A young dentist’s ideals led him to Afghanistan as an infantry officer. After two tours, he began to question what was ultimately achievable.
***
Mû par ses idéaux, un jeune dentiste s’est engagé comme soldat d’infanterie. Deux séjours en Afghanistan l’ont amené à douter de la mission.

Read the full article here: https://options-po.li/3mDZ9Hh

Lisez l'article complet ici : https://options-po.li/3zfGO6a

By: Luong Phuc Nguyen

A soldier’s hard look back at Canada’s Afghan mission - In Their Words 02

Tensions within a federation are a frequent, normal occurrence. In Canada, one only has to think about recurrent debates over health care funding to equalization payments.

But recently, Canadian federalism has been experiencing more tension than usual. Alberta’s new premier is proposing a Sovereignty Act, Saskatchewan’s premier expressed a desire for his province to be ‘a nation within a nation’, while Quebec’s government was handily reelected on a platform of strengthening provincial autonomy even further. 

How can a federation manage these tensions and adapt when faced with such challenges? What are the features of a robust federation? This episode of the podcast is a panel that returns to the fundamentals of federalism to answer these questions.

Moderated by Charles Breton, the director of the Centre for Excellence in the Canadian Federation, the discussion features two experts. Jenna Bednar is a professor of political science at the University of Michigan and a leading scholar of federalism. Our second guest, Benoit Pelletier is a professor of law at the University of Ottawa and a former cabinet minister of Quebec.

This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the first installment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence. 

This episode of the podcast is bilingual, with speakers shifting between English and French.

PO Podcast 152 - Why federalism matters

Debates around fiscal arrangements are always at the heart of federal-provincial relations in Canada. These days, health care funding and the Canada Health Transfer are even front-page news. Just a few months ago, equalization and Alberta’s demand for a fair deal that were making waves. 

In this episode, we do a deep dive into fiscal federalism: the current state of it, its history and how we got here, as well as the challenges ahead. The conversation is moderated by Antoine Brunelle-Côté, Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet at the Privy Council Office. He is in conversation with Trevor Tombe, Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary and a Research Fellow at The School of Public Policy; and Mary Janigan, a journalist and historian, and author of the recent book, The Art of Sharing: The Richer versus the Poorer Provinces since Confederation. 

This episode was recorded during an online event held by the Canada School of Public Service and is the second instalment of a partnership between the school and the IRPP’s Centre for Excellence.

PO Podcast 154 - The Fundamentals of Fiscal Federalism

How do municipalities fit into Canada’s federal structure? How do cities manage policy aims with limited revenue-raising powers.  On this episode of the podcast, we explore the relationship between municipal and federal, provincial and territorial governments.
 
Moderated by Tomas Hachard, independent researcher, author and former manager programmes and research for the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG), our conversation on municipalities features Enid Slack, Director at IMFG, and Kennedy Stewart, Director at Simon Fraser University's Centre for Public Policy Research and the former mayor of Vancouver.

PO Podcast 159 - The Role of Municipalities in Federalism

Childcare has been entering and exiting the Canadian political agenda since the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1970. Now, Canada is entering a new period on child-care policy.

In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Adrienne Davidson, Assistant Professor of Political Science at McMaster University. Beginning with subsidies and nonprofit daycares, this conversation covers various policies that impact Canadian families, including parental leave and the importance of early education. How do these policies differ between Quebec and the rest of Canada? How are they framed? What effects do they have on racial inequality across the country? And how are they changing?

Inequality and Child Care, with Adrienne Davidson - In/Equality 05

It is impossible to think about inequality in Canada without an understanding of Canada’s settler colonial reality. Public conversations about settler colonialism and the inequalities it imposes on Indigenous Peoples have changed over the last decade thanks to the work of Indigenous activists and leaders.

In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with one of the public scholars who helped bring about this change: Pamela Palmater, a Mi’kmaw lawyer, author, and Associate Professor of Indigenous Governance at Toronto Metropolitan University. What does critical and impactful public scholarship on settler colonialism look like? Can courts in Canada still provide a valid avenue for Indigenous people seeking redress? We delve into these questions and more.

Inequality and Settler Colonialism, with Pamela Palmater - In/Equality 07

From June 12 to 14, 2023, the Institute on Governance (IOG) and the Centre of Excellence on the Canadian Federation at the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP) partenered to convene Resilient Institutions: Learning from Canada’s COVID-19 Pandemic – a conference on making public institutions and governance more agile.

As the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic has recently demonstrated, countries that want to thrive in this turbulent century must be adaptable. In this keynote address at the Resilient Institutions conference, Alasdair Roberts, professor of public policy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the Jocelyne Bourgon Visiting Scholar at the Canada School of Public Service and a visiting professor at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University, examines Canada’s track record on adaptability and considers how the country can respond more effectively to new conditions and ideas.

Despite the many merits of the Canadian approach to governing, adaptability has come under threat in recent years. Short-term politics have increasingly taken the place of forward thinking, technological change has disrupted the public sphere, and the public service has become less nimble. Taking account of these challenges, Roberts proposes a program of reform that is focused on the country’s flexibility for the dangerous decades ahead.

This episode of the podcast is a recording of Alasdair Roberts’ keynote address at the IRPP’s Resilient Institutions: Learning from Canada’s COVID-19 Pandemic conference, which was co-hosted with the Institute on Governance and took place in Ottawa from June 12 to 14, 2023.

PO Podcast 162 - Building an adaptable country

Discussions around climate change sometimes portray the climate crisis as a phenomenon that impacts all people equally. But this framing neglects the fact that accelerating climate change disproportionately affects marginalized and vulnerable communities, in particular Black and Indigenous communities, in Canada and on a global scale.
In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Ingrid Waldron, HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University. The conversation delves into a variety of topics related to the intersection between systemic racism and the climate crisis. What consequences does the concentration of toxic industries and environmentally hazardous projects in racialized communities have for the inhabitants of these communities? What obstacles do these communities face in trying to fight back against environmental racism? How are public policy decisions complicit in the perpetuation of environmental racism? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

Inequality and Environmental Racism, with Ingrid Waldron - In/Equality 08

Addressing bias in health-care provision is difficult because the professionals are extremely defensive when confronted with the reality of bias.

In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with psychiatrist and researcher Javeed Sukhera of the Institute of Living in Hartford, CT, and the Hartford Hospital about his research and teaching on implicit bias. Health-care providers, like all people, have implicit biases that affect the treatment they provide. This conversation explores what these biases are and how they can be dealt with. How does changing implicit bias at the individual level connect to  structural changes?  Can one inform the other? How much can mandatory training do to root out bias? And how do these issues fit into our already overworked and understaffed health-care system?

Inequality and Health-Care Bias, with Javeed Sukhera - In/Equality 09

In Canada, 1.4 million children live in food-insecure households. Despite being an affluent country, Canada has chronic food insecurity, and the problem is worsening.

In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Valerie Tarasuk professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and an expert on food insecurity. The conversation explores how entrenched this problem is and what Canada can do about it. How have neoliberal reforms in Canada affected food insecurity? Can food charities like foodbanks deal with a systemic problem like food insecurity? What about modelling food security policies from the U.S.? Tune in as we delve into these questions.

Inequality and Food Insecurity, with Valerie Tarasuk - In/Equality 10

Seventy-four per cent of Canadians live in cities of over 100,000 people, according to the 2021 census. What does that mean for those living in rural and remote areas? How do we ensure rural Canadians have access to high-quality services?

In this episode of In/Equality, host Debra Thompson speaks with Bill Reimer, professor emeritus of sociology and anthropology at Concordia University. Bill has studied rural communities in Canada and around the world for decades. Small-town economies, often built around extraction, present various challenges. What policy tools can we learn from provincial governments and other countries? How do Indigenous people fit into discussions of remote and rural inequality? How does immigration intersect with the needs of rural communities? Tune in for answers to these questions and more.

Inequality and Rural Communities, with William Reimer - In/Equality 11

Social inequalities have shown no sign of receding in Canada or worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the persistence of deep-seated inequalities along racialized and gendered lines. Meanwhile, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement for racial justice has called into question the weight that power and privilege continue to hold in our society. 

Although policymakers continue to attempt to address the many dimensions of inequality, economic, racial and gendered disparities remain. Worse yet, public policy decisions have, in many cases, been complicit in the perpetuation of social inequalities.  

This in-person conversation between Debra Thompson, associate professor of political science at McGill University and the host of the IRPP’s In/Equality podcast, and Joe Soss, the Cowles Chair for the Study of Public Service at the University of Minnesota, addressed these concerns head-on, considering the intersection of public policy and social inequality.

Social Inequality, with Joe Soss - In/Equality 15

Affordability and climate are compounding, overlapping crises — and people are struggling through them both at the same time. Individuals across Canada are tired of making trade-offs because, when it comes to life’s necessities — housing, food, transportation and a sustainable climate — there should be none.

Solutions that ignore the full picture are no longer acceptable. What’s needed now is a fundamentally different approach to policymaking, one that considers all basic needs because they are all interdependent. The Affordability Action Council (AAC), a collaboration of diverse policy and community leaders, has broken down silos to table a package of “all-in” solutions to help meet Canadians’ basic needs in an integrated way.

On Thursday, February 1, we held a panel discussion featuring three AAC members who explored the group’s main areas of focus — food, transportation and housing — and explained how a holistic approach to policymaking can lead to solutions that lower cost, reduce vulnerability and give people greater control over their lives. The event took place at the Impact Hub in Ottawa and was also live streamed. This podcast is the audio from that discussion.

PO Podcast 164 - An all-in approach to solving Canada’s affordability and climate crises

It is undeniable that poverty and income inequality are two of Canada’s most pressing issues. But it is less clear what policy solutions need to be enacted to address these problems.

In response to these challenges, some policy practitioners have called for the implementation of an unconditional Basic Income that would be accessible to all Canadians. Bill S-233, An Act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income, is a clear example of this response. Proponents of a Basic Income present the policy framework as a simple and direct response to poverty, on the grounds that sending people a cheque through the tax system seems efficient.

However, a host of researchers have called into question the underlying assumptions about the causes of poverty that proponents of a basic income take for granted. For instance, is basic income the best tool to achieve a just society? Could other social policies be put in place to achieve the desired outcome more holistically and efficiently? The book Basic Income and a Just Society, published last year by the IRPP, takes such an approach.

This conversation between IRPP CEO and President Jennifer Ditchburn and Senator Kim Pate – a sponsor of Bill S-233 – tackles these questions, which have been at the centre of the IRPP’s and Senator Pate’s work for years.

PO Podcast 165 - An Interview between Jennifer Ditchburn and Kim Pate

PO Podcast 166 - Climate Change in the North

PO Podcast 167 - Addressing Ecological Risks (Institutions for Effective Climate Action conference)

Welcome to Demystifying Community Housing, a special series from the IRPP’s Policy Options Podcast, which explores the different facets of community housing and its role in addressing Canada’s housing crisis.

In this episode, we speak with Yushu Zhu and Meg Holden, professors of urban studies at Simon Fraser University, who are leading the production of this podcast series. Together we talk about their research on community housing, the reason they worked on this podcast and what listeners can expect.

SHOW NOTES
The production of the podcast series is led by Dr. Yushu Zhu and Dr. Meg Holden at Simon Fraser University as part of the Community Housing Canada project and the Housing Inequality in Canada project, with support from IRPP. Student researchers include Hanan Ali, Natasha Mhuriro, Pok Man Tong, and Khoa Vo. This podcast has been a dedicated collaboration, with production assistance by Cléa Desjardins, Ricardo Montrose, and Luc Moulaison at IRPP, and audio producer Jackie G. If you like what you heard and you want to know more about the Institute for Research on Public Policy, head over to https://irpp.org/.

Additional resources:
Community Housing Canada – Partners in Resilience: A research-practice partnership project aimed at increasing the sustainability and resiliency of the community housing sector. It is part of an independent, Canada-wide collaboration of academics and community partners: The Collaborative Housing Research Network (CHRN).

The neighbor spectrum in community housing: Pro-social, anti-social and asocial neighboring in Vancouver (Holden et al., 2024): This journal article presents focus group research with community housing residents in Vancouver, Canada, investigating the role, activities, and importance of neighboring to these individuals living in vulnerable situations. A commentary based on this research is published The Conversation: Higher density living is changing the way neighbouring works in Canada.

Housing vulnerability and well-being in the COVID-19 pandemic (Zhu et al., 2022): Drawing on a representative sample survey of B.C. adult residents, this report examines different aspects of housing situations and factors that may increase housing vulnerability or resilience during the pandemic.

Housing Vulnerability Reconsidered: Applications and Implications for Housing Research, Policy and Practice (Zhu et al., 2024): A special issue published at Housing, Theory and Society (academic journal). This issue presents research into what housing vulnerability means in different world regions, what structures and systems may be driving it, and the variety of experiences of housing vulnerability.

Funding:
This podcast series receives funding from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for The Community Housing project [430-2021-00887] and the Insight Development Grant for the Housing Inequality project [890-2018-1013].

Welcome to Demystifying Community Housing

In this episode of Demystifying Community Housing, co-hosts Hanan Ali and Natasha Mhuriro speak with Rebecca Schiff, dean of the Faculty of Human Health Sciences at the University of Northern British Columbia; Ray Sullivan, executive director of the Canadian Housing and Renewal Association; and David Hulchanski, a professor in the Faculty of Social Work and the Graduate Program in Planning in the Department of Geography at the University of Toronto. Together they discuss what community housing means, who it serves or should serve, and how to pave the path forward for resilient community housing.

SHOW NOTES
The production of the podcast series is led by Dr. Yushu Zhu and Dr. Meg Holden at Simon Fraser University as part of the Community Housing Canada project and the Housing Inequality in Canada project, in partnership with IRPP. Student researchers include Hanan Ali, Natasha Mhuriro, Pok Man Tong, and Khoa Vo. This podcast has received production support and assistance from Cléa Desjardins, Ricardo Montrose and Luc Moulaison at IRPP, and audio producer Jackie G. If you like what you heard and you want to know more about the Institute for Research on Public Policy, head over to https://irpp.org/.

Additional resources:
Where Are All My Relations? Stories of Indigenous Homelessness in B.C. is an eleven-episode series that explores Indigenous homelessness rooted in Indigenous worldviews and experiences. The documentary can be viewed via Indigenous-led Solutions to Indigenous Homelessness — Lu’ma Group of Companies (lnhs.ca). This film was funded by the Province of BC. The videos were produced by Little Bird Media, an Indigenous-led firm based in Vernon, B.C., including Lu’ma Native Housing Society. The project was stewarded by leaders from various Indigenous organizations. The documentary is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND license.

PUSH (2019), a documentary film investigating housing financialization
Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) at the University of British Columbia

Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC) at McMaster University
At Home in the North, partnership project for Northern housing security and homes

Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership based at the University of Toronto

Canadian Housing Renewal Association (CHRA) Economic Study: The Impact of Community Housing on Productivity

Hey Neighbour Collective (HNC) on community-building, social connectedness, and resilience in B.C.’s multi-unit housing communities.

Funding:
This podcast series receives funding from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for The Community Housing project [430-2021-00887] and the Insight Development Grant for the Housing Inequality project [890-2018-1013].

What is Community Housing? - Demystifying Community Housing 01

In this episode of Demystifying Community Housing we hear from AnaLori Smith, Pam Gill and Rita Wong about what it’s like to live in community housing. We’ll also talk to non-profit housing practitioners Marika Albert and William Azaroff about the challenges of operating community housing and supporting the well-being of their tenants.

Life in Community Housing - Demystifying Community Housing 02

In this episode of Demystifying Community Housing, Hanan Ali and Natasha speak with Damian Collins, Professor of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Alberta and Director of the Community Housing Canada Research Partnership, Marika Albert, the Policy Director of B.C. Non-Profit Housing Association and Alex Hemingway a Senior Economist and Public Finance Policy Analyst at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative’s B.C. Office. Together, they discuss what roles community housing can play in addressing the housing crisis, particularly in supporting tenant well-being, as Canada’s housing crisis wears on.

Additional resources:
•	Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, established under the National Housing Strategy
•	The Globe and Mail’s housing section covers the full spectrum of housing issues from a wide variety of perspectives and communities across Canada
•	Stories About Here, a CBC Gem and Youtube documentary
•	The Non-Capitalist Solution to the Housing Crisis, a video from Uytae Lee’s popular urbanist Youtube channel: About Here
•	Opening Doors: Unlocking Housing Supply for Affordability, final report of the Canada-British Columbia Expert Panel on the Future of Housing Supply and Affordability

Funding:
This podcast series receives funding from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for The Community Housing project [430-2021-00887] and the Insight Development Grant for the Housing Inequality project [890-2018-1013].

Why Do We Need Community Housing? - Demystifying Community Housing 03

In this episode of Demystifying Community Housing, we hear from Alex Hemingway, Christina Maes Nino and Steve Pomeroy, on the various challenges facing the community housing sector and how to bolster its resilience.

Additional resources:
•	Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative (CHEC), a network of more than 30 academics and more than 50 practice partners representing policymakers, housing providers and equity-seeking groups, to accelerate evidence-based solutions that advance Canada’s National Housing Strategy 
•	Business Transformation: Promising Practices for Social and Affordable Housing in Canada. 2015. Published by Housing Partnership Canada.
•	The Community Housing Transformation Centre, a network of organizations that represent and serve the needs of Canada’s community housing sector. The centre provides access to tools, financial resources and best practices to support the growth, transformation and resilience of community housing.

Funding:
This podcast series receives funding from the Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Partnership Grant for The Community Housing project [430-2021-00887] and the Insight Development Grant for the Housing Inequality project [890-2018-1013].

Resilience and Challenges of the Community Housing Sector - Demystifying Community Housing 04

On this last episode in this series, our co-hosts Hanan Ali and Natasha Mhuriro talked to four guests. Djaka Blais, Executive Director of Hogan’s Alley Society; Robert Byers, President & C-E-O of Namerind Housing Corporation; Joshua Evans, Associate Professor at the University of Alberta. and Franz Bernhardt, Postdoctoral Researcher at Aalborg University, Denmark.  

We spend time thinking about and imagining alternative models of community housing. How could or should Canada’s community housing sector look differently in the future? What are some good examples of innovative housing projects and practices from across the country – and around the world? What lessons can we learn?   

The production of the podcast series is led by Dr. Yushu Zhu and Dr. Meg Holden at Simon Fraser University as part of the Community Housing Canada project and the Housing Inequality in Canada project, in partnership with IRPP. Student researchers include Hanan Ali, Natasha Mhuriro, Pok Man Tong, and Khoa Vo. This podcast has been a dedicated collaboration, with production assistance by Ricardo Montrose, Cléa Desjardins and Luc Moulaison at IRPP, and audio producer Jackie G. Karen Sawatzky contributes to script editing for this episode. If you like what you heard and you want to know more about the Institute for Research on Public Policy, head over to https://irpp.org/. 

Additional resources: 

Hogen’s Alley Society - A Black-led non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the social, political, economic, and cultural well-being of people of African descent in Metro Vancouver. 

Namerind Housing Corporation - An Indigenous-led housing provider and social enterprise.  

Aboriginal Housing Management Association (AHMA) - An umbrella organization composed of 41 Members that are each Indigenous Housing providers. The first Indigenous Housing Authority in Canada and only the second in the world. 

Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services - A non-profit housing provider with a focus on the Indigenous community. 

Housing Boom in Gateway Cities – Book written by David Ley, 2023. Utilising a comparative approach in five gateway cities, the author provides an understanding of the politics of booms, lifting the debate beyond narrow housing and real estate studies.  

Policy fact sheet: National Building Fund, Denmark. European Construction Sector Observatory. 2019. 

The resilience of social rental housing in the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark: How institutions matter. Timothy Blackwell & Bo Bengtsson. Housing Studies. 2023. 38:2, 269-289.

The Future of Community Housing - Demystifying Community Housing 05

As a new U.S. administration keeps threatening to impose tariffs on Canadian exports, the IRPP hosted a panel discussion on how to address the intersecting affordability and climate crises.

Hosted in partnership with the Affordability Action Council, the panel featured Tyler Meredith, a former economic policy adviser to the Liberal government, Kathleen Monk, former director of communications to NDP leader Jack Layton, Karen Restoule, vice-president of Toronto-based Crestview Strategy and senior fellow at Macdonald-Laurier Institute and was moderated by Jennifer Ditchburn.

The panel focused on how to protect households from the rising cost of living, how to minimize the impacts of extreme weather events and how to keep affordable food on the table. This podcast is the audio from that discussion.

PO Podcast 168 - Affordability and Climate: Addressing Intertwined Challenges in Politics Today

This week, we’re once again brining you the audio from one of our most recent event. This time it’s from a webinar on Canada-U.S. relations that we held on March 5, 2025. 

The second Trump administration is turning into an unsettling roller-coaster ride, and Canadians can’t seem to get off. Every day seems to bring a new set of goalposts, demands and threats.  

In this webinar moderated by IRPP president and CEO Jennifer Ditchburn, IRPP Board members Jean Charest, Janice Charette, Ian Brodie and Christopher Sands unpacked the challenges facing Canadian governments in these tumultuous times and discussed what it will take to build economic and social resilience for the long haul.   

A video version of the event is also available on our website at irpp.org 

PO Podcast 169 - What is the strategic long game for Canada-U.S. relations?

In our first episode, Jennifer is joined by Ranj Pillai, Premier of Yukon, for a conversation about what it means to build economic resilience in the North.

Premier Pillai speaks about Yukon’s response to global tensions and economic uncertainty, emphasizing infrastructure investment to support major investments in critical mineral projects. He underscores the importance of long-term planning, strong partnerships with Indigenous peoples and maintaining Arctic sovereignty. And, with Yukon’s economy performing well, he also highlights the creation of the Canadian Institute for Arctic Security to counter foreign interference and strengthen defence in the North.

Ranj Pillai on Sovereignty and Strategy in the Arctic - Futureproofing Canada 01

Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, is an important industrial centre best known for its steel industry. But that industry is currently being threatened by the tariffs on steel and aluminium announced by the Trump administration.

Our guest today is Matthew Shoemaker, Mayor of Sault Ste. Marie. Mayor Shoemaker is lobbying hard across the border to change a situation he can't make any sense of, but he also has ideas for what Canadian governments can do to help the city weather the storm and come out even stronger.

Together we discuss the challenges posed by U.S. tariffs and global trade tensions. He outlines a vision for the city’s future that includes transitioning to greener steel production, expanding immigration to address labour needs, investing in infrastructure and greater support from federal and provincial partners.

Tariffs, Steel, and the Future of Canada's Economy, a Conversation with Matthew Shoemaker

Canada’s Cities Are Doing Too Much With Too Little — Here’s Why That Matters

In this episode, Jennifer is joined by Natan Obed, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, for a wide-ranging conversation on Inuit self-determination, infrastructure, and Canada’s future in the Arctic.

Originally from Nunatsiavut, Obed has become one of the leading voices advocating for Inuit rights and equity within Canadian society. He shares his journey from studying at Tufts University to leading national efforts for policy change, and highlights the urgent need for infrastructure investments, from deep-water ports to clean energy projects.

With a focus on practical solutions and long-term collaboration, he calls for Canada to move beyond symbolic gestures and into an era of respectful, results-driven partnership with Inuit communities.

Why Inuit Self-Determination Is Key to Canada's Future

Indigenous businesses are now being launched at up to nine times the rate of non-Indigenous businesses.

In this episode of Futureproofing Canada, Jennifer is joined by Tabatha Bull, President and CEO of the Canadian Council for Indigenous Business, for a conversation about the growing momentum of Indigenous-led businesses in Canada. Together they talk about the unique challenges these businesses face, including barriers to capital, the impact of federal policies like the Indian Act, and the disproportionate effects of tariffs.

Bull outlines how Canada can better support Indigenous business growth and economic reconciliation by removing systemic obstacles and making space for Indigenous leadership at every level of decision-making.

Leveling the Playing Field: What Holds Back Indigenous Businesses

In this episode, Jennifer is joined by Zita Cobb, the CEO of Shorefast, an organisation that promotes economic self-determination and strategies for strengthening local economies in sustainable ways.

Drawing on her experience revitalizing Fogo Island, Cobb shares her vision for asset-based community development, an approach that puts local knowledge, culture, and infrastructure at the heart of sustainable growth. She argues that Canada needs a more balanced model of development, one that aligns government, market forces, and community action to serve the long-term public good.

Together they explore the role of banking, tourism, and regional connectivity in building economic resilience. Cobb calls for a national strategy rooted in place, purpose, and long-term thinking to ensure no community is left behind in the country’s economic future.

Why Community-Led Growth Is Key to Canada’s Economic Future

Canadians are living through uncertain times. Our country faces interconnected challenges including a new geopolitical world order, economic headwinds, climate change, technological disruptions, shifting demographics and deepening inequality.

Futureproofing Canada brings you conversations with the people who are thinking boldly about how to solve these challenges. Each biweekly episode features a frank, in-depth discussion between IRPP president and CEO Jennifer Ditchburn and the leaders who envision a Canada that’s confident and ready to seize opportunities.

Futureproofing Canada

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