Age assurances are not the only available option to protect children online. But if policymakers are set on mandating age assurance systems, regulation should be limited to high-risk circumstances, avoid inflexible requirements, and be designed to be technologically and commercially agnostic.

Innovation, productivity, and competitiveness must be top priorities for Canada’s next federal government, not sidenotes or vague aspirations to be addressed with little more than lip service.

The Competition Bureau of Canada’s 2023 report assessing the state of competition in Canada has several methodological and interpretation issues that raise doubts about the conclusion's accuracy. As such, policymakers should not use the report as the foundation of competition policymaking or to justify a more aggressive antitrust regime.

Canada faces unprecedented challenges in innovation, productivity, and competitiveness. The first step in addressing them is to develop a clear understanding of the Canadian economy’s underlying structure and performance in each area. Policymakers must then tailor strategies for specific industries and technologies instead of focusing on principally on macro factors.

The word “innovation” appears a total of 97 times and “productivity” 63 times in Canada’s 2024 federal budget, and many measures targeted towards innovation and productivity reflect that focus. However, some of the funds being disbursed are tangential at best to actually addressing Canada’s declining productivity and supporting Canada’s innovation ecosystem.