Canada can’t become a sovereign country by doing the same old things, explains a new compendium of essays offering a playbook for economic self-sufficiency. Elbows Up: A Practical Program for Canadian Sovereignty—co-sponsored by the CCPA, the Centre for Future Work, and several national civil society organizations—is a response to corporate rallying cries responding to Donald Trump with a familiar playbook: deregulation, austerity, tax cuts, and fossil fuel expansion.
The collection includes contributions from 20 progressive economists and policy experts, many of whom participated in the Elbows Up Economic Summit held in September 2025 in Ottawa. They propose:
- Economic nation-building and the energy transition: Investments in sustainable energy and energy conservation will provide a larger and more lasting economic boost than more fossil fuel pipelines.
- Stronger communities and affordable homes: The positive impact of government investment in public transit and affordable and non-market housing.
- Breaking free of the staples trap: U.S. tariffs have deliberately targeted Canada’s high-tech, value-added industries, like automotive, primary metals, pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and machinery. A strong industrial strategy is needed so this frontal attack does not consign Canada to its previous role as supplier of primary staples products.
- Fulfilling the potential of the care economy: Canada’s trade-oriented, goods-producing industries receive most attention, yet almost 80 per cent of our GDP is produced in non-traded sectors. This includes the care economy, like health care and education, which need more investment, too—not austerity.
Canada needs to build big things, but we need to build the right big things, and the right way.
