• A Diagnostic of Key Trends and Sources of Influence
  In a process co-chaired with Jennifer Welsh, Canada 150 Chair in Global Governance and Security, Political Science - McGill University, Global Canada leveraged the insights of a diverse group of experts to frame the key global trends facing Canada. This study also identifies the sources of influence Canada has to shape those trends to be more aligned with Canada’s interests and values.
• Ten Strategic Choices for Decision-Makers:
  A diverse group of experts lay out the key strategic choices facing Canadian decision-makers in the 21st century
• Foreign Policy by Canadians:
  One of the frequent criticisms of foreign policy is that it is too elitist, too divorced from the views and concerns of ordinary Canadians.  This innovative project turns that notion on its head. In partnership with the Canadian International Council and CanWaCH, and with the expert support of Stanford University, we engaged 400 Canadians, chosen at random across the country, to discuss and prioritize Canada’s foreign policy issues. The results show that Canadians care about what is going on in the world, understand the significant impact global issues have on our country, believe we should step up and do our fair share in partnership with others, but that we must be sure to practice at home (from climate changes to Indigenous reconciliation) what we preach abroad.
• Next steps: Over the next year, Global Canada will work with government and other stakeholders to encourage the development of a global engagement strategy for Canada, ideally emerging from an explicit, rigorous, parliamentary-driven process.
  

• Assessing Canada’s Global Engagement Gap:
  This report, coming out in the last full year of the Harper government, did a rigorous comparison of Canada’s development and defence investments, compared with its own historical record and its international peers. It concluded that are underspending was so large that we could be considered an international free-rider.  The Economist took up the point with its article “Canada: proud, strong, and free-riding.
• Revisiting Canada’s Global Engagement Gap:
  This report, two years into the Justin Trudeau government, focused on Canada’s international development performance. It found that, despite the government’s claims that “Canada is back”, the reality was that Canada’s was committing a smaller share of national income to development than the previous Harper government. It forecast that, without a change in policy, the Trudeau government was on track to have the lowest commitment to international development of any Canadian government, Conservative or Liberal, in the last 50 years. Subsequent budgets have confirmed this unhappy prediction.
• Pearson's Path to Development:
  In 2019, on the 50th anniversary of the Pearson Report, which helped frame international development for many years, Global Canada did a peer-reviewed investigation as to why Canada’s greatest diplomat became one of the world’s most committed supporters of root-cause problem-solving through international development. Many of his reasons are still highly relevant today.
• Eastern European Assistance: (Download PDF)
• Next steps: Articulating the contemporary case for caring. Over the next year, Global Canada, in close association with other partners, will assemble the 21st century rationales for investing in a better world.

One area that was identified early in our brainstorming with Canadian leaders was renewed Canadian leadership on family planning and reproductive health and rights. Over the past several years Global Canada worked with a coalition of Canadian civil society actors in the Future Planning Initiative to advance Canada’s global leadership in this area.   This coalition convenes regular gathering of global experts on reproductive health. The recommendations from these gathering (summarized at www.18millionwomen.ca) played an important role in Canada’s $650M announcement in March 2017 to support women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights and the historic 10 year, $700 M a year commitment announced in June, 2019. Link here.  In 2018, the Guttmacher institute estimated that Canada’s increased commitment to family planning was empowering 1.4 M women, preventing 387 K unintended pregnancies, avoiding 108 K unsafe abortions, and saving 1,100 maternal deaths. Global Canada will be exploring other “proof point” opportunities with the potential of significant global impact. Link here

An initiative to define optimal strategies to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada.

Click here to read the reports and meet the team