Wonk

Most Canadians are still adjusting to the inflation that has settled across our economy from the last big geopolitical disruptions. Now a new one threatens to send prices higher again... all this at a time when Canada is trying to rebuild its own economic engine. Jim Stanford is the director of the Centre for Future Work and one of Canada’s most prominent economists. He speaks with host Amanda Lang about the far-reaching impact of energy prices, social capital and leaning into Canada’s strengths.

It's hardly a secret that Canada has a housing problem. Usually it's described by the affordability issues around owning a home, but there is another and arguably more pernicious problem. Too many Canadians simply don't have one. Treating housing as a human right is one way to start facing that second housing crisis. Host Amanda Lang talks with Pearl Eliades, a Quebec-based lawyer specializing in human rights and a professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy, and Dr. Andrew Boozary, founding executive director of the Gattuso Center for Social Medicine at the University Health Network in Toronto.

Canada has changed tack on its climate efforts from a price on carbon and a philosophical view that fossil fuels might be phased out to a more pragmatic policy that embraces energy development while still aiming to meet climate targets. It's a tricky line to walk at any time, but especially while the economy faces a generational upheaval. Host Amanda Lang talks to Minister of Environment and Climate Change Julie Dabrusin about industrial carbon pricing, pushing EVs and building out national urban parks.

Some of the thorniest problems of our time won't be solved with the tools and systems that we currently use, but that doesn't make them beyond our capacity to solve. Tom Chi has spent his career at the center of innovation and process design — that includes at Google X, the moonshot factory inside Google. He now has a new book and a message about process and problem solving when it comes to climate. He talks to host Amanda Lang about a new way to think about economics.

Nestled in a tiny fishing outport in Newfoundland, Fogo Island Inn has become a luxury stop for the well-traveled. But it is a lot more than that -- by design. Fogo's part of a social enterprise called Shorefast, and while its success has definitely created wealth for the local economy, its founders believe that the model of community-based entrepreneurship is highly exportable. Host Amanda Lang talks to Zita Cobb about how to build Canada’s economy one community at a time.