Thomas Courchene was a senior scholar at the Institute for Research on Public Policy, the publisher of Policy Options. He passed away November 4, 2025.
A recent symposium at Queen’s University School of Policy Studies to recognize Tom Courchene, the school’s first director, was not only to celebrate him, but to learn from his contributions to public policy in Canada.
Unlike other speakers invited to the event, I am at best a lapsed economist and definitely not a Courchene scholar. But I was among those at the receiving end of Tom’s advice over the many years he wrote about and challenged many policies and regulations brought in by governments.
I was at Industry Canada when Tom was criticizing regional policies. The Department of Finance when he was sharing his views on exchange rates, inflation targeting, federal transfers, equalization, human capital and securities regulation. The Privy Council Office when Tom expressed his opinions about fiscal federalism and budgets. Anyone in government encountered Tom’s views — often.
Over an amazing range of policy topics, Tom was the impetus for many, many memos to ministers and prime ministers answering the question: What is Courchene on about and does he have a point? The answer was that Tom always had a point — and one worth considering — whether in the final analysis you agreed with it or not. Or, as a senior public servant once put it: “Tom was not always right, not always wrong, always worth reading, and never disrespectful.” Not a bad tribute for anyone engaged in the world of political economy.
An economist who tackled practical problems
Tom was a public intellectual in the best sense of the term. He was attuned to real-world problems and how economics — his profession of choice — could help solve them. He understood better than many academics that to influence policy one not only had to have well-analyzed ideas, but be able to communicate them clearly — and repeatedly.
He enjoyed tilting at the windmills of the policy status quo with analyses and policy prescriptions that were a unique mixture of multidisciplinary thinking, mastery of institutional details, clear writing and occasional heresy.
Perhaps Tom’s most valuable contribution was his insight into problems with how policies operated in the real world. While government policymakers may not have always agreed with his solutions — inflation, exchange rates and fragmented securities regulators spring to mind — they always paid attention to his analysis of the issues, and for good reason.
Major changes to EI and equalization
His perspectives on the risks of moral hazard in the design of government regional programs influenced subsequent changes to Employment Insurance and regional policies in the 1990s, while his critique of transfer payments to the provinces influenced the O’Brien report that led to major changes to equalization and shared-cost programs brought in by Stephen Harper’s government in 2009.
My second reflection is that Tom was part of a generation of largely macroeconomists who were actively engaged in shaping public policy discussions. Besides Tom, the voices and writings of Doug Purvis, David Laidler and John Helliwell, among others, were frequently heard in the corridors of government and on the business pages of national newspapers as they addressed what was at the top of the public’s mind.
Governments were more receptive then to outside thinking on how best to handle economic shocks and structural changes, and listened to economists like Tom. In effect, there was a ‘market for policy ideas’ with a high-quality supply from Tom and others and a clear demand from policy advisers.
A third reflection is that timing matters. The era of politics in which “communications trumps policy” in a social media world had not yet arrived when Tom was challenging the policy status quo. The shift to policy by polling and politics by messaging makes for a very different political environment. Another difference is that when Tom and colleagues were active, the public service in Ottawa had considerable capacity to analyze policy issues, interact with outside perspectives and provide governments with fearless, analytically informed advice.
The atrophy of economic advice
The medium does more than influence the policy message. With pervasive social media and its uncurated 24-hour media cycle, political short-termism has become rampant and influences policy choices. Governments have become less focused on long-term issues and more on immediate concerns. Over the last 15 years, the demand from governments for economic policy advice has atrophied. Hopefully, there will be a revival under Prime Minister Mark Carney.
A final reflection is on the recent trend in a number of Western countries, where the voices of economists have become less heard and less influential in public policy circles. The editorial board of the Financial Times (FT) analyzed the situation in August 2025 under the headline “How economists lost traction.”
One of the explanations is that populist governments offering simple, short-term and pain-free alternatives — such as subsidies, tariff barriers, tax cuts and costless deficits and debt – make it harder for economists and their ideas on trade-offs, resource constraints and free markets to be heard.
The editorial board also levels some criticism at the economics profession itself. It notes that events in recent decades have not been supportive of the ceteris paribus assumption (all things being equal) that underlies much economic advice. In a world of geopolitical tensions, tariffs, technological revolutions, financial innovations and now state capitalism in China and the United States, large-scale economic models are not as reliable as they were in more stable times, and economists have missed some big turning points.
Prof. Karen Dynan at Harvard University wrote a piece for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2025 in which she concurs with the FT. She argues that economists are increasingly sidelined by deepening political polarization and by leaders who prioritize ideology and expediency over economic analysis.
She also points to declining public trust in experts, including challenges to their authority from new and often unreliable information sources, as well as their high-profile failure to spot the post-pandemic inflation surge.
Fortunately for economists, neither the IMF nor the FT are writing off the profession. The paper editorializes that the role of economists speaking out on the costs of poor public policy is more vital than ever in today’s world of growing state capitalism, duelling national industrial policies and a fractured international rules-based order.
Canadians need to hear more publicly from economists on the significant macroeconomic problems we face. These range from anemic productivity and declining growth trends to growing fiscal imbalances, interminable internal trade barriers, excessive trade concentration with the U.S. and the search for new trade partners.
Policy ideas in short supply
In short, demand for new policy ideas greatly exceeds supply — and that is both an opportunity and a risk for the economics profession.
The FT worries that “if economists retreat, debates will be dominated by leaders more interested in consolidating power than in sound outcomes.” But for economists to advance, Dynan opines, they have to communicate more, avoid elite jargon and talk more to the broader public. They also have to be more willing to offer policy advice for “second-best worlds,” not the world as they would wish it, because that is today’s reality.
Both the FT and IMF are essentially calling for more today of what Tom Courchene and his colleagues did so well in quite different times. Let’s hope a new generation will come forward with the same spirit of analytic rigour and conviction to badger and persuade governments to bring about policy changes needed to make Canada stronger, more competitive and more confident in the future.
As for the past, thank you, Tom, for your unwavering public service.
