Think Canada has a productivity problem? Polytechnique Montreal’s Catherine Beaudry connects the dots between productivity, innovation, and one of the country’s other big issues: scaling-up small businesses.
From: Catherine BeaudryTo: Innovation ObserversDate: October 30, 2025Re: How to Get Canada’s Innovation Skaters Back in the Game Business and hockey share the same playbook: innovation, agility, and speed. If we want to keep our talent, intellectual property, firms, and revenues here at home, Canada needs to move from defending to scoring. The second […]
Published in The Hill Times. Business and hockey share the same playbook: innovation, agility, and speed. If we want to keep our talent, intellectual property, firms, and revenues here at home, Canada needs to move from defending to scoring. The second quarter of 2025 saw a drop in both GDP and labour productivity. My recent study […]
October 16, 2025 – Canada’s weak growth, low investment and lagging innovation point to the need for a more modern regulatory philosophy that balances both protection and progress, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Pruning the Rulebook: Canada’s Financial Regulatory Scorecard, Year Two,” Gherardo Caracciolo’s updated findings revealed similar results […]
In the second year of our regulatory scorecard paper, results continue to show the need for a more balanced approach to financial oversight, one that explicitly incorporates innovation and competition alongside traditional stability and consumer protection goals. Newly issued and updated regulatory documents did not change previous results. The imbalance reflects the mandates of Canadian […]
Published in The Globe and Mail. Recent Canadian economic forecasts show a similar profile of modest growth this year and next. Those predictions – from the Parliamentary Budget Office, Desjardins, Deloitte Canada, TD Economics and others – show the economy strengthening subsequently, returning the rate of unemployment to a level that is low by historical […]
From: William B.P. Robson and Mawakina BafaleTo: Productivity observersDate: October 1, 2025Re: We Need to Get Going on Canada’s Four-Alarm Productivity Emergency Eighteen months ago, Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers declared Canada’s poor productivity a national emergency. Since then, things have gotten worse. Our living standards are slipping: output and incomes per Canadian […]
October 1, 2025 – Canada has world-class strength in AI research but continues to fall short in widespread adoption, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. On the heels of the federal government’s announcement of a new AI Strategy Task Force, the report highlights the urgent need to bridge the gap between […]
Published in Financial Post. Last week, the federal government ordered Canada Post to develop a transformation plan to put itself on a financially sustainable footing. It gave the Crown corporation a green light to trim and modernize its network, end most door-to-door delivery, expand community mailboxes and reduce delivery frequency and speed for non-priority items. […]
Published in The Globe and Mail. A trading nation, Canada lives next to what has long been a big welcoming market in a generally competitive free-trading world. That once free American market is fast being restricted by tariffs, for now made passably permeable by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is likely to be made more U.S.-protectionist […]
Edited remarks delivered to the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University, on September 5, 2025. Introduction: Canada Faces Layers of Economic and Fiscal Challenges There is keen awareness that Canada faces a serious economic challenge – if not a crisis – emanating from the US tariff threat. A desperate attempt is being made to […]
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Think Canada has a productivity problem? Polytechnique Montreal’s Catherine Beaudry connects the dots between productivity, innovation, and one of the country’s other big issues: scaling-up small businesses. 
From: Catherine BeaudryTo: Innovation ObserversDate: October 30, 2025Re: How to Get Canada’s Innovation Skaters Back in the Game Business and hockey share the same playbook: innovation, agility, and speed. If we want to keep our talent, intellectual property, firms, and revenues here at home, Canada needs to move from defending to scoring. The second […] 
Published in The Hill Times. Business and hockey share the same playbook: innovation, agility, and speed. If we want to keep our talent, intellectual property, firms, and revenues here at home, Canada needs to move from defending to scoring. The second quarter of 2025 saw a drop in both GDP and labour productivity. My recent study […] 
October 16, 2025 – Canada’s weak growth, low investment and lagging innovation point to the need for a more modern regulatory philosophy that balances both protection and progress, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. In “Pruning the Rulebook: Canada’s Financial Regulatory Scorecard, Year Two,” Gherardo Caracciolo’s updated findings revealed similar results […] 
In the second year of our regulatory scorecard paper, results continue to show the need for a more balanced approach to financial oversight, one that explicitly incorporates innovation and competition alongside traditional stability and consumer protection goals. Newly issued and updated regulatory documents did not change previous results. The imbalance reflects the mandates of Canadian […] 
Published in The Globe and Mail. Recent Canadian economic forecasts show a similar profile of modest growth this year and next. Those predictions – from the Parliamentary Budget Office, Desjardins, Deloitte Canada, TD Economics and others – show the economy strengthening subsequently, returning the rate of unemployment to a level that is low by historical […] 
From: William B.P. Robson and Mawakina BafaleTo: Productivity observersDate: October 1, 2025Re: We Need to Get Going on Canada’s Four-Alarm Productivity Emergency Eighteen months ago, Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers declared Canada’s poor productivity a national emergency. Since then, things have gotten worse. Our living standards are slipping: output and incomes per Canadian […] 
Canada is a global leader in AI research, but lags in adoption. Here are 4 ideas to help Canadian firms fuel their AI adoption. 
Published in Financial Post. Last week, the federal government ordered Canada Post to develop a transformation plan to put itself on a financially sustainable footing. It gave the Crown corporation a green light to trim and modernize its network, end most door-to-door delivery, expand community mailboxes and reduce delivery frequency and speed for non-priority items. […] 
Published in The Globe and Mail. A trading nation, Canada lives next to what has long been a big welcoming market in a generally competitive free-trading world. That once free American market is fast being restricted by tariffs, for now made passably permeable by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is likely to be made more U.S.-protectionist […]