Manufacturing GDP came in at just over $199 billion, a far cry from its recent high of $215 billion in 2023. This continues a nearly three-year declining trend that began in May 2023. Prior to May 2025 – outside of the COVID shutdown – we had not seen manufacturing output fall below $200 billion since […]
Foreign direct investment in Canada reached $93.6 billion in 2025, the highest level since 2007. However, nearly half came through mergers and acquisitions ($43.6 billion), which in most cases does not add new factories, equipment, or jobs. Reinvested earnings ($33.6 billion) are profits of foreign-owned Canadian businesses that were retained rather than paid out as dividends […]
From: Edward Waitzer To: Corporate sustainability advocates Date: May 11, 2026 Re: What the ESG Movement Needs to do Now Investor support for corporate sustainability initiatives has been derailed. In the face of strong ideology against environment, social and governance, or ESG, investing in the United States. Major fund managers such as BlackRock, Inc. and the Vanguard Group, Inc. have backed away from asserting that ESG factors are responsive to […]
From: Tingting ZhangTo: Health system observersDate: April 23, 2026 Re: How AI is Helping with Physician Paperwork and Why We Need to Do More Ask a family physician what frustrates them most, and it’s rarely about medicine. It’s the paperwork. Referrals, insurance forms, and electronic documentation – the administrative tasks that consume hours every week and […]
From: Daniel Schwanen and Rosalie Wyonch To: Artificial Intelligence watchers Date: April 21, 2026 Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Reshaping Canada’s Economy. Policy Must Catch Up After decades of gestation, artificial intelligence burst on the scene a mere five years ago, as a field with vast practical applications for businesses, researchers and the public. No longer is it a speculative technology looming in the distant future. […]
AI adoption among enterprises could reach 13 to 63 percent across G7 countries over the next decade, depending on adoption rates and technological progress. If adoption in Canada follows a similar timeline to the internet and computers, and AI capabilities continue to expand, estimates suggest that 48 percent of enterprises will adopt AI in the […]
A $300 billion global AI race is underway – but is Canada falling behind? Daniel Schwanen and Rosalie Wyonch join the podcast to discuss AI’s explosive growth and what’s needed for Canada to turn world-class research into real economic gains before it’s too late. Read the report: https://cdhowe.org/publication/from-hype-to-output-how-ai-investment-translates-to-real-productivity-gains/
A $300 billion global AI race is underway – but is Canada falling behind? Daniel Schwanen and Rosalie Wyonch join the podcast to discuss AI’s explosive growth and what’s needed for Canada to turn world-class research into real economic gains before it’s too late. Read the Report: https://cdhowe.org/publication/from-hype-to-output-how-ai-investment-translates-to-real-productivity-gains/
by Rosalie Wyonch Artificial intelligence has renewed optimism about improving Canada’s long-standing productivity problem, but history shows that general-purpose technologies often take decades to produce measurable economy-wide gains. Early adoption typically produces modest improvements as firms experiment and invest in complementary assets such as data, skills, and organizational changes. Canada performs reasonably well in international […]
9 avril 2026 – Les investissements en IA ont atteint plusieurs centaines de milliards, mais les retombées économiques se font encore attendre. Malgré des investissements rapides et une expérimentation répandue des outils d’IA générative, les gains de productivité mesurables ne se reflètent pas encore clairement dans les données agrégées des économies avancées, ce qui soulève […]
April 9, 2026 – Capital spending on AI has surged into the hundreds of billions, yet the economic payoff remains elusive. Despite rapid investment and widespread experimentation with generative AI tools, measurable productivity gains have yet to show up clearly in aggregate data across advanced economies – raising an important question: who will be first […]
From: Will Falk To: Healthcare AI watchersDate: April 2, 2026 Re: Governing Generative AI: From Permission to Competency to Measurement Most debate about generative AI in healthcare assumes the danger is under-regulation. That assumption is wrong. In 2026, the greater risk is over-regulation that stops much needed system innovation. That includes approval frameworks that are not yet thought through or that were built for drugs and devices being […]
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Manufacturing GDP came in at just over $199 billion, a far cry from its recent high of $215 billion in 2023. This continues a nearly three-year declining trend that began in May 2023. Prior to May 2025 – outside of the COVID shutdown – we had not seen manufacturing output fall below $200 billion since […] 
Foreign direct investment in Canada reached $93.6 billion in 2025, the highest level since 2007. However, nearly half came through mergers and acquisitions ($43.6 billion), which in most cases does not add new factories, equipment, or jobs. Reinvested earnings ($33.6 billion) are profits of foreign-owned Canadian businesses that were retained rather than paid out as dividends […] 
From: Edward Waitzer To: Corporate sustainability advocates Date: May 11, 2026 Re: What the ESG Movement Needs to do Now Investor support for corporate sustainability initiatives has been derailed. In the face of strong ideology against environment, social and governance, or ESG, investing in the United States. Major fund managers such as BlackRock, Inc. and the Vanguard Group, Inc. have backed away from asserting that ESG factors are responsive to […] 
From: Tingting ZhangTo: Health system observersDate: April 23, 2026 Re: How AI is Helping with Physician Paperwork and Why We Need to Do More Ask a family physician what frustrates them most, and it’s rarely about medicine. It’s the paperwork. Referrals, insurance forms, and electronic documentation – the administrative tasks that consume hours every week and […] 
From: Daniel Schwanen and Rosalie Wyonch To: Artificial Intelligence watchers Date: April 21, 2026 Re: Artificial Intelligence Is Already Reshaping Canada’s Economy. Policy Must Catch Up After decades of gestation, artificial intelligence burst on the scene a mere five years ago, as a field with vast practical applications for businesses, researchers and the public. No longer is it a speculative technology looming in the distant future. […] 
AI adoption among enterprises could reach 13 to 63 percent across G7 countries over the next decade, depending on adoption rates and technological progress. If adoption in Canada follows a similar timeline to the internet and computers, and AI capabilities continue to expand, estimates suggest that 48 percent of enterprises will adopt AI in the […] 
A $300 billion global AI race is underway – but is Canada falling behind? Daniel Schwanen and Rosalie Wyonch join the podcast to discuss AI’s explosive growth and what’s needed for Canada to turn world-class research into real economic gains before it’s too late. Read the report: https://cdhowe.org/publication/from-hype-to-output-how-ai-investment-translates-to-real-productivity-gains/ 
A $300 billion global AI race is underway – but is Canada falling behind? Daniel Schwanen and Rosalie Wyonch join the podcast to discuss AI’s explosive growth and what’s needed for Canada to turn world-class research into real economic gains before it’s too late. Read the Report: https://cdhowe.org/publication/from-hype-to-output-how-ai-investment-translates-to-real-productivity-gains/ 
by Rosalie Wyonch Artificial intelligence has renewed optimism about improving Canada’s long-standing productivity problem, but history shows that general-purpose technologies often take decades to produce measurable economy-wide gains. Early adoption typically produces modest improvements as firms experiment and invest in complementary assets such as data, skills, and organizational changes. Canada performs reasonably well in international […] 
From: Will Falk To: Healthcare AI watchersDate: April 2, 2026 Re: Governing Generative AI: From Permission to Competency to Measurement Most debate about generative AI in healthcare assumes the danger is under-regulation. That assumption is wrong. In 2026, the greater risk is over-regulation that stops much needed system innovation. That includes approval frameworks that are not yet thought through or that were built for drugs and devices being […]