Author: Carolyn Smith

Our team is looking back on a year of unprecedented conversation and action, as our shared progressive values have been under threat in far too much of the world. Year after year, it is increasingly important for us to come together in common cause. With your support, we’ve done just that – but there’s so much more for us to achieve together in 2024.

Enabled by partners, supporters, and leaders like you, our year has been packed with everything from major summits to intimate round-tables that have catalysed conversation and action on the biggest challenges facing Canadians, including the net-zero transition, growth for all in a fast-changing world, food insecurity, reconciliation, and so much more.

Our team is as committed to this work as ever. In addition to our major Economic Reconciliation Summit and a spring and autumn Net-Zero Leadership Summits, in September, we hosted a marquee edition of the Global Progress Action Summit. Co-hosted with Center for American Progress Action, this gathering featured leaders including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action & Finance and former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England Mark Carney, former Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern, former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, former Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, UK Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer, and so many more, collaborating on how together we can work to renew trust in democracy, ensure shared prosperity over deepening inequality, and accelerate action towards addressing the global climate emergency.

This summer, we were also thrilled to announce the members of our 2023-2024 Advisory Board chaired by Mark Carney. This group of expert public policy leaders will continue to help guide Canada 2020’s work, focused on the pillars of promoting growth for all, accelerating the transition to net-zero, advancing economic reconciliation, driving innovation for health, building government that delivers, and strengthening Canada’s leadership in the world.

Looking ahead, we’re planning many more opportunities for connection, new research, and the sharing of bold and necessary ideas with a full calendar of events for 2024, including a comprehensive policy conference on Canada’s future, as well as our signature annual summits, events, and research. These projects position us for continued leadership in key Canadian policy debates and decisions that will make real progress a reality on priorities like economic growth that leaves no one behind, net-zero leadership, economic reconciliation, strengthening democracy, the Canada-US relationship, and so much more.

Your support allows Canada 2020 to continue as an essential voice in Canada’s public policy discourse, and a focal point for helping to shape a better, fairer, cleaner, and more prosperous future for Canada and the world – and we’re so grateful that you’re a part of it. 

Thank you for the ideas and involvement.

Canada 2020 has announced today the nine public policy leaders who will serve as its Advisory Board for 2023-24, focused on innovative policy solutions for Canada’s future and a better world. The Advisory Board is chaired by Mark Carney, United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Change and Finance, and former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. 

“Profound forces are re-shaping geo-politics, the economy, energy, health care, and intelligence itself.  How these changes will affect the jobs, prospects and well-being of Canadians depends on us,” said Mark Carney, Chair of Canada 2020’s Advisory Board. “Nowhere in the world can match what Canada brings to the table: our people, resources, ingenuity, and values. The extraordinary group of leaders in Canada 2020’s Advisory Board will help generate innovative ideas and spark debates about how to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a better future for all Canadians.”

The Advisory Board brings together a cross-section of leaders to help generate the ideas and infrastructure needed for Canada to confront the intersecting challenges facing today’s world and start new conversations about forward-looking Canadian public policy priorities. With today’s announcement, the 2023-24 Advisory Board will include:

The main areas of policy focus will include: 

• Promoting growth for all, 
• Accelerating the transition to net-zero, 
• Advancing economic reconciliation, 
• Driving innovation for health, and 
• Building government that delivers.

“These new Advisory Board members bring together a remarkable array of proven Canadian public policy leaders at a key moment to help shape a fairer, greener, and more prosperous future,” said Braeden Caley, Interim Executive Chair of Canada 2020. “Canada 2020 has a long track record of helping generate bold and impactful progressive policy solutions. This accomplished group of proven leaders will begin an exciting new chapter in our work together to shape a better Canada and a better world.”

Founded in 2006, Canada 2020 is a leading independent non-partisan think tank that produces original research, hosts wide-ranging events, and starts meaningful conversations about Canada’s direction, with the goal of building a forward-looking community of ideas and people that will move and shape governments.

Many of us know someone who, at the height of the pandemic, picked up and moved from an urban centre to a smaller, more rural Canadian community. Though small and rural communities face unique challenges across this country, we know one thing: inclusive and sustainable growth principles are becoming foundational to economic decision-making across the country. We need systems that create opportunities for all, regardless of the size of community each one of us chooses to call home.

With this in mind, Canada 2020 has undertaken a one-year project of research and convening to identify what we can learn from global and local efforts to build wealth and well-being in these small and rural communities. Led by Canada 2020 Senior Fellow Matthew Mendelsohn and with key support from TELUS, we’re thrilled to share the results of this project, intended to sketch out a practical policy agenda that can be implemented in the next three years.

“The twin transitions taking place across societies – towards net-zero and digital – will be at the heart of rural and community economic development in Canada over the next decade,” writes Mendelsohn. “Canada should expect and plan for growth, and policy-makers should design and deliver programs in ways that invest in the quality of life and unique assets of smaller communities.”

Canada has the opportunity to implement an ambitious new policy agenda for rural and smaller communities that plans for this transition, and for long-term growth. 

From this research, a four-pillared agenda can guide our path forward:

1. Aggressively adopt legislative, regulatory and reporting frameworks to direct more capital into local communities, even when the short-term business case isn’t there.

2. Build the connective tissue necessary for well-being, with a focus on policies that build digital infrastructure and subsidise transportation, and use new tools to build and repurpose social and economic infrastructure for community and entrepreneurial purposes.

3. Embed reconciliation into rural development strategies, with a focus on capital, Indigenous ownership, and self-government.

1. Invest in the capacity of local communities and devolve resources and power so that communities can invest in their own assets and make allocation decisions that they think align with their vision for the future of their communities.

There are innumerable reasons this policy agenda should be of highest priority. Not only are reconciliation, climate change, and economic growth amongst the most important issues to many Canadians, but as this report points out, uneven growth – often exploited by malicious and anti-democratic actors – is destabilising.

The most important challenges we face manifest themselves differently in rural and urban communities, and so our policy responses must privilege place, community, and local assets. A high quality of life in communities of all sizes must remain our guiding principle as we look ahead to Canada’s future.