Sage Podcast: It’s Election Month in Canada. Are We Renegotiating the Federation on the Fly?
Canada is heading into a revealing political month: elections in B.C. and Quebec, and an Alberta referendum that has revived familiar anxieties about national unity. But the deeper story may not be whether the country is breaking apart. It may be whether the federation itself is being renegotiated.
Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa Bureau Chief for the Toronto Star, and Darrell Bricker, Global CEO of Ipsos Public Affairs, join hosts Allan Gregg and Edward Greenspon to unpack a volatile moment in Canadian politics: why Trump and Carney have frozen normal partisan lines, why Alberta’s separatist question may be less important than the other questions on the ballot, why Quebec could elect a sovereigntist government without a separatist majority, and why B.C.’s election may test the limits of Team Canada politics.
The result is a conversation about power: who holds it, who feels excluded from it, and how much longer national unity can be sustained by crisis politics alone.
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27 Sept 2026
Sage Podcast: The Permitting Revolution Hidden Inside Bill C‑39
Opposition to Bill C‑39 has been portrayed as a battle between new investment and environmental protection and between collective bargaining rights and warding off strikes in essential economic services. But its most consequential changes may be the ones attracting the least attention.
Unlike previous reforms under the Harper and Trudeau governments, the legislation reaches right into the permitting machinery that kicks in after a project receives its initial approval. Securing these permits under the Fisheries Act, the Navigable Waters Act and the Species at Risk Act can add years to wait times. Not only will permitting fall into the government’s single-window, one-year timeline, ministers are being directed “to consider technical, economic and practical feasibility when establishing, adding or amending conditions.” That means environmental consequences will have to be weighed against economic consequences - the first use of a proportionality test.
Former federal and provincial deputy ministers Michael Keenan (https://sagecanada.substack.com/i/185919341/michael-keenan) and Don Wright (https://sagecanada.substack.com/i/185919341/don-wright) join hosts Edward Greenspon (https://sagecanada.substack.com/i/185919341/edward-greenspon) and Allan Gregg (https://sagecanada.substack.com/i/185919341/allan-gregg) to examine the ambition—and the risks—inside Bill C‑39. They discuss everything from little-noticed micro changes with big effects to the possible impacts on employment and wages. They wonder if wage inflation may push project costs into the stratosphere or whether it actually constitutes a backdoor strategy to raise living standards. Oh yes, and an interesting digression into the B.C. election.
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20 Sept 2026
Sage Podcast: $120 Trillion Walked Into Toronto. Canada Still Has to Close the Deal.
Trillions(!) of dollars came to Toronto last week—or at least the people who manage it did. Some 300 executives managing $120 trillion(!) in assets gathered for the federal government’s “inaugural” investment summit, where Canada sought to reintroduce itself to global capital and make the case that it can be that trusted supplier everyone is seeking.
Turning interest into investment will require more than an appealing pitch, convivial surroundings and the speedy tax write-downs the government has proposed. Before investors pony up, as we hear on this week’s Sage Podcast, they will also want assurance of cost stability, quicker regulatory approvals, and confidence that changes in government won’t mean changes in policy. Canada, meanwhile, must decide how much public money it is prepared to put at risk and how it will structure that support. You may recall a trio of discussion papers published in the Spring. Well be prepared for their comeback.
Hosts Allan Gregg and Edward Greenspon are joined by David Dodge, Martha Hall Findlay and Miville Tremblay to assess the summit, the government’s new “productivity mega-deduction,” the proposed Canada Strong Fund and the prospect of bringing private capital into Canadian airports.
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