About the Mowat Centre

Research Agenda

Canada’s policy agenda has stalled in recent years. Fresh research and evidence are needed to kick start the national conversation about our policy choices.

The Mowat Centre is an independent non-partisan think tank. Our research focuses on those federal policy frameworks and strategies that will most strongly affect Ontario’s prosperity and quality of life in the next century. Our research is comparative, our recommendations are evidence-based and our proposals are grounded in an understanding of how government works and what makes Canada special.

Our research will bring new evidence to old questions and will make recommendations for new strategies and approaches to some of Canada’s most important policy questions.

At the Mowat Centre we conduct our own research, commission research from leading and new scholars and engage in collaborative research projects with other organizations.

We consider our research a success if it influences the public conversation, has an impact on the policy agenda, engages a wide audience and, ultimately, is translated into real policy change that makes Canada a more successful country.

In the best tradition of think tanks, the animating spirit of our research will be to suggest new but practical ways of looking at long-standing public policy challenges, free from the constraints of short-term political pressures or the policy choices of the past.

The Mowat Centre has eight research streams:

  • The Employment Insurance Task Force
  • Immigration
  • Economic transformation
  • Cities
  • Ontario in the Federation
  • Federal fiscal transfers
  • Democratic Institutions and Processes
  • The Environment

Our early research will focus on approaches to providing income and training support to the unemployed, options for improving federal-provincial cooperation on immigration policy, supporting innovation and economic transformation through effective economic development strategies, and improving representation in the Canadian Parliament.