Inside Policy Talks

Canada faces a growing array of national security threats—from foreign interference networks to money laundering operations and organized crime groups exploiting modern digital tools. Yet many of our laws designed to protect Canadians were written for a different era. As hostile actors adapt faster than our institutions, gaps in Canada’s legal framework have become opportunities for adversaries to...

The UN Human Rights Council contains members like China, Cuba, and Qatar. Yet it remains a highly trusted institution across Western democracies. What should the public understand about the reality of activities going on at the UN? And how should Western democratic governments address the organization’s shortcomings? To discuss some of the major concerns about the UN, Hillel Neuer joins Inside Pol...

Across the Western world, migration, identity, and belonging have moved from policy questions to existential ones. The political and moral assumptions that held our societies together for decades are starting to unravel. Now, there is deep tension between those who want to defend the open, liberal order, and those who believe its openness has gone too far – eroding belonging, stability, and moral...

It’s been more than 10 months since Canadians got a close look at the federal finances in last fall’s economic statement. At that time, they learned the deficit for the 2023–24 fiscal year had ballooned by over 50 per cent. Now, as the Carney government prepares to table its first fiscal blueprint, there’s talk once again of rising spending and soaring deficits. A recent Desjardins forecast estima...

Rare diseases affect only a small number of Canadians, but a lack of adequate testing and treatment reveals some of the key weaknesses in our health care system. These illnesses – which affect about one in 12 Canadians – raise hard questions about health care costs, access, and fairness, and test how well Canada’s fragmented health governance systems can adapt to new challenges. For a closer look...

There's rapid change happening in Middle East In a ceremonial show of unity, world leaders headed to Egypt for an Oct. 13 peace summit in support of United States President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Gaza. All living hostages have been returned to Israel, though Jerusalem is still working to secure the release of some deceased hostages. It's been a historic week, but questions remain ab...

With the Canada-United States relationship at an all-time low, China has moved quickly to position itself as a beneficiary of the fallout. Canadians should be wary. Beijing is seeking to court Canadians with trade deals. But it is simultaneously punishing Canada for adopting anti-Chinese trade laws, which – as the Chinese are quick to point out – were implemented by Canada in response to American...

Constitutional law is often seen as the domain of courts and legal scholars, but one provision—the notwithstanding clause—has become a flashpoint in Canada’s ongoing debate over the balance of power between legislatures and the judiciary. Once a political safety valve that sealed the deal for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, section 33 is now at the center of a national conversation abo...

We live in a time of mounting cultural confusion. Social roles are in flux. Technology fragments our attention. And the idea of human nature itself is up for debate. Beneath our daily political debates lies a deeper crisis: a broken picture of the basic elements of the world and our place in it. Are we just collections of small parts, infinitely malleable and divisible – ‘meat lego’, as our guest...

For decades, we’ve been told that freedom means throwing off restraint. But what if the sexual revolution didn’t liberate us, and instead left us lonelier, unhappier, and adrift? Our culture’s promises of autonomy and self-creation have left young people disconnected from family, tradition, and purpose. We’re missing something deeper – about what it means to love, belong, and build a life that las...

Multiculturalism has been a policy and a political ideal for over 50 years in Canada. It’s shaped our immigration system, institutions, and the way Canadians see themselves. Yet its meaning has shifted dramatically since then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau introduced it. It began as a national unity strategy. But for many, it’s become a slogan about diversity for its own sake. That’s left us divide...

Canadian culture is at a crossroads. For over 70 years, Canada's arts and media funding framework has remained largely unchanged, even as the country has become more diverse, more digital, and more disconnected from a unifying cultural vision. Canada now faces a patchwork system riddled with duplication, inefficiency, and uncertainty of purpose – from the CBC to the CRTC, and from municipal arts g...

 As birth rates fall and family formation grows increasingly fragile across the developed world, understanding the forces driving these trends has never been more urgent. In this episode of Inside Policy Talks, we explore the complex interplay of policy, culture, and economics shaping family life in Canada and the United States. Patrick T. Brown, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Cente...

The importance of the Arctic is increasing, both for Canada and for our allies. That means it's critical to better understanding it. While Canadians sense that the Arctic is part of their identity, few are deeply familiar with the region — its environment, its vastness, its diversity, or its challenges. In that context, understanding the Russian Arctic — which is very different from the Canadian A...

Free speech was once considered a bedrock democratic value. Now it's become one of the most contested issues in our culture-shaping institutions. Over the past decade, debates about what can and can’t be said have intensified across universities, schools, newsrooms, and corporate boardrooms. In many Western democracies, including Canada, speech codes, cancel campaigns, and ideological conformity h...

Science is often seen as the gold standard in policymaking – objective, rigorous, and self-correcting. But what happens when the science itself is uncertain, contradictory, or unreproducible? Over the past two decades, concerns about replication, statistical misuse, and institutional bias have shaken public confidence in science – from medicine to psychology to public health. On the other hand, in...

On this episode, we tackle one of the most contested—and consequential—issues in public life: the rise of gender ideology and the erasure of biological sex. Over the past decade, the idea that gender is self-declared and disconnected from biology has reshaped our laws, schools, medical systems, and public discourse. But there’s growing pushback. In the United Kingdom, we’ve seen a remarkable rever...

Across the Western world, we’re seeing a crisis in youth mental health, a collapse in family formation, and growing confusion about sex and gender. At the same time, more young people than ever report feeling lonely, directionless, and disconnected. In this episode of Inside Policy Talks, Dr. Leonard Sax—a family physician, psychologist, and best-selling author of The Collapse of Parenting—joins M...

In this episode, Peter Copeland, deputy director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Domestic Policy Program, speaks with Cameron Field, a Toronto Police veteran and financial crimes expert. Field explains that there are three types of mortgage fraud in Canada. First, there's fraud for shelter, whereby some homebuyers committ fraud to obtain a mortgage. Next, there's fraud for profit, in which ac...

Ken Coates, director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Indigenous Affairs Program, is joined by journalist and economist Edgardo Sepulveda, an expert data storyteller. Sepulveda's new study for MLI analyzed data for church arsons in Canada and around the world. He found that following reports in 2021 of unmarked graves at residential schools, Canada saw a spike in church arsons compared to othe...

Welcome to Inside Policy Talks, where we dive into the ideas and policies shaping Canada's future! In this episode, Ken Coates, director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute's Indigenous Affairs Program, speaks with Sheila North, a journalist, storyteller, and former Grand Chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak. When it comes to post-secondary education, North tells Coates that some of the greates...

Welcome to Inside Policy Talks , where we dive into the ideas and policies shaping Canada's future! In this episode, Peter Copeland, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Program at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, sits down with Ryan Manucha, a leading expert on interprovincial trade. Manucha offers a compelling vision of how Canada's provinces can recognize each other's professional licenses, b...