Canada

It’s more important than ever for Canada to invest in domestic production capabilities. Natural Resources Canada must update its value-added analysis to clarify the current state of the mining industry and guide sound industrial policymaking.

Canada stands at a pivotal moment to leverage its natural resource boom into long-term industrial strength by tying faster permitting and land access to reinvestment in innovation. A modest levy on resource extraction could fund a new federal agency focused on turning Canadian R&D into real production and globally competitive advanced industries.

Watch now for a virtual panel discussion from ITIF’s Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness. The webinar featured top experts as they explored whether growing external pressures might serve as a catalyst for renewed policy ambition in Canada’s innovation ecosystem.

Canada risks falling behind as a low-productivity, resource-based economy just as China rises as a global technology leader and U.S. protectionism grows. To help turn the ship of state toward a technology-driven economy, the government should take the simple but impactful step of giving Canadian industry more say in setting university research priorities.

In an era when AI is poised to improve everything from crop yields to cancer detection, Canada’s central priority should be accelerating AI adoption to enhance economic prosperity and quality of life, not erecting barriers to innovation through overly precautionary regulation.

A new fixed effects model finds that larger firms pay between 11 and 20 percent higher wages than small firms.

The Canadian economy is shifting faster than its institutions are. This playbook lays out an agenda to address what Canada must fix, build, and scale in order to compete through technology.

Canada has long embraced its identity as a “middle power,” but it has the potential to be more than just a supporting player. With greater ambition and the right vision, Canada can shape global markets and emerge as a dominant force.

The goal for the next Canadian decade should be simple yet ambitious: to support and scale at least 100 mid-sized, export-oriented companies that dominate strategic niches in global markets—Canada's own generation of Mittelstand-esque champions.

Canada’s path forward requires becoming a more productive trading nation that is less reliant on external forces and more capable of turning ambition into economic power. Walking away from the most consequential trade conversation of the next decade won’t get Canada there. It has room to negotiate with the U.S. and should use that leverage to secure the full and permanent removal of tariffs.