Winner: Tariffs. It’s the one word that sparked the most panic, animated the most political discourse, and ultimately defined the year. Trump got the ball rolling in early February with a blanket tariff on Canadian goods and didn’t stop there, piling on additional levies for exports like steel and autos. Things only got more confusing amid a ceaseless flurry of threats, counter-tariffs, negotiations, removed counter-tariffs, and CUSMA compliance studies. For the sake of Canadian industry (and our sanity) we hope SCOTUS strikes them down in 2026.
Runner-up: Data centres. As the AI race continued unabated, players both big and small realized they would soon need a lot more compute power. The result was a year full of billion-dollar data centre deals. While places like Alberta courted data centre developers, there are concerns about these power-hungry behemoths driving staggering increases to electricity bills.
Runner-up: Defence spending. Amid heightened global instability, defence spending went up pretty much everywhere. Canada got serious about it, too. With upcoming investments in submarines and fighter jets, Ottawa might finally reach NATO’s goal of spending at least 2% of GDP on defence. It’s just too bad NATO raised that target from 2% to 5% back in July.