The Year Ahead 2026

Ottawa will pour billions into defence, Arctic development and nation-building, all the while facing off against power-hungry premiers. Outlandish deepfakes, meanwhile, will become a mainstay on social media.

Sidney Crosby will cement his legacy, while newbies like Gavin McKenna and Trey Yesavage become household names. The WNBA, meanwhile, makes its long-awaited debut in Toronto.

We’ll say goodbye to international med students and hello to mumps. Governments, meanwhile, will clear patient backlogs with AI scribes and private surgical centres.

“Buy Canadian” fever will give us more B.C. wine, Ontario ice cream and locally grown winter strawberries, while Indigenous cuisine will have its overdue moment

The international-student shortfall will worsen schools’ financial woes. Donald Trump’s assault on academia will hinder and help Canadian campuses. And school boards will scramble to fill teacher shortages.

Carney will turbocharge trade in the wake of Trump tariff woes, while workers will reluctantly come back to the office—that is, if they can find jobs at all

As the government invests billions in AI sovereignty, Canada will become a hub for data centres and specialty chips. Ottawa will eye OpenAI’s tempting pitch—while a homegrown unicorn could finally go public.

High mortgage turnover will cause some scrambling (but few delinquencies). Snowbirds will go the way of the dodo. And prefab, prefab, everywhere.

Justin Bieber will bring his comeback to Coachella. A Dragon’s Den villain will crash Hollywood. And B.C. will transform into feudal Japan, ancient Scandinavia and a zombified Pacific Northwest.

Wildfire displacement will redraw the map, EV adoption will decelerate and Canada will miss its emissions targets. Throughout it all, Mark Carney will put climate on the backburner.