Canada today faces perhaps the broader and more complex policy agendas in our history. Some are well known: climate, health care and the next transmission, reduced productivity and increased inequality. It costs money to work on each, and it takes great creativity to work on everything.
In the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, much of that thinking is done by a series of policy think tanks. We have some, but some of them are too predictable. You don’t need to read the headlines of the CD Howe Institute’s Economic Report to know the following 5,000-word analysis and recommendations. Fraser Institute’s views on folk medicine, climate change and low taxes have been repeated hundreds of times, changing only the name and date.
The two Canadian political parties have policy think tanks that are philosophically coordinated but have independent prescriptions. The Manning Center (now the Canadian Strong and Free Network) was an important ginger group with a new conservative mindset during the Harper era, but seems to have lost considerable energy since its founder, Preston Manning, left.
The Conservative Party of Canada desperately needs a bold center to test policy in order to return to a government party. Elaborating a credible and conservative agenda for action on any of the difficult problems has long failed. The Conservative Party for Ken Besencourt’s clean growth could be a valuable new player on climate and will probably inspire new groups on other priorities.
Curiously, the Liberal Party has failed several times in its efforts to create a similar center to foster the need for creative new centrist thinking. This gap is evident in areas such as security policy, wealth inequality, and innovation growth. Obstacles may be the number of liberal thinkers parked in nonpartisan centers such as academies and public policy laboratories and not fantasizing about new competitors.
From a resource perspective, the three policy centers are the least likely of the three domestic political parties. The Canadian Policy Substitution Center was founded over 40 years ago by New Democrats and workers and regularly offers new and progressive policy proposals. The Douglas Coldwell Layton Foundation has recently revived under former Jack Layton staff Karl Bélanger and Josh Vizak, and is embarking on new policy research. However, it is the youngest of the three to show the highest strength and communication skills.
The Broadvent Institute is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. This week we held the Progress Summit and returned to the regular policy meeting, training session and research cycle. It also operates its own media business, Press Progress, independently among the major institutions. The key to its success was to find the right balance between being a forum for new and often opposed progressive voices and being a forum for party loyalty. The new Executive Director, Jen Hassum, is highly regarded as an organizer and communication strategist.
All governments need external nudge (and sometimes push) to keep them away from policy ruts and not to repeat the same mistakes. Our government today needs a wider and richer source of policy innovation than ever before. The academy is strangely vulnerable to professionals who bring creative thinking in combination with a harsh understanding of political reality. Many civil society organizations that sponsor research promote only their own agenda. Many health charities are particularly guilty of this.
This week, the government announced a “new” climate agenda. Apart from the fact that many of them were published many times before, it lacked implementation details. Fortunately, this file is well serviced by a number of independent climate policy experts. But more than 20 years have passed since we last seriously discussed national security. Ukraine has revealed the price of its failure. And healthcare is in desperate need of bold action, not just new funding.
To make it all happen, we need more creative thinkers and new think tanks.
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