Canada’s Productivity Blueprint

Stability Yes, But Not to the Exclusion of All Else, Please

From: Gherardo Gennaro CaraccioloTo: Financial regulation watchers Date: October 19, 2026Re: Stability Yes, But Not to the Exclusion of All Else, Please Canadian financial regulation has a clear bias: stability and consumer protection dominate, while efficiency and growth barely register. Three straight years of tracking new rules from banking, insurance, pensions and securities regulators show […]

Canada’s Household Debt Problem Is Real, but Concentrated

October 14, 2026 – Canada has the highest household debt in the G7, but the country is not facing a systemic debt crisis, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. Instead, financial strain is concentrated among particular groups of Canadians. In “Beyond the Headlines: Where Canada’s Household Debt Problem Lies,” authors Mawakina […]

Beyond the Headlines: Where Canada’s Household Debt Problem Lies

by Mawakina Bafale and Peter MacKenzie Canada’s high household debt warrants concern, but the aggregate data do not point to a systemic debt crisis. The debt-service ratio (DSR), a more timely measure of financial strain than the debt-to-income ratio, has eased from its 2023 peak and sits slightly below its pre-pandemic level. Canada’s DSR is […]

Corporate Boards and Their Unique AI Challenges

From: Douglas Sarro and Edward Waitzer   To: Corporate governance observers   Date: October 8, 2026   Re: Corporate Boards and Their Unique AI Challenges Even the most elaborate corporate values statements and compliance policies can be trumped by corporate culture – unwritten customs about “how we do things around here.”  An independent investigation into the 2016 Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal […]

Revisiting Limited Liability for Corporate Leaders 

From: Elie Waitzer and Edward Waitzer  To: Corporate governance observers  Date: October 2, 2026  Re: Revisiting Limited Liability for Corporate Leaders Limited liability, the long-standing legal concept that protects owners’ personal assets in the event of a lawsuit, has encouraged the flow of capital to private enterprises. It does so by shifting the risk of a corporation’s actions from […]

Toolkit of Economic Indicators

  The C.D. Howe Institute’s toolkit for tracking the economy is a customized series of data sets from past Institute publications. These tools can be helpful for policymakers and other parties interested in analyzing monetary policy and financial stability decisions. These unique variables, which can all be found in past Institute work, include: The Leading […]

Canadian financial regulators keep the bill off the books

Published in the Financial Post. Canadian financial regulation has a clear bias: stability and consumer protection dominate, while efficiency and growth barely register. Three straight years of tracking new rules from banking, insurance, pensions and securities regulators show that the pattern hasn’t moved: well over nine in 10 new regulatory documents are written in the […]

A Texas Lesson in Attracting Companies

From: Ari Pandes and L. Daniel Wilson  To: Financial innovation watchers  Date: September 4, 2026   Re: A Texas Lesson in Attracting Companies  On the last Friday in July, the new  Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) completed its rollout. It now carries every exchange-listed security in the United States, with the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq squarely in its sights.  A big and bold […]

The Further Dynamic Gains from the RTR

To: Canadian financial institution customers  From: Peter MacKenzie, Thorsten Koeppl and Jeremy M. Kronick  Date: September 3, 2026  Re: The Further Dynamic Gains from the RTR This is the second of two Memos looking at the importance of adopting the Real-Time Rail for retail payments in Canada.  Yesterday, we made the economic case for​ ​Canada’s […]

Update on Cost Savings From the RTR

To: Canadian financial institution customersFrom: Peter MacKenzie, Thorsten Koeppl and Jeremy M. KronickDate: September 2, 2026Re: Update on Cost Savings From the RTR This is the first of two Intelligence Memos looking at the importance of adopting the Real-Time Rail for retail payments in Canada. Payments have increasingly become more digital in the global economy, allowing people and […]

La stabilité, à quel prix? Les organismes de réglementation financière du Canada risquent de sous-estimer les coûts de la poursuite d’une réglementation axée sur la stabilité

18 août 2026 – La réglementation du système financier canadien continue de mettre massivement l’accent sur la stabilité, la résilience et la protection des consommateurs, tout en accordant trop peu d’attention aux coûts que cela engendre, selon la troisième édition annuelle du bulletin de rendement de l’Institut C.D. Howe sur la réglementation financière canadienne. Dans […]

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