Canada’s prosperity and sovereignty are at risk. After decades of stubbornly low productivity, we now face a hostile trade environment, a fragmenting global order, and an urgent need to build an economy that can thrive without depending on the goodwill of our largest economic partner. Canada needs fresh thinking, along with analytical tools to understand what is holding our economy back, what levers might unlock growth, and how we can truly diversify our relationships beyond the United States.
The 2026 McGill Max Bell Lectures are a critical intervention into the debate about Canada’s economic future. This year’s lecturers are the renowned Venezuelan economist Ricardo Hausmann, former Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank and founder of the Harvard Growth Lab, and his colleague Eric Protzer, a Canadian economist and Senior Research Fellow at the Growth Lab, who has advised governments around the world on economic policy.
The McGill Max Bell Lectures were launched in 2023 to provide the analysis and practical ideas our country needs to plan for a more prosperous future. The lectures are free and open to the public, held annually in cities across Canada. The accompanying book is published ahead of the lectures by Sutherland House. Previous books in the lecture series have discussed climate and energy, competition, and immigration policy.
The 2026 lectures are based on Hausmann and Protzer’s book, Canada After America: A Strategy for Prosperity in a Changed World. The book argues that Canada's answer to the recent economic rupture with America is not to retreat from globalization, but to become far better at unlocking its potential for innovation and competing in the rest of the world. Leveraging data covering supply chains, venture capital, housing markets, and more, Hausmann and Protzer identify concrete growth opportunities for Canada and how it can activate them. Above all, they insist that all Canadians need to lean into this moment of challenge and change, by cultivating what they call our “strong sense of us”.
"Canada After America is a powerful expression of the strategy that Canada needs to employ to navigate the new post-American world," noted Paul Summerville, ex-Chief Economist at RBC Dominion. "Employing an innovative method to identify future economic champions, the book succinctly details what key policy reforms are required to guarantee a bright future for Canada."
The 2026 Max Bell Lectures also mark the launch of the Max Bell School of Public Policy’s exciting partnership with the Harvard Growth Lab – a multidisciplinary research centre that informs economic policy and growth strategies at the national, regional, and city levels. Over the past two decades, the Harvard Growth Lab has worked with governments in more than 30 countries to diagnose the key constraints on growth, identify paths to diversification, and develop tailored policy solutions. The new McGill Growth Lab will join a global network of affiliated labs that includes the London School of Economics, Monterrey Tec in Mexico, and the Central European University in Vienna. As the first such centre in Canada, it will collaborate with governments and partners at the local, provincial, and federal level on applied policy research that tackles barriers to growth and identifies new pathways to prosperity.
Join us at this year's lectures:
🗓️ Montreal // Maison Alcan // Oct. 15, 6pm
🗓️ The Walrus Talks at Home // Online // Nov. 12, 7pm
🗓️ Calgary // Alt Hotel University // Nov. 19, 5pm
Canada After America is available for pre-order through Sutherland House Publishing.
