Mike Colledge: The new front lines of the Canadian economy

Endurance in the face of radical uncertainty is the new normal in Canadian life.

By: Mike Colledge

Endurance is no longer something Canadians summon only during crises. It is something they need at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and at every checkout. The deficit of affordable housing only adds to the feeling that Canadians have that they will be in this situation for the foreseeable future.

Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than regulatory rules and social norms can adjust. Climate change and demographic transformation continue steadily, failing to command attention because they unfold gradually, yet they will shape economic and social conditions over the long term. At the same time, politics at home and around the globe have become more volatile, disrupting assumptions that underpinned the last half-century of relative predictability.

These conditions create an environment where markets respond to near-term opportunity and disruption and governments attempt to plan against long-term structural pressures with limited capacity and certainty. Households are left stressed, adapting and enduring in real time, developing new expectations about stability, affordability, and the meaning of progress.

Canadians have always been an enduring people, products of our harsh winters and the challenges that come with sleeping next to an elephant. Canadians endured the Great Depression of the 1930s through strong cohesion at the community level and it was then that the foundations of today’s social safety net were laid.

The uncertainty and rationing that accompanied the Second World War showed us that sacrifice was not abstract but daily. My father swore after the war that he’d never eat meat out of a can again because Spam was the family’s only source of protein for the years that my grandfather was in Europe. Beyond individual stories, the shared restraint and uncertainty of whether loved ones would return from war shaped a generation’s commitment to collective effort.

Canada’s Indigenous communities may be the most enduring of all, demonstrating survival through systemic harm in the form of residential schools, forced displacement, and the resulting decades of intergenerational trauma. For them, endurance was not a choice but a matter of physical and cultural survival.

More recently, Canada endured an economic reckoning in the mid-1990s. Paul Martin’s 1995 “Hell or High Water” budget triggered major deficit reduction and public-sector cuts that led to a restructuring of health care and education across the country. This was a quieter kind of endurance, where institutional tightening trickled down and forced household-level adjustments.

Just five years ago, Canadians endured the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic brought isolation, health-care strain, and mental-health pressures. Yet Canadians largely maintained collective compliance even when exhausted.

Today’s economic endurance has its roots in the 2008 financial crisis. In the years following, low interest rates, pandemic government spending and rapidly rising immigration levels all served to make Canada’s economy look stable. But underneath, nearly two decades of slow growth, weaker productivity, and rising household strain had taken their toll. These pressures have reached an inflection point, creating today’s Endurance Economy.

Affordability is no longer understood as a temporary crisis with a defined endpoint. Instead, it is increasingly perceived as a chronic condition, structural rather than cyclical. Seven in ten Canadians now expect financial pressure to persist for the foreseeable future. This weight of long-term angst is remarkably consistent across demographics: men and women, young and old, lower income and higher income. Few believe these pressures will lift soon.

Two-thirds of Canadians say their household will continue to be able to manage financially. The key word is “manage,” as in getting by, rather than getting ahead. Even those who may be doing well, such as wealthier, university-educated Boomers, remain worried about their children, their communities, and the fate of the country.

At the same time, six in ten Canadians say life is more stressful than it should be, extending and amplifying the mental health strain that emerged during the pandemic years.

Are Canadian households at an economic breaking point?

Over one in 10 (13 per cent) say their household is close to one. This vulnerable group is more likely to include Millennials and Gen X. They lack the optimism of Gen Z or the accumulated assets of Boomers.

Thirty-six per cent are personally secure and do not fear a breaking point. They skew older and wealthier.

And the slim majority, 51 per cent sit in the middle: enduring. Neither secure nor collapsing. They are adapting, lowering expectations and doing what they can to avoid slipping into vulnerability. It is the middle generations, with little choice, who most embody this endurance mindset.

Economic endurance is a core Canadian value. We may not verbalize it as such, but we live it every day.

This endurance mindset will be the backdrop to the next federal election, even if the most likely ballot question is “How to live next to President Trump?” Beyond the next election, the next decade will be less about waiting for constraints to lift and more about operating effectively within them. Trust will come not from promising a quick return to ease, but from recognizing the weight Canadians are carrying and helping them manage through it.

Mike Colledge is the Sustainability and Executive Insights Lead for Ipsos Canada.

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