One of the most popular blog posts that I have ever written on this blog over the last 12 years is this one: Canada must become a global superpower. And in this post, I argue that Canada needs to create a sovereign wealth fund, and that we have Norway to look to as a model. This is a topic that is raised semi-frequently in Canada. Just this past week, John Ruffolo, who is the Founder and Managing Partner of Maverix Private Equity, published this opinion piece in the Globe and Mail. Here's an excerpt:

Aging demographics, high taxes, deficits and unproductive wealth trapped in housing mean we simply don’t generate large capital pools for productive assets. Our pension funds, though world-class in size and governance, largely bypass Canadian innovators in favour of global opportunities. Our venture and private equity funds rely heavily on U.S. investors. Our banks, stable by design, avoid the kind of long-term risk capital required to build sovereign industries.

A sovereign wealth fund is not a slush fund. Done properly, it is a professionally managed pool of assets, governed independently, with two purposes: strengthen [Canada] sovereignty and generate long-term returns.

Canada has never had a true national sovereign wealth fund similar to what Norway, Singapore and others have done. That is, we don't have a federal-level, state-owned investment fund built from natural resource surpluses, trade surpluses, or foreign exchange reserves. What we have instead is a provincial SWF called the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund (AHSTF).

Many Albertans will be quick to point out that the province's non-renewable resource revenues should remain that of the province. But let's be clear: this fund has not done what it set out to do. It has failed due to political interference and a governance structure that does not promote long-term thinking.

Established in 1976 with an initial capital contribution of CAD 1.5 billion, the annual share of non-renewable resource revenues to be contributed was initially set at 30%. This was later reduced to 15%, and then in 1987, mandatory annual contributions were eliminated, making it more of an ad hoc thing. On top of this, over CAD 33 billion has been withdrawn from the fund over its life for various expenditures. The result is current assets under management of approximately CAD 30 billion.

To put this AUM into perspective, if the AHSTF had instead taken its initial contribution of CAD 1.5 billion, invested it into the S&P 500 in 1976, and then sat on its ass for the next half decade doing absolutely nothing besides keeping the fund active, it would today have a value of approximately CAD 160 billion (assuming an average annual return of 10% with dividends reinvested).

Now let's compare it to the Norway Government Pension Fund Global (their oil fund). This fund only received its initial capital contribution of ~USD 240 billion in 1996. But unlike Alberta, 100% of oil and gas revenues are contributed, there have never been any withdrawals, and governance is not political — it's independent and legally protected. The result is current assets under management of approximately USD 2 trillion, making it the world's largest sovereign wealth fund.

For fun, I asked AI to come up with an assets under management estimate for a Canadian Sovereign Wealth Fund had it been established in 1976 with the same CAD 1.5 billion initial contribution; had we made annual oil & gas revenue contributions ranging from $5 to $15 billion; had we achieved an annual return of 6% (like Norway); and had we never done any withdrawals due to strong governance and political independence.

The result is an AUM range between CAD 1.5 trillion and 4.4 trillion. In other words, Canada could, today, be sitting on the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. But you know what the next best thing to this is? Starting one today.

Cover photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to think of a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada.

According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of just how unifying this moment in time is, the province with the biggest increase in attachment to country was Québec.

What it means to be a Canadian is sometimes lazily defined according to who or what we are not. But this precarious moment in time is seemingly reminding us who we are. Of course, it also begs the questions: Where do we want to go from here? And do we have the leadership to take us there?

Let's start by looking at some, but of course not all, of the things that we have going for us as a country:

• Second-largest country in the world by land mass.

• World's longest coastline, with access to both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and increasingly the Arctic Ocean.

• Third-largest proven oil reserves in the world (estimated at close to 300 billion barrels), behind Saudi Arabia.

• World's largest producer and exporter of potash (which is a key component in fertilizers).

• Energy independent and broadly rich in resources (see below diagram).

• A fifth of the planet's surface freshwater.

• Bilingual country — a quarter of the country reported using French at work in 2011 and, as of 2010, Canada had the 5th largest population of Francophones in the world (behind Morocco).

• Multi-cultural country — over 20% of Canadians are foreign-born.

• Robust immigration system that attracts top talent from around the world.

• Highly-educated workforce with some of the world's best universities — over 60% of Canadian adults have a post-secondary education which is one of the highest rates globally.

• Average life expectancy of 82.3 years (2023 data), which is about 5 years higher than that of the US.

• Leader in AI, quantum computing, green tech, and space robotics — Canada produces more AI research papers per capita than almost any other country and the Stanford AI Index (2023) ranked Canada 4th behind only the US, China, and the UK.

Here's some of our bounty (via the Financial Times):

And yet, we are not a global superpower.

Worse, we are lagging behind our G7 peers in GDP growth, we are plagued by declining productivity levels, we are not investing enough in new business creation and entrepreneurship, and we have one of the worst affordable housing shortages in the developed world, among other things. We have been complacent for far too long, and a big part of this is because we have, or at least had, the world's largest economy next door demanding our goods.

As of 2024, 61% of all imported oil to the US came from Canada. And US refineries are specifically setup to refine our crude and viscous varietal. This is good for them. They buy our goopy oil at a discount, refine it, and then sell it for a profit. But now the US is clearly saying there's nothing they need or want from Canada. They've also demonstrated through their actions that, under the current administration, they can no longer be trusted as an ally and trading partner. So it behooves us to evolve. It behooves us to take matters into our own hands.

Here are some ideas:

• Firstly, Canada should become a republic. For me, this is less about the monarchy being outdated (though it is) and more about the fact that a sovereign superpower like Canada should have its own head of state, and not a foreign King.

• Canada needs to increase defense spending and exert much stronger sovereignty over its Arctic lands. For fiscal year 2024-2025, defense spending is projected to reach 1.37% of GDP. This obviously falls short of NATO's 2% target.

• Remove red tape and unleash the Canadian economy. Last year, Canada exported more to the US than between its own provinces and territories. Huh? By some estimates, our economy could grow by up to $5,100 per capita simply by eliminating internal trade barriers.

• Barriers also need to be removed from the delivery of new housing. Canadians have been over-indexing on housing because of eroding affordability. Our current market environment is an ideal time for market reforms. Here's just one recent post that offers a few concrete suggestions for how to do this.

• Grow the Canadian population to 100 million people by 2100. Obviously there are two main ways to do this: We can help Canadians have more babies (more affordable housing certainly assists with this) and we can continue to attract the smartest and most ambitious people from around the world. As of 2022, Canada's fertility rate sat at 1.33, which is below the OECD average of 1.5 births per woman. (The above population target is the focus of a charitable organization called the "Century Initiative.")

• Create a sovereign wealth fund akin to what Norway did. Today, Norway has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (based on assets under management) and it translates to over US$325,000 per Norwegian citizen and one of the highest GDPs per capita on the planet. Canada also has abundant natural resources as we know. The revenues generated from these resources should (1) accrue to the Canadian population and future generations and (2) steer the global economy toward a more sustainable future.

• Invest heavily in new infrastructure. This includes everything from high-speed rail to oil pipelines. In 2020, Canada exported 82% of the crude oil it produced, with most of it going to the US via pipeline from western provinces. If the US no longer wants this, then we ought to find some new customers.

• At the same time, we cannot let our abundant natural resources become a curse (see "the paradox of plenty"). We need to be a leader in the new economy. As I've written about before, I find it shocking, for example, that Canada is not stepping up more when it comes to new technologies like crypto. Vitalik Buterin, who is one of the founders of Ethereum and its most prominent figurehead, grew up in Toronto. He went to the University of Waterloo. We should be leveraging this homegrown talent to become a capital of crypto. And this is just one specific example.

• Do everything we can to spur more innovation, more risk-taking, and more private investment. It's one thing to have great Universities that publish a lot of research, but ultimately we need to turn this into thriving companies that employ Canadians and generate wealth for Canadians. Here's a post I published in 2023 called, "Canada has an existential productivity problem."

This is obviously not a comprehensive list of all the things that Canada should be doing as a country. And invariably, some or many of you will disagree with some or most of what I have put forward here. But hopefully we can all agree that now, more than ever, we need a strong Canada. We need to start thinking of ourselves as an emerging global superpower.

Cover photo by Juan Rojas on Unsplash

We know that, for a variety of reasons, more and more people are living alone. As of 2018, single-person households represented about 28% of all households in the US. This is up from 13.1% in 1960.

Here in Canada, single-person households became the predominant household type in 2016 (we're also at 28%) for the first time in Canada's 150+ year history. And the numbers are even higher for some European countries. In Finland, Germany, and Norway, more than 4 in 10 households are single-person.

Part of this has to do with people living longer. In Canada, 42% of people aged 85 or older (and living in a private household) live alone. But part of this is also cultural. Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world, but it doesn't have the highest percentage of single-person households. Although, the number is relatively high and increasing. It's nearly 40%.

Whatever the case may be, you could argue that there appears to be some sort of global trend line toward more people living alone. But here's an important question: Is this a good thing?

Albert Wenger recently argued in this blog post that, actually, we need new forms of living together. Whether it's multigenerational living or coliving with like-minded friends, there are clear benefits to living with other people. You get to share resources. You get elders that can look after kids. And you get company.

There's also an opportunity to curate your environment. As Phil Levin puts it on his coliving blog Supernuclear: "If your home is filled with motivated people, you will be more motivated. [And] if your home is filled with funny people, you will laugh more."

Albert posits that office conversions (which are obviously in vogue right now) could serve as an opportunity to rethink our built environment around coliving. And while this is certainly true, I'm not sure we need it to happen. There are ways we can live together today, within our existing environment, if we want to.

The question is: do we?

One of the most popular blog posts that I have ever written on this blog over the last 12 years is this one: Canada must become a global superpower. And in this post, I argue that Canada needs to create a sovereign wealth fund, and that we have Norway to look to as a model. This is a topic that is raised semi-frequently in Canada. Just this past week, John Ruffolo, who is the Founder and Managing Partner of Maverix Private Equity, published this opinion piece in the Globe and Mail. Here's an excerpt:

Aging demographics, high taxes, deficits and unproductive wealth trapped in housing mean we simply don’t generate large capital pools for productive assets. Our pension funds, though world-class in size and governance, largely bypass Canadian innovators in favour of global opportunities. Our venture and private equity funds rely heavily on U.S. investors. Our banks, stable by design, avoid the kind of long-term risk capital required to build sovereign industries.

A sovereign wealth fund is not a slush fund. Done properly, it is a professionally managed pool of assets, governed independently, with two purposes: strengthen [Canada] sovereignty and generate long-term returns.

Canada has never had a true national sovereign wealth fund similar to what Norway, Singapore and others have done. That is, we don't have a federal-level, state-owned investment fund built from natural resource surpluses, trade surpluses, or foreign exchange reserves. What we have instead is a provincial SWF called the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund (AHSTF).

Many Albertans will be quick to point out that the province's non-renewable resource revenues should remain that of the province. But let's be clear: this fund has not done what it set out to do. It has failed due to political interference and a governance structure that does not promote long-term thinking.

Established in 1976 with an initial capital contribution of CAD 1.5 billion, the annual share of non-renewable resource revenues to be contributed was initially set at 30%. This was later reduced to 15%, and then in 1987, mandatory annual contributions were eliminated, making it more of an ad hoc thing. On top of this, over CAD 33 billion has been withdrawn from the fund over its life for various expenditures. The result is current assets under management of approximately CAD 30 billion.

To put this AUM into perspective, if the AHSTF had instead taken its initial contribution of CAD 1.5 billion, invested it into the S&P 500 in 1976, and then sat on its ass for the next half decade doing absolutely nothing besides keeping the fund active, it would today have a value of approximately CAD 160 billion (assuming an average annual return of 10% with dividends reinvested).

Now let's compare it to the Norway Government Pension Fund Global (their oil fund). This fund only received its initial capital contribution of ~USD 240 billion in 1996. But unlike Alberta, 100% of oil and gas revenues are contributed, there have never been any withdrawals, and governance is not political — it's independent and legally protected. The result is current assets under management of approximately USD 2 trillion, making it the world's largest sovereign wealth fund.

For fun, I asked AI to come up with an assets under management estimate for a Canadian Sovereign Wealth Fund had it been established in 1976 with the same CAD 1.5 billion initial contribution; had we made annual oil & gas revenue contributions ranging from $5 to $15 billion; had we achieved an annual return of 6% (like Norway); and had we never done any withdrawals due to strong governance and political independence.

The result is an AUM range between CAD 1.5 trillion and 4.4 trillion. In other words, Canada could, today, be sitting on the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. But you know what the next best thing to this is? Starting one today.

Cover photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

The silver lining to the US starting a trade war with Canada and regularly threatening annexation is that it has forced this country out of complacency. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to think of a time, at least in my lifetime, when patriotism and nationalism has united so much of Canada.

According to a recent survey by Angus Reid, the percentage of Canadians expressing a "deep emotional attachment" to the country jumped from 49% in December 2024 to 59% in February 2025. And as further evidence of just how unifying this moment in time is, the province with the biggest increase in attachment to country was Québec.

What it means to be a Canadian is sometimes lazily defined according to who or what we are not. But this precarious moment in time is seemingly reminding us who we are. Of course, it also begs the questions: Where do we want to go from here? And do we have the leadership to take us there?

Let's start by looking at some, but of course not all, of the things that we have going for us as a country:

• Second-largest country in the world by land mass.

• World's longest coastline, with access to both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and increasingly the Arctic Ocean.

• Third-largest proven oil reserves in the world (estimated at close to 300 billion barrels), behind Saudi Arabia.

• World's largest producer and exporter of potash (which is a key component in fertilizers).

• Energy independent and broadly rich in resources (see below diagram).

• A fifth of the planet's surface freshwater.

• Bilingual country — a quarter of the country reported using French at work in 2011 and, as of 2010, Canada had the 5th largest population of Francophones in the world (behind Morocco).

• Multi-cultural country — over 20% of Canadians are foreign-born.

• Robust immigration system that attracts top talent from around the world.

• Highly-educated workforce with some of the world's best universities — over 60% of Canadian adults have a post-secondary education which is one of the highest rates globally.

• Average life expectancy of 82.3 years (2023 data), which is about 5 years higher than that of the US.

• Leader in AI, quantum computing, green tech, and space robotics — Canada produces more AI research papers per capita than almost any other country and the Stanford AI Index (2023) ranked Canada 4th behind only the US, China, and the UK.

Here's some of our bounty (via the Financial Times):

And yet, we are not a global superpower.

Worse, we are lagging behind our G7 peers in GDP growth, we are plagued by declining productivity levels, we are not investing enough in new business creation and entrepreneurship, and we have one of the worst affordable housing shortages in the developed world, among other things. We have been complacent for far too long, and a big part of this is because we have, or at least had, the world's largest economy next door demanding our goods.

As of 2024, 61% of all imported oil to the US came from Canada. And US refineries are specifically setup to refine our crude and viscous varietal. This is good for them. They buy our goopy oil at a discount, refine it, and then sell it for a profit. But now the US is clearly saying there's nothing they need or want from Canada. They've also demonstrated through their actions that, under the current administration, they can no longer be trusted as an ally and trading partner. So it behooves us to evolve. It behooves us to take matters into our own hands.

Here are some ideas:

• Firstly, Canada should become a republic. For me, this is less about the monarchy being outdated (though it is) and more about the fact that a sovereign superpower like Canada should have its own head of state, and not a foreign King.

• Canada needs to increase defense spending and exert much stronger sovereignty over its Arctic lands. For fiscal year 2024-2025, defense spending is projected to reach 1.37% of GDP. This obviously falls short of NATO's 2% target.

• Remove red tape and unleash the Canadian economy. Last year, Canada exported more to the US than between its own provinces and territories. Huh? By some estimates, our economy could grow by up to $5,100 per capita simply by eliminating internal trade barriers.

• Barriers also need to be removed from the delivery of new housing. Canadians have been over-indexing on housing because of eroding affordability. Our current market environment is an ideal time for market reforms. Here's just one recent post that offers a few concrete suggestions for how to do this.

• Grow the Canadian population to 100 million people by 2100. Obviously there are two main ways to do this: We can help Canadians have more babies (more affordable housing certainly assists with this) and we can continue to attract the smartest and most ambitious people from around the world. As of 2022, Canada's fertility rate sat at 1.33, which is below the OECD average of 1.5 births per woman. (The above population target is the focus of a charitable organization called the "Century Initiative.")

• Create a sovereign wealth fund akin to what Norway did. Today, Norway has the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world (based on assets under management) and it translates to over US$325,000 per Norwegian citizen and one of the highest GDPs per capita on the planet. Canada also has abundant natural resources as we know. The revenues generated from these resources should (1) accrue to the Canadian population and future generations and (2) steer the global economy toward a more sustainable future.

• Invest heavily in new infrastructure. This includes everything from high-speed rail to oil pipelines. In 2020, Canada exported 82% of the crude oil it produced, with most of it going to the US via pipeline from western provinces. If the US no longer wants this, then we ought to find some new customers.

• At the same time, we cannot let our abundant natural resources become a curse (see "the paradox of plenty"). We need to be a leader in the new economy. As I've written about before, I find it shocking, for example, that Canada is not stepping up more when it comes to new technologies like crypto. Vitalik Buterin, who is one of the founders of Ethereum and its most prominent figurehead, grew up in Toronto. He went to the University of Waterloo. We should be leveraging this homegrown talent to become a capital of crypto. And this is just one specific example.

• Do everything we can to spur more innovation, more risk-taking, and more private investment. It's one thing to have great Universities that publish a lot of research, but ultimately we need to turn this into thriving companies that employ Canadians and generate wealth for Canadians. Here's a post I published in 2023 called, "Canada has an existential productivity problem."

This is obviously not a comprehensive list of all the things that Canada should be doing as a country. And invariably, some or many of you will disagree with some or most of what I have put forward here. But hopefully we can all agree that now, more than ever, we need a strong Canada. We need to start thinking of ourselves as an emerging global superpower.

Cover photo by Juan Rojas on Unsplash

We know that, for a variety of reasons, more and more people are living alone. As of 2018, single-person households represented about 28% of all households in the US. This is up from 13.1% in 1960.

Here in Canada, single-person households became the predominant household type in 2016 (we're also at 28%) for the first time in Canada's 150+ year history. And the numbers are even higher for some European countries. In Finland, Germany, and Norway, more than 4 in 10 households are single-person.

Part of this has to do with people living longer. In Canada, 42% of people aged 85 or older (and living in a private household) live alone. But part of this is also cultural. Japan has one of the oldest populations in the world, but it doesn't have the highest percentage of single-person households. Although, the number is relatively high and increasing. It's nearly 40%.

Whatever the case may be, you could argue that there appears to be some sort of global trend line toward more people living alone. But here's an important question: Is this a good thing?

Albert Wenger recently argued in this blog post that, actually, we need new forms of living together. Whether it's multigenerational living or coliving with like-minded friends, there are clear benefits to living with other people. You get to share resources. You get elders that can look after kids. And you get company.

There's also an opportunity to curate your environment. As Phil Levin puts it on his coliving blog Supernuclear: "If your home is filled with motivated people, you will be more motivated. [And] if your home is filled with funny people, you will laugh more."

Albert posits that office conversions (which are obviously in vogue right now) could serve as an opportunity to rethink our built environment around coliving. And while this is certainly true, I'm not sure we need it to happen. There are ways we can live together today, within our existing environment, if we want to.

The question is: do we?