Canada's Economy, Explained

Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
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Canada’s Economy, Explained is the official podcast of the Business Data Lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, hosted by Senior Research Director Marwa Abdou. Whether you’re a business leader, policymaker, or simply curious about the forces shaping our economy, this podcast brings you real-time data, sharp analysis, and conversations that matter. From workforce trends and inflation to trade, innovation, and inclusion, we unpack the stories behind the stats — with leading economists, industry voices, and fresh perspectives. Timely. Insightful. Unfiltered. This is where Canada’s economy gets explained.

  1. Sep 30

    Talk to Me, Goose: The Economics of Canadian Defence Part II with David Perry

    Defence is moving rapidly toward the centre of Canada's economic debate. Spending is rising. Procurement is accelerating. Arctic sovereignty has acquired new urgency. And defence policy is increasingly being asked to do much more than equip a military: build industry, generate innovation, strengthen supply chains and preserve Canada's ability to act in a more uncertain world.  But what exactly are we buying when we spend on security?  In this special two-part episode, host Marwa Abdou sits down with Philippe Lagassé and David Perry to examine the economics and institutions underneath Canada's defence build-up. With Lagassé, the conversation explores preparedness, sovereignty, alliances and the tension between moving faster and maintaining democratic accountability. With Perry, it follows the money into procurement, firms, workers, intellectual property, industrial capacity and the difficult translation of spending into usable military capability.  Business Data Lab research helps ground the scale of the challenge. Canada's core defence industry comprises just 538 firms, with the largest 50 accounting for roughly 80% of industry sales. The opportunity created by sustained investment is significant. So are the constraints.  Across both conversations, a deeper problem emerges. Spending is not capability. Domestic production is not necessarily domestic control. Interdependence is not necessarily vulnerability. Economic activity is not necessarily productivity. And strategic necessity does not make scarcity disappear.  Because the harder question is not simply how much Canada should spend. It is what those resources are meant to produce, what Canada needs to retain for itself, and what happens when military capability, economic ambition and fiscal reality stop neatly aligning. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing. Links:- Philippe Lagassé, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs- David Perry, President Canadian Global Affairs Institute   - Defence Deconstructed, Canadian Global Affairs Institute - Philippe Lagassé, “Defence Policy and Procurement Costs: The Case for Pessimism Bias,” in Canadian Defence Policy in Theory and Practice, Volume 2 Springer Nature - David Perry, “The Defence Budget,” in Canadian Defence Policy in Theory and Practice, Volume 2 Springer Nature - BDL Report: Deepening Our Defence - Government of Canada, Our North, Strong and Free - Government of Canada, Defence Industrial Strategy - NATO defence expenditure data

    Talk to Me, Goose: The Economics of Canadian Defence Part II with David Perry

  2. Sep 29

    Talk to Me, Goose: The Economics of Canadian Defence Part I with Philippe Lagassé

    Defence is moving rapidly toward the centre of Canada's economic debate. Spending is rising. Procurement is accelerating. Arctic sovereignty has acquired new urgency. And defence policy is increasingly being asked to do much more than equip a military: build industry, generate innovation, strengthen supply chains and preserve Canada's ability to act in a more uncertain world.  But what exactly are we buying when we spend on security?  In this special two-part episode, host Marwa Abdou sits down with Philippe Lagassé and David Perry to examine the economics and institutions underneath Canada's defence build-up. With Lagassé, the conversation explores preparedness, sovereignty, alliances and the tension between moving faster and maintaining democratic accountability. With Perry, it follows the money into procurement, firms, workers, intellectual property, industrial capacity and the difficult translation of spending into usable military capability.  Business Data Lab research helps ground the scale of the challenge. Canada's core defence industry comprises just 538 firms, with the largest 50 accounting for roughly 80% of industry sales. The opportunity created by sustained investment is significant. So are the constraints.  Across both conversations, a deeper problem emerges. Spending is not capability. Domestic production is not necessarily domestic control. Interdependence is not necessarily vulnerability. Economic activity is not necessarily productivity. And strategic necessity does not make scarcity disappear.  Because the harder question is not simply how much Canada should spend. It is what those resources are meant to produce, what Canada needs to retain for itself, and what happens when military capability, economic ambition and fiscal reality stop neatly aligning. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing. Links:- Philippe Lagassé, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs - David Perry, President Canadian Global Affairs Institute   - Defence Deconstructed, Canadian Global Affairs Institute  - Philippe Lagassé, “Defence Policy and Procurement Costs: The Case for Pessimism Bias,” in Canadian Defence Policy in Theory and Practice, Volume 2 Springer Nature  - David Perry, “The Defence Budget,” in Canadian Defence Policy in Theory and Practice, Volume 2 Springer Nature  - BDL Report: Deepening Our Defence - Government of Canada, Our North, Strong and Free  - Government of Canada, Defence Industrial Strategy  - NATO defence expenditure data

    Talk to Me, Goose: The Economics of Canadian Defence Part I with Philippe Lagassé

  3. Sep 15

    No Easy Exits: Canada, the Map and a World Beyond the U.S. with Simon J Evenett

    Canada wants to diversify. But diversify what, exactly? Exports? Customers? Suppliers? Technologies? Capital? Risk? And how would we know when we had actually done it? In this extended first episode of Canada’s Economy, Explained after the summer break, host Marwa Abdou sits down with Simon J. Evenett, Professor of Geopolitics and Strategy at IMD and founder of Global Trade Alert, for a wide-ranging conversation about one of the most consequential questions facing Canada: how much economic choice can a deeply integrated middle power actually create for itself? Evenett has spent much of his career studying the gap between how governments talk about international commerce and how trade, investment and business decisions actually work. Together, he and Abdou put some of today’s most comfortable policy words under pressure: openness, resilience, dependence, sovereignty and diversification. What begins with the gravity model of trade quickly becomes something much larger. How much can Canada really diversify away from geography? When does interdependence create prosperity, and when does it create leverage? What are we willing to pay for greater resilience? Who bears the cost of adjustment when supply chains move? And what happens when one country’s attempt to create more economic choice changes the incentives of the partner it is trying to become less dependent upon? Along the way, the conversation moves through outside options, supply-chain risk, portfolio theory, adjustment costs, repeated games, weaponized interdependence and the increasingly blurred boundary between trade policy and economic security.  And the stakes are no longer hypothetical. In the days after this interview was recorded, the Canada-U.S. confrontation escalated, making many of the questions in this conversation considerably less theoretical. Diversification may be easy to draw on a map. Building real economic freedom in an interdependent world is much harder. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing. Links:- Simon J. Evenett, Professor of Geopolitics and Strategy, IMD - Global Trade Alert - Simon J. Evenett, Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)- Down and Almost Out: A Time for Reflection on the Future of the Multilateral Trading System with Dan CiuriakJohn M. Curtis, Henry Lotin - Trade Redirection of Chinese Exports During 2025: Evidence from Full-Year Data- China's Exports in 2025: Bilateral Tariff Hit, Limited Global Diffusion- Redirecting Chinese Exports from the USA: Evidence on Trade Deflection from the First U.S.-China Trade War Additional Resources:- Richard Baldwin et. al., “Global Supply Chain Risk and Resilience” - Kari Heerman and David Wessel, “Export Restrictions Don’t Solve Scarcity; They Redistribute It” - Daniel Trefler, “The Long and Short of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement,” American Economic Review - David H. Autor, David Dorn and Gordon H. Hanson, “The China Syndrome: Local Labor Market Effects of Import Competition in the United States,” American Economic Review - Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation - Pedro Dal Bó, “Cooperation under the Shadow of the Future: Experimental Evidence from Infinitely Repeated Games,” American Economic Review - Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman, “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion,” International Security - Chad P. Bown, “The Real Risk of a Trade War With Canada: America Needs Its Neighbors to Counter China,” Foreign Affairs - Chad P. Bown, “Negotiating a Win-Win End to the Lose-Lose U.S.-China Trade War Over Technology and Critical Minerals”

    No Easy Exits: Canada, the Map and a World Beyond the U.S. with Simon J Evenett

  4. May 26

    No Permanent Friends: Trade, Power and the New Geography of Economic Security with Wendy Cutler and Deborah Elms

    Trade used to be about efficiency. Now it’s increasingly about resilience, leverage and security.  In the mid-season finale, host Marwa Abdou sits down with two of the world’s leading trade policy voices: Wendy Cutler, Vice President at the Asia Society Policy Institute, and former Acting Deputy U.S. Trade Representative following nearly three decades at USTR, and Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy at the Hinrich Foundation, and Founder of the Asian Trade Centre in Singapore. Together, they unpack how the global trading system is being rewritten in real-time as countries increasingly reorganize trade around resilience, strategic alignment and economic security.  From China’s WTO accession to CUSMA, CPTPP, semiconductor chokepoints, industrial policy, friend-shoring and the rise of “mini trade deals,” this episode explores how trade became one of the defining geopolitical and economic stories of our time. Along the way, the conversation centres on a deeper question: If globalization was designed to reduce friction, what happens when the world starts optimizing for strategic insulation instead?  Because trade is increasingly no longer just about what crosses borders; it’s about who countries believe they can depend on when pressure arrives. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing. Links:- Wendy Cutler, Senior Vice President, Asia Society Policy Institute - Dr. Deborah Elms, Head of Trade Policy, Hinrich Foundation - Dr. Deborah Elms, Founder and Executive Director, Asian Trade Centre - Refreshing the CPTPP  by Deborah Elms - Four known unknowns for US trade policy by Deborah Elms  \  Additional Resources:- World Trade Organization Global Trade Outlook and Statistics - Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

    No Permanent Friends: Trade, Power and the New Geography of Economic Security with Wendy Cutler and Deborah Elms

  5. May 12

    The Weight We Carry: Debt, Wealth and Risk in Canadian Households with Stephen Poloz

    For years, Canada has been described as a stable economy. Strong banks. Disciplined policy. Rising household wealth. But underneath that stability, something else has been doing much of the heavy lifting — households.  Canadian households now carry some of the highest debt burdens in the advanced world, with mortgage debt and housing wealth increasingly shaping not just personal finances, but the broader trajectory of the economy itself. What happens when growth becomes deeply tied to household balance sheets? And what does that mean for productivity, business investment, inequality, and long-term economic resilience?  In this episode, Marwa Abdou sits down with Stephen Poloz, Special Advisor at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, 9th Governor of the Bank of Canada, and author of The Next Age of Uncertainty (2022). Together, they unpack the deeper structural forces behind Canada’s household debt story, from post-financial crisis monetary policy and housing markets to productivity stagnation and the changing nature of financial stability itself.  This episode also explores why household debt is no longer just a question of financial risk but is increasingly a question about growth itself. Because when economies rely heavily on household leverage to sustain momentum, stability can begin to depend on households continually absorbing more pressure. And eventually, the question is not just whether the system can withstand shocks… but what the system stops being able to build. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing.  Links:- Stephen Poloz, Special Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP- The Next Age of Uncertainty: How the World Can Adapt to a Riskier Future by Stephen Poloz- Stephen S. Poloz, Bank of Canada - -Stephen S Poloz BoC Speech 2018: Canada's economy and household debt - how big is the problem? Additional Resources: - The Hub: “At 103% of GDP, Canadian households have the most debt in the G7”- OECD Housing Policy Toolkit- Canadian Bankers Association: Household Borrowing in Canada - Statistics Canada National Balance Sheet Accounts - OECD Household Debt- IMF Canada Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) - House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession, and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again by Atif Mian & Amir Sufi

    The Weight We Carry: Debt, Wealth and Risk in Canadian Households with Stephen Poloz

  6. Apr 21

    Their Dollar, Everyone’s Problem: The Architecture of U.S. Dollar Dominance and Global Monetary Power with Kenneth Rogoff

    You earn it in one currency. You spend it in one place. It feels local. Personal. Contained.  But the system that determines how money actually behaves operates at a different level entirely.  In this episode, host Marwa Abdou sits down with Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas Professor of Economics at Harvard University and author of Our Dollar, Your Problem, to unpack the architecture of U.S. dollar dominance and what it means for the global economy.  For decades, the U.S. dollar has functioned as the backbone of global finance. It anchors trade, shapes capital flows and influences borrowing costs far beyond U.S. borders. But that dominance is not static.  Drawing on decades of research, Rogoff explains why the dollar’s influence persists, how it is evolving and where underlying vulnerabilities are beginning to surface. From rising U.S. debt and shifting interest rate dynamics to the growing use of financial sanctions and the emergence of competing systems, this conversation explores the forces quietly reshaping the global monetary order.  This is not a story about the dollar disappearing. It’s a story about what happens when the system built around it begins to shift. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing.  Links:- Kenneth Rogoff, Harvard University - “Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider's View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead” - Yale University Press - “The Curse of Cash” - Princeton University Press - This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff - "Exchange Arrangements Entering the 21st Century: Which Anchor Will Hold?" by Ethan Ilzetzki, Carmen M. Reinhart, and Kenneth S. Rogoff- "Was It Real? The Exchange Rate-Interest Differential Relation over the Modern Floating-Rate Period" by Richard Meese and Kenneth Rogoff

    Their Dollar, Everyone’s Problem: The Architecture of U.S. Dollar Dominance and Global Monetary Power with Kenneth Rogoff

  7. Apr 7

    Why Are Things Still Expensive? The Economics Behind the Inflation Hangover with Claudia Sahm & Doug Porter

    Inflation is cooling. The data says the worst is behind us. So why does everything still feel so expensive?  In this episode, we unpack one of the defining economic puzzles facing advanced economies today: The gap between what the numbers say and what people actually feel. Because inflation isn’t just about how fast prices are rising, it’s about where they land, and what it takes to live with that shift.  Featuring insights from Chief Economist Claudia Sahm and BMO Chief Economist Doug Porter, this episode explores how pandemic-era inflation reset the price level, why higher interest rates are still working their way through the system, and how housing, debt and timing are shaping the Canadian experience. Along the way, we dig into the difference between supply- and demand-driven inflation, the limits of monetary policy, and why the “way down” can feel just as difficult as the way up. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing. Links:- Claudia Sahm - Website - Claudia Sahm - Bloomberg - Claudia Sahm – Substack “Stay-At-Home-Macro" - Douglas Porter – BMO Economics - Doug Porter Talking Points - “It Ain’t Over ’til It’s Over” - Doug Porter Talking Points - “Whole Lotta Hold”

    Why Are Things Still Expensive? The Economics Behind the Inflation Hangover with Claudia Sahm & Doug Porter

  8. Mar 24

    From Points to Paycheques: The Interconnection Between Canada's Immigration Design and the Skills Gap with Anna Triandafyllidou and Christopher Worswick

    Canada has built one of the most ambitious immigration systems in the world. For decades, our system has selected newcomers based on education, language ability and professional experience, with the expectation that those skills will translate into economic opportunity.  But that translation is not automatic.  In this episode, host Marwa Abdou, migration scholar Dr. Anna Triandafyllidou and labour economist Dr. Christopher Worswick examine a central tension at the heart of Canada’s immigration model: The gap between how systems measure talent before arrival and how labour markets translate talent after arrival.   Drawing on research from Statistics Canada, the OECD and leading Canadian economists, we explore how credentials are evaluated, how employers interpret unfamiliar experience, and how institutions such as licensing bodies, hiring practices and social networks shape who gets access to opportunity.  This episode connects system design to labour market outcomes. From the role of signals and recognition to the long-term evolution of immigrant earnings, it considers how early job matches, selection policies and economic conditions interact over time.  As Canada continues to rely on immigration for labour force growth, the question is no longer simply who gets in but whether the economy can convert potential into productivity. This episode was researched and editorially directed by host and executive producer Marwa Abdou, and brought to life in close collaboration with producer Nick Nikitaras, who led its creative direction and editing. Links: - Anna Triandafyllidou, TMU  - Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides  - Christopher Worswick, Carleton University  - Christopher Worswick, C.D. Howe Institute  - How We Subverted our Skills Based Immigration System – Green, Worswick et al.  - Immigrant Earnings Profiles in the Presence of Human Capital Investment: Measuring Cohort and Macro Effects – Green, Worswick et al.  - Entry Earnings of Immigrant Men in Canada: The Roles of Labour Market Entry Effects and Returns to Foreign Experience – Green, Worswick et al.

    From Points to Paycheques: The Interconnection Between Canada's Immigration Design and the Skills Gap with Anna Triandafyllidou and Christopher Worswick
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About

Canada’s Economy, Explained is the official podcast of the Business Data Lab at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, hosted by Senior Research Director Marwa Abdou. Whether you’re a business leader, policymaker, or simply curious about the forces shaping our economy, this podcast brings you real-time data, sharp analysis, and conversations that matter. From workforce trends and inflation to trade, innovation, and inclusion, we unpack the stories behind the stats — with leading economists, industry voices, and fresh perspectives. Timely. Insightful. Unfiltered. This is where Canada’s economy gets explained.

Information

  • Creator
    Canadian Chamber of Commerce | Business Data Lab
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    33
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Canadian Chamber of Commerce
  • Show Website
    Canada's Economy, Explained

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