Research publications

In Canada, at least 10 million individuals were food insecure in 2024, according to Statistics Canada; however, this data does not take into account people who live on First Nations reserves, in some remote areas and in the territories. Yet, due to several factors, Northerners – in particular, women, children and Indigenous peoples – are more at risk of experiencing food insecurity than are people living elsewhere in the country. The situation has a substantial impact on their health and well-being. This paper provides a brief overview of the factors that contribute to food insecurity in northern Canada and the resulting consequences. Additionally, it looks at initiatives that directly or indirectly address this issue.

The Canadian economy has been facing a continuous decline in productivity growth over the past four decades. The aim of this publication is to explain what productivity growth is and why it matters for improving Canada’s average standard of living. It explores the importance of “new ideas” – a concept coined by the Nobel Laureate Paul M. Romer – in determining Canada’s long-term productivity growth and emphasizes that the long-term growth of an advanced economy like Canada depends largely on the extent to which new ideas are generated and those ideas become innovations that increase productivity. The basic insight emerging from the economic literature is that the long-run growth rate of an advanced economy is primarily the product of the number of researchers, entrepreneurs and scientists and their respective productivity.