Canada Can Be a Superpower

The Goal

Transform Canada from a declining middle power into a top-5 global superpower within a generation — with the economic weight, military capability, and strategic independence to shape its own future.

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Summary

Canada possesses every natural advantage required for great power status. It has the third-largest oil reserves on earth, the largest uranium deposits, massive critical mineral wealth, abundant fresh water, and a highly educated population. It has functioning institutions, geographic security, and proximity to the world's largest economy. Yet Canada has become the only resource-rich nation without a sovereign wealth fund, the only developed country where it's easier to trade with foreign nations than between its own provinces, and an economy where housing speculation attracts more capital than building businesses that sell things to the world.

This is not inevitable. It is the result of choices — choices that can be reversed. This memo introduces a seven-part agenda to transform Canada into a genuine superpower. The Build Canada Superpower Series will release detailed policy memos over the coming weeks covering each area with specific recommendations, data-driven analysis, and implementation roadmaps. Some of these ideas have been shared before. Some are new and expanded. Now, more than ever, it's time to remind ourselves what is possible and get to work on the changes needed to make this future a reality.

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Narrative

Canada has every raw ingredient to be a top-5 power. The fact that it's a middle power punching below its weight is entirely a choice. A series of bad choices compounding over decades.

Consider the evidence. Canada extracts roughly $200 billion per year in natural resources¹ and has essentially nothing to show for it at the national level. Norway reported $3B² in sovereign wealth in 2025. The UAE $1.7 trillion in 2024.³ Saudi Arabia $913 billion⁴ in 2024. Canada has zero. This is not because Canada lacks resources. It is because Canada has chosen to consume these windfalls rather than save them.

This failure is not an isolated mistake. It is symptomatic of decades of choices that have turned Canada from a country with superpower potential into a comfortable, declining middle power.

Canada has turned into an economy where the primary wealth-creation mechanism is selling houses to each other at ever-increasing prices. This is not wealth creation — it's wealth redistribution from young to old, from productive to unproductive, from the future to the present. Every dollar of capital that goes into bidding up existing housing is a dollar NOT going into machinery, technology, R&D, or building businesses that sell things to the world.

Canada admitted over 1.2 million individuals in 2023⁵ while having no plan to house, employ, or integrate them productively. This is not immigration policy — it's population economics designed to inflate GDP headline numbers while GDP per capita falls.

Canada's productivity has been flat to declining for a decade. This is a national emergency and nobody is treating it like one. Everything else — military power, living standards, geopolitical influence — is downstream of productivity.

Canada exports raw commodities and imports finished goods. This is what colonies do, not superpowers. Canada sends 76% of its exports to a single customer⁶. That is not an independent nation. It's a subsidiary.

Every rising power in history made similar choices. They invested in productive capacity rather than consumption. They attracted and retained top global talent. They monetized natural advantages for permanent wealth rather than current spending. They built military-industrial bases that generated technological spillovers. They established strategic independence rather than dependency.

Every declining power made the opposite choices. They allowed property interests to capture the political system. They imported population for consumption rather than production. They failed to save resource windfalls. They let productivity stagnate. They depended on stronger powers for security and market access.

The solutions are not mysterious. They are exactly what successful rising powers have always done. Norway saved its oil wealth and created a $3 billion fund. Singapore recruits the world's top scientists⁷ and engineers with targeted incentives. Israel directed defence R&D into commercial technology⁸ that built global industries. The early United States recruited the people who would build the future.

What is required is the will to implement them despite the political costs.

The Build Canada Superpower Series will detail seven fundamental reforms over the coming weeks. Each memo will include specific policy recommendations, data-driven analysis, international comparisons, and implementation roadmaps.

The question is not whether Canada knows what to do. The question is whether Canada has the courage to do it before the narrowing window of opportunity closes.

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The Superpower Series

This memo introduces the Build Canada Superpower Series. Over the coming weeks, detailed policy memos will be published on each of the seven areas outlined below.

1. Build the Most Competitive Economy in the G7 Canada's economy is strangled by protected industries, barriers to entry, and a tax code that rewards speculation over production. Internal trade barriers alone cost Canada up to 7% of GDP according to the IMF⁹. Meanwhile, buying a rental property is more tax-advantaged than building a factory. Every rising power in history redirected capital from speculation to production and opened its domestic market to competition. This memo will lay out exactly how Canada can do the same.

2. Win the Global Talent War — and Keep Our Own Canada doesn't just have a problem attracting talent — the best Canadians leave because they can't build here. Discoveries die in the lab. There's no pathway from research to revenue. The best people move to the U.S. where they can build companies and be rewarded for it. This memo will detail how to fix the pipeline from university research to Canadian companies, restructure immigration around productivity, and stop developing talent for other countries.

3. Own the Energy and Critical Minerals Supply Chain Canada has the third-largest oil reserves on earth, the largest uranium deposits, and massive critical mineral deposits. Yet it exports raw commodities and imports finished goods. This is what colonies do, not superpowers. Energy security is the currency of the new world order. Canada is sitting on the vault. This memo will lay out the plan to open it — and sell to the world, on Canadian terms.

4. Build Canada's Sovereign Wealth Fund Norway has $3 billion. The UAE has $1.7 trillion. Saudi Arabia has $913 billion. Canada has zero. Canada extracts roughly $200 billion per year in natural resources and has nothing to show for it at the national level. This is the single most inexcusable policy failure in Canadian history. This memo will propose how to fix it within a generation.

5. Build a Military-Industrial Complex Military spending directed toward domestic capabilities is investment, not consumption. It creates advanced manufacturing, drives technological innovation, and generates ideas that spill over into the civilian economy. The internet, GPS, semiconductors, jet engines — all defence-funded. This memo will detail how Canada can build a defence-industrial base that drives productivity gains across the entire economy.

6. Reform the State: Build a Government That Delivers Canada's government is designed to prevent action. Environmental reviews take a decade. The bureaucracy has grown 43% while delivering worse outcomes. None of the reforms in this series matter if the state can't execute them. This memo will propose the institutional changes needed to build a government that actually delivers.

7. Reclaim Canada's Identity: A Nation That Builds Every rising power had a national story that demanded ambition and sacrifice. Canada was built by people who constructed a railway across a continent, opened the north, and punched above their weight in two world wars. That identity has been buried. This memo will argue that reclaiming a competitive, building-oriented national identity is the cultural precondition for everything else on this list.

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Conclusion

Canada possesses every raw ingredient required for great power status. The only missing element is will. For decades, Canada has chosen comfort over competitiveness, consumption over investment, dependency over independence, and diffusion of responsibility over execution. These were choices, not necessities. Different choices will produce different results.

Everything described above is what every successful rising power has done — invest in productive capacity, attract and retain top talent, monetize natural advantages, build military strength, reform governance for execution speed, and establish strategic independence. None of this is novel. None of this is mysterious.

The question is not whether Canada knows what to do. The question is whether Canada has the courage to do it.