downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 63719.9articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
Canada
Strongest usable evidence: Anticipation, at 77.8. Raise Building first, at 44.7. Coordination needs more evidence: confidence is 0.23.
Raise, lowest first
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Building | 0.54 | 44.7 |
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Coordination | 0.23 | 97.3 |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 38.1 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.41 | 58.0 |
These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.
Why this country is included: Resource-rich federal democracy with persistent productivity questions.
Anticipation77.8Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
Canada
Read Canada beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.
- Usable or good evidence
- Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
- The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
- Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.
A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.
| Coordination | 0.23 | 2 of 5 | 0.79 | no trend | 78.0 | -19.3 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +2.7(2) | 72.0 | -5.8 | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Agency | 0.52 | 4 of 5 | 0.71 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Trust | 0.50 | 5 of 7 | 0.85 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.41 | 3 of 6 | 0.89 | +3.5(2) | 63.0 | +5.0 | |
| Building | 0.54 | 4 of 6 | 0.85 | -4.0(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | -4.8(3) | no data | no estimate |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
+2.7 over 10 years, from 75.1 in 2016 to 77.8 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 92.359index 0-100
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
- History
Government foresight capacity
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.
Long-horizon research commitments
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of new grants
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS), 2024
1.8 % of GDP, rank 22 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6), 2022
5,624 per million people, rank 14 of 114. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
39,738 per million people, rank 23 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Policy Horizons Canada, the federal foresight unit, and its 2024 disruption scan
Policy Horizons Canada, which describes itself as the Government of Canada's centre of excellence in foresight and reports through the Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada, published Disruptions on the Horizon 2024, which identified and assessed 35 possible disruptions using survey input from around 500 stakeholders, colleagues and foresight experts across the Government of Canada and beyond.
500 respondents, stakeholders, colleagues and foresight experts whose survey input assessed the disruptions (approximate, as stated), 2024. 35 disruptions, possible disruptions identified and assessed in the report, 2024. Policy Horizons Canada, Government of Canada, Disruptions on the Horizon 2024 (PH4-198/2024E-PDF), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: A small dedicated foresight unit inside the federal public service, governed by a deputy minister steering committee, runs recurring horizon scans and surveys hundreds of officials and outside experts to rate disruptions by likelihood, impact and timing, and trains and networks foresight practitioners across departments.
Limits: The unit is reporting on its own work, and the 500 is stated as 'around 500', an approximate count of survey inputs rather than a measure of whether any department used the scan; the report itself says its content does not necessarily represent the views of the Government of Canada. The description as centre of excellence is in the report's disclaimer; the reporting line through the Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada is stated on the unit's about page (https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/about-us/index.shtml), not in the report. Both figures appear on the web version at the source URL and in the PDF edition (pages 5 and 7 of https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/disruptions/Disruptions_on_the_Horizon_2024_report.pdf). No published budget, staff count or uptake figure was found: Employment and Social Development Canada's 2024-25 Departmental Results Report does not mention the unit, so the record evidences a standing federal function producing a dated whole-of-government scan with a deputy minister steering committee named in its acknowledgements, not the influence of that scan on policy. Whether the Disruptions report is annual was not verified: no 2023 or 2025 edition was found at the corresponding addresses. Started is 1996, when secondary histories place the unit's predecessor, the Policy Research Secretariat, in the Privy Council Office, renamed Policy Research Initiative in 2000 and Policy Horizons Canada around 2011 to 2012; that lineage was not verified on an official page today and the foresight mandate as now worded dates from the later renaming. The unit sits inside a line department rather than at the centre of government, which limits its reach.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 74.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
Panelist B's point that housing and wildfire risks were seen and not prepared for adds to the GPHIN lapse I cited, so I move down two points; Statistics Canada and Policy Horizons Canada are durable institutions that keep me above the others.
- 72.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.55
Slight rise toward A: Policy Horizons Canada is a standing foresight unit and Statistics Canada is first-rate, which is institutional anticipation not merely bought. Housing, wildfire and the GPHIN degradation before COVID-19 show foresight not acted on, so I stay below the indicator score.
- 70.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I rise from 68 to 70. Policy Horizons Canada is an actual standing foresight unit and Statistics Canada is among the best agencies, which A and B both cite. The degradation of GPHIN before COVID-19 and unprepared wildfire and housing pressures show known risks not acted on, so I stay below the 77.8 indicator score.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 5.166per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 1.5days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 2count
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
- History
Adults doing digital tasks
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 7.4mean 1-10
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
94.4 % of population, rank 19 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2024
98.4 % aged 15+, rank 14 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2008
124 % of GDP, rank 14 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
The value is from 2008, more than 15 years old.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.
Coordination
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Government effectiveness
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Regulatory quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.
Logistics performance
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 2hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
Budget execution fidelity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no datapercentage points from approved budget
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
- no data
Note: Observable alignment between an approved public plan and what government spent. The API covers 113 of 125 countries, with a latest year between 2016 and 2024. Values above and below 100 both indicate deviation, so the transform measures absolute distance from the approved budget rather than rewarding overspending. See D55.
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Innovation Index
- History
- no data
Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.938index 0-1
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
- History
- one year
Public-private collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2024
3.29 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
PPP Canada and the P3 Canada Fund, and its dissolution
Canada's federal Crown corporation PPP Canada, operational from 2009, committed over C$1.3 billion through the P3 Canada Fund to 25 public-private partnership projects across the country before the government dissolved it, with operations ceasing at the end of 2017 and the corporation dissolved effective March 31, 2018.
1,300,000,000 Canadian dollars (committed, 'over'), p3 canada fund investments committed over the corporation's life, 2018-03. 25 projects, projects in the p3 canada fund portfolio at dissolution, 2018-03. PPP Canada Inc., Annual Report 2017-18 (published by Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada), retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The federal government created a Crown corporation with a dedicated fund that paid up to a quarter of eligible costs to provinces, municipalities and Indigenous communities that procured infrastructure as public-private partnerships, plus template contracts and screening of federal projects; once it judged the market mature, it folded the corporation into the infrastructure department.
Limits: This is a dismantling by decision, not a collapse. The government's stated reason was that PPP Canada had 'successfully fulfilled its mandate', and its files were transitioned to Infrastructure Canada. The corporation carried performance-based payment liabilities of approximately C$1.3 billion over five years. A hostile reviewer would say the record shows a federal agency closing, not a national capability lost. The C$1.3 billion is commitments rather than disbursements (the audited statements show far smaller annual payments to recipients) and is a federal top-up of up to 25% of eligible costs, so it does not measure the scale of the joint delivery, its value for money or whether the 25 assets performed. The narrative and the figure are the corporation's own annual report; only the financial statements carry an Auditor General audit opinion.
Mitacs Accelerate research internships
Mitacs, the federally and provincially funded not-for-profit, placed 4,859 students, recent graduates and postdoctoral fellows in Accelerate research internships with 2,314 host organisations under 2,406 professors in 2024-25, out of 20,885 internships across all its programmes that year.
4,859 interns, interns in the accelerate program, 2024-25. 2,314 organisations, host organisations in the accelerate program, 2024-25. Mitacs, 2024-2025 Annual Report for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: A national intermediary splits the cost of a graduate student's or postdoc's research project inside a firm with the firm, using federal and provincial money, and uses the student's supervisor as the university link.
Limits: This is Mitacs reporting on itself to its federal funder: the Accelerate counts are on PDF page 28 and the 20,885 total on PDF page 2. Mitacs is a not-for-profit rather than a government body; ISED funding was 48 percent of its income in 2024-25 and the rest came from provinces and partners. Host organisations include not-for-profits, hospitals and municipalities as well as firms, so 2,314 overstates the firms involved. An internship is a funded unit of four to six months and one intern can hold several, so internships and interns are different counts; the 20,885 total also includes Globalink internships that bring international students to Canadian labs with no firm involved. The next report (2025-26, July 2026) gives 20,819 internships in total, against 21,432 in 2022-23. The capacity is now shrinking by plan: in 2024-25 Mitacs capped Accelerate units per university for lack of federal money, and its 2026-27 corporate plan (PDF page 9) foresees 12,540 internships on a 120 million dollar ISED grant, against more than 200 million of federal support in 2022-23. If that plan is delivered this record becomes an erosion. The 2003 start year, the first Mitacs research internship program, comes from ISED's evaluation of its funding to Mitacs, not from the cited report.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 78.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I move two points toward panelist C: decades of interprovincial trade barriers and stalled federal-provincial health and housing deals are institutional coordination failures, but strong civil society and fast borders are durable capacities.
- 78.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
Near hold. The indicator rests on two rows; civil society is strong and borders fast, but interprovincial trade barriers and stalled federal-provincial deals are persistent coordination failures among independent governments. C's 70 underweights how much coordination civil society and municipalities achieve without Ottawa.
- 74.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I rise from 70 to 74. Two-hour border compliance and civil society strength at 95 are direct organising signals, but A and B both note the score rests on two of five rows and federal-provincial coordination on trade barriers, health and housing is documented as weak. I stay under their 80.
Trust
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Rule of law
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Control of corruption
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 910days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 5.824% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.967scale 0-4 (never to always)
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
- History
- one year
Intentional homicide rate
downstream outcomeretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataper 100,000 people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
- History
- no data
Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 46.7% agreeing
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- one year
Trust in public institutions
perception proxyno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% expressing confidence
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD Trust Survey / WVS
- History
- no data
Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.
perception proxyobserved
- Raw value
- 49.5% expressing trust
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- one year
Court case clearance rate
downstream outcomeno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of incoming cases
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
- History
- no data
Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Confidence in the courtsJoint EVS/WVS (E069_17), 2022
9.3 % a great deal, higher is better. Share of survey respondents saying they have a great deal of confidence in the justice system and courts, of the four answers a great deal, quite a lot, not very much and none at all, in the Joint EVS/WVS 2017 to 2022 survey round.
Confidence in the courts is the public half of what this capability asks: whether people expect the rules to be enforced when a stranger breaks them. It is not scored because the survey answer reads two things the number cannot tell apart. Where courts are independent, confidence is a judgment of how they perform. Where they answer to the state, it is also deference, and saying otherwise to an interviewer has a cost. In this frame the pattern runs the wrong way. India, the Philippines and Indonesia, all electoral autocracies in the V-Dem 2025 classification, lead on the share saying a great deal, and Vietnam and China, the two closed autocracies surveyed, lead once quite a lot is counted too. The ten electoral autocracies average 21.8 percent saying a great deal and the two closed autocracies 28.1, against 13.6 for liberal and 8.4 for electoral democracies. Scored, it would rank highest the states whose courts are least able to rule against them. Income is not why it is left out: the share correlates about -0.18 with log GDP per capita. The value is the share saying a great deal; the share saying quite a lot is in the source note.
Learning
How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.798index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 55.933% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
- one year
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
- History
- no data
Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.565ratio to world average
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2023
76.3 % gross, rank 33 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2022
4.8 % of GDP, rank 44 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2018
4.6 % of secondary, rank 93 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Skills Development under the Labour Market Development Agreements, and its 2024-25 funding cut
Canada's provinces and territories delivered 154,892 employment-benefit services under the federally funded Labour Market Development Agreements in 2024-25, 92 percent of them Skills Development training, in a year when Part II funding fell by $425 million as a temporary top-up in place since 2016-17 ended and Skills Development spending fell 19.7 percent to $798.9 million.
154,892 services, employment benefits services delivered under the lmdas (92 percent skills development), 2024-25 (fiscal year April 2024 to March 2025). 798.9 million Canadian dollars, expenditure on skills development under the lmdas, down 19.7 percent from 2023-24, 2024-25. Employment and Social Development Canada for the Canada Employment Insurance Commission, Employment Insurance Monitoring and Assessment Report 2024-25, Chapter 3, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The federal government channels Employment Insurance Part II money to provinces and territories through bilateral agreements, and each province buys or delivers skills training and apprenticeship support for EI-eligible workers, reporting to a common monitoring framework.
Limits: The counts are services (interventions), not people: one client can hold several, and the department reports 502,007 clients across all LMDA services, most of them in employment assistance rather than training. The erosion rests on money, not on a measured fall in training: the chapter's introduction says Part II received $425 million less in 2024-25 because the temporary additional funding in place since 2016-17 sunset, and Skills Development spending fell 19.7 percent. Employment Benefits services also fell, from 192,365 in 2023-24 (Table 3.1.2.3) to 154,892, but nearly all of that is Skills Development Regular falling 37.8 percent to 62,084, which the table note attributes to a coding correction that moved provincial workshops out of that category; the services fall is therefore not counted as the loss here, and apprenticeship services rose 3.2 percent to 80,376. 2023-24 is the previous year, not a demonstrated all-time peak. The programme reports on itself, and the 92 percent share is stated by the department (62,084 plus 80,376 of 154,892). The started year is the date the first bilateral agreements were signed (Alberta and New Brunswick, December 1996, per the LMDA page on canada.ca), not stated in this chapter. The training is for EI-eligible workers, a subset of all adults, and the record says nothing about outcomes.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
-4.8 over 10 years, from 37.8 in 2016 to 33.0 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
-16.8 over 20 years, from 53.3 in 2006 to 36.5 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
+4.4 over 30 years, from 32.1 in 1996 to 36.5 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 4710per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 66458per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 715per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1268237per million people
- Year
- 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
- History
- no data
Venture deals
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD / national VC associations
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.
Early-stage entrepreneurial activity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% aged 18-64
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- no data
Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.
Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% not deterred
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- no data
Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
CSA Regulatory Sandbox, succeeded by the Financial Innovation Hub
Canada's provincial securities regulators, acting jointly as the Canadian Securities Administrators, authorised 13 firms through the CSA Regulatory Sandbox between 2016 and 2021, before it was succeeded by the CSA Financial Innovation Hub and its decision list stopped being updated in December 2023.
13 firms, firms listed as authorised in the former csa regulatory sandbox, 2023-12-18. Canadian Securities Administrators, Former CSA Regulatory Sandbox decisions, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Thirteen provincial and territorial securities regulators agreed to process fintech registrations and exemptive relief faster and on a time-limited basis through a shared sandbox, then folded it into a broader innovation hub once crypto platforms moved to their own registration track.
Limits: The 13 is ours, counted from the firms the page lists under 'Former CSA Regulatory Sandbox'; the crypto trading platform decisions on the same page belong to a separate pre-registration process and are not counted. Most authorisations were crypto funds and token offerings from 2017 to 2019, and the page says nothing about outcomes. The sandbox was succeeded by the CSA Financial Innovation Hub, whose page lists research, workshops and 'testing environments' among possible activities, so the testing function may not be wholly gone; what ended is the named regime and its public register, which is why the record is concluded rather than dismantled. The earliest listed decision (AngelList, October 2016) predates the sandbox's 2017 start and is listed under it by the CSA. The site sits behind a JavaScript challenge that blocks simple scripted fetches.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 6.907% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 7.6% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.168index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.17% of products not exported competitively at the start
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
- History
- one year
Disaster preparedness and recovery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- INFORM / UNDRR
- History
- no data
Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.
Institutional responsiveness
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
80 % aged 15+, rank 15 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2024
42.5 per 100 people, rank 12 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2024
4.2 % of output, rank 10 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT)
No value for this country. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
The 1997 Canada Pension Plan financing reform
In December 1993 the Chief Actuary projected that the pay-as-you-go contribution rate would reach 14.2% by 2030 and that the fund would run out by 2015. The federal and provincial governments agreed a reform package in 1997. It took effect on 1 January 1998, raised the combined contribution rate in steps to 9.9% by 2003, replaced pay-as-you-go financing with steady-state funding and invested net cash flows through the CPP Investment Board. The 2024 valuation puts the minimum sustaining rate at 9.19% from 2034, below the legislated 9.9%, with assets of $651 billion.
9.9 % of contributory earnings, combined employee-employer base cpp contribution rate reached under the reform, legislated since 2003, 2003. 14.2 % of contributory earnings, pay-as-you-go contribution rate projected for 2030 without reform (15th actuarial report, december 1993), 1993-12. Office of the Chief Actuary, Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Actuarial Report (32nd) on the Canada Pension Plan (revised version), valuation as at 31 December 2024, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Chief Actuary's statutory triennial reports put a dated number on the funding gap. Federal and provincial finance ministers then negotiated one package that raised contributions, trimmed benefit growth and moved new money into market investment under an arm's-length board, and wrote into the statute that any future benefit increase must be fully funded.
Limits: The construct is speed, and this reform was not fast. Four years passed between the December 1993 warning and the amendments taking effect in January 1998, and the rate took until 2003 to reach 9.9%. Whether that counts as responsive depends on a comparison the record cannot supply: it shows a rule changed in time, before the projected 2015 exhaustion, and not that it changed quickly. The headline numbers are a legislated rate and a projection, not an observed outcome. The evidence that the reform held, a 9.19% minimum rate against 9.9%, is the Chief Actuary's model under his own assumptions. That office sits inside OSFI, so this is a federal body assessing a federal-provincial plan. The fix was paid for mostly by workers and employers through a contribution rate up about 70% from 1997, plus slower benefit growth, which a reader may count as a cost of the delay as much as a sign of capability. Quebec runs its own plan, so the CPP covers the rest of Canada. The amendment formula requires the agreement of provinces holding most of the population, and that slows any reform as well as stabilising it.
Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements
Public Safety Canada's Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements paid $1.84 billion in contributions to provinces and territories between 2011–12 and 2015–16, almost 45 percent of everything paid since the programme began in 1970, while 53 disaster events were approved by the Governor in Council between 2011 and 2016.
1,843,527,158 CAD, dfaa contributions paid, 2011-12 to 2015-16. 53 events, disaster events approved by the governor in council, 2011-2016. Public Safety Canada, 2016–2017 Evaluation of the Disaster Financial Assistance Arrangements (final report, 2017-03-14), retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: Ottawa cost-shares provincial and territorial response and recovery spending on a sliding scale above a per-capita threshold, triggered by an order in council, so that a single large disaster does not fall on one province's budget.
Limits: This is the department evaluating its own programme. Payments follow disaster losses, so a high figure is partly a record of bad luck: the 2013–14 year alone (about $1.02 billion) carries more than half the five-year total. The same evaluation shows the money arrives slowly: for the 53 events approved in 2011–2016 the estimated federal share was $3.8 billion against $1.6 billion actually issued, because provinces have up to five years after approval to request final payment, and before 2008 there was no time limit at all. The figures are nine years old; a 2025 parliamentary briefing note on the Public Safety site puts the cumulative total since 1970 at $8.9 billion, and the programme was redesigned from April 2025, so this record documents the arrangement as it stood in the evaluation period. Provinces and territories design and run the assistance; DFAA reimburses part of it.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
-4.0 over 10 years, from 47.4 in 2016 to 43.4 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 9.324% of GDP
- Year
- 2022. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 16.778% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
Logistics infrastructure quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 48.261score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.841index
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
- History
Large project delivery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 3 records- Raw value
- no data% overrun
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.
Firm scale-up rate
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD DynEmp
- History
- no data
Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2025
113,563 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 16 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Phoenix pay system, and its prolonged failure
Canada rolled out the Phoenix federal pay system in 2016, then spent more than C$2.6 billion by April 2022 to support and stabilise it and correct pay-file errors, with a further roughly C$1 billion allocated through the 2024-25 fiscal year.
2,600,000,000 Canadian dollars, support and correction spending by april 2022, 2022-04. 1,000,000,000 Canadian dollars, further funding allocated through fiscal year 2024-25, 2023. Office of the Auditor General of Canada, Modernizing Information Technology Systems, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: A central agency replaced a complex government-wide payroll system through a schedule-driven rollout with insufficient independent oversight; once errors spread across departments, the state converted the project into a permanent stabilisation operation while designing a successor.
Limits: Spending on stabilisation and correction measures shows the scale of a delivery failure, not the total social cost of late or incorrect pay, nor whether a replacement will perform better. The Auditor General notes that the total implementation cost was still not known, and the figures combine technical support, error correction and later stabilisation rather than one clean project budget. The system continued to operate while the government explored its replacement.
Canadian long-gun registry, its information system overrun and its dismantling
Canada began registering all firearms under the 1995 Firearms Act from December 1998. The registry's first information system, CFIS I, had an initial estimate of $13 to 20 million and had cost $190 million by March 2005. Its successor CFIS II rose from $32 million to at least $87 million and was halted. In 2012 Parliament ended long-gun registration and ordered the destruction of about 7.5 million non-restricted registration records, which the RCMP deleted from CFIS in October 2012.
190,000,000 Canadian dollars, cost of the canadian firearms information system (cfis i), against an initial estimate of $13 to 20 million, 2005-03. 7,500,000 registration records, non-restricted firearms registration records in cfis when parliament ordered their destruction, 2012-04. House of Commons of Canada, Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Report 10 (39th Parliament, 1st Session), on Chapter 4 of the May 2006 Report of the Auditor General, Canadian Firearms Program, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Department of Justice, and later the Canada Firearms Centre, built a universal national registry through contracted IT development while the regulations it had to implement were still changing, and reported the rising cost to ministers before Parliament. In 2012 Parliament ended the long-gun part by statute and had the RCMP destroy its records.
Limits: The cost figure is a Commons committee's summary of the Auditor General's 2006 follow-up. The Auditor General's own 2002 and 2006 chapters no longer open at their published OAG URLs, so the record rests on Parliament's restatement of them. The $190 million covers CFIS I, the information system, and is not the cost of the whole programme. The often quoted figure of roughly $1 billion for the programme could not be verified at an official URL today and is not used. The baseline is a range of $13 to 20 million given at an early stage, so any overrun ratio, roughly ten times, depends on which end is chosen and on how far the scope of that early estimate matched the system that was built. The committee itself attributes part of the growth to things outside the project team's control: requirements kept changing, and Bill C-10 and its regulations were delayed by more than two years. The dismantling in 2012 was a political decision by a new parliamentary majority. It was not a collapse caused by the delivery, so the status records a policy reversal rather than a technical failure. Licensing and the registry of restricted and prohibited firearms kept running, Quebec residents' records were held back pending litigation, and public agencies still register. The 7.5 million records show the scale the registry reached and say nothing about their accuracy, which the 2006 audit questioned. Like can-phoenix, this is a public IT system rather than physical infrastructure.
Samuel De Champlain Bridge corridor
Infrastructure Canada delivered the Samuel De Champlain Bridge corridor in Montreal as a public-private partnership signed in 2015, opening the bridge in July 2019 against a contractual in-service date of December 1, 2018, at a total project cost the department reports as C$4.2 billion, after a C$235 million settlement in 2018 that paid for delay-recovery measures and oversized-part transport issues.
4,200,000,000 Canadian dollars, total cost of the project as reported by the department, 2019. 235,000,000 Canadian dollars, settlement paid to the private partner for delay recovery and oversized-part transport, 2018-04. Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada (formerly Infrastructure Canada), Samuel De Champlain Bridge project story, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: Infrastructure Canada replaced a failing federal bridge through a design-build-finance-operate-maintain contract with liquidated damages for late opening, then bought back schedule with a negotiated settlement when transport restrictions and disputes threatened the date.
Limits: No published figure states the outturn against the baseline, so overrun has to be pieced together by the reader. The value-for-money report gives a 2015 total of C$4.239 billion and a contractual in-service date of December 1, 2018; the department's own story page gives a rounded C$4.2 billion total and a July 2019 opening; the 2018 settlement adds C$235 million and moved the delivery date to December 21, 2018, which was itself missed. The C$4.2 billion therefore cannot include the settlement and appears to restate the original envelope, so the true outturn is at least about 5.5% above it (a computed figure, not published) and the bridge opened about seven months after the contract date. Costs also bundle a 30-year operation and maintenance period and financing, so the number is not a construction cost. All figures are the department's own; the Auditor General's 2018 doubts about the schedule are reported only in the press here. The canada.ca news release refused a scripted curl request and was read through a browser-like fetch. This is one megaproject, not a national portfolio.