Canada and NATO's defence-spending benchmark
What would it actually take for Canada's defence expenditure to satisfy NATO's benchmark, and how should the announcements, funding plans, voted appropriations, and audited spending behind that claim be read against each other?
The anatomy of Canadian living standards
What share of the change in real GDP per person comes from output per worker, the employment rate, participation, and population structure?
Canada's electricity expansion: the projected pace and the delivered record
Canada's official energy scenarios assume electricity supply expands far beyond its recorded pace -- how fast must generation and capacity now grow, how fast did they actually grow, and what does the measured record show since the projections' own history ends?
Canada's exports and the United States: the record break, and where the difference went
Roughly three of every four Canadian export dollars went to the United States for a generation. That share has now fallen faster than at any point in the modern record -- is Canada actually finding other buyers, or is something narrower happening?
The capital behind each worker: the investment record, and the productivity record beside it
Output per worker has grown at a crawl since the pre-pandemic peak -- a small fraction of its pace a generation ago. Public commentary blames a shortfall in investment. Is Canada actually rebuilding the productive capital behind each worker, or is the capital record falling too?
Where the budget lands: the federal fiscal position, the promises against it, and what the audited record settles
The federal government projected four different deficits for the same fiscal year before it ended, and the audited number that settles it arrives months after anyone stops arguing about it. What does the record actually show about where the budget lands, what interest now takes from revenue, and which of the competing debt and deficit numbers means what it appears to mean?
The distance still to travel
Are Canada's emissions falling at the pace its climate commitments require?
Claims on the grid: what Ontario's connection record proves about its largest new loads — and why the register they sit in cannot be added up
Who is asking Ontario's electricity system for large new connections, how much of that is engineering fact rather than announcement — and why can none of it honestly be added into a single number?
The price of everything: one headline rate, and the components underneath it
Does a single headline inflation rate describe the prices a Canadian household is actually paying?
The delivery scoreboard: what the federal government reports about its own targets
How many of the federal government's own performance targets does it report meeting — and how many does it report on at all?
Defence: from spending to readiness
What does Canada's defence spending buy?
Health: access, outcomes and the gaps between them
How well is Canada meeting health needs?
Infrastructure delivery: from commitments to the capital base
Is Canada delivering the infrastructure it funds?
Business dynamism: employers, credit and financial distress
Is Canada renewing its business base?
Each Brief shows the evidence reviewed, the date through which it was reviewed, the limits of the answer, and what could change it. Briefs are updated when the evidence moves. A question for a Brief? Write to intel@countability.ca.