Our Research
The curriculum package for parents & supporters of Christian schools will equip you to lead fellow parents, grandparents, strategic planning volunteers, board members, and other stakeholders through a meaningful, productive discussion of the educational efforts of your Christian school, based on the national CES results. Available free of charge in digital form, and at cost in print form.
The curriculum package for teachers & administrators of Christian schools will equip school staff to compare your school's vision to your outcomes. Study the Christian education benchmarks, and consider next steps as you seek to integrate faith, worldview, and academic excellence in your students' educational experience. Available free of charge in digital form, and at cost in print form.
The rapid movement towards compulsory certification by Ontario's College of Trades is occurring in a research vacuum. Thus, significant regulation of a wide swath of the construction industry is being built before the design stage is complete.
It is incumbent on us to carefully identify data incongruencies and gaps and to provide concrete evidence for changes which will have a significant impact on the construction industry in Ontario. This report highlights the areas where further research must be done.
The City of Calgary's Centre City Plan may create an unintended disincentive to diversity, to the distribution of vital social services, and to continuing widely accepted social virtues, according to a preliminary study released October 20, 2010 by Cardus.
This is Calgary City Soul Phase 1: Inventory of Physical Worship Space in Calgary's City Centre, an audit report conducted over the summer of 2010. Cardus analyzed the physical infrastructure that supports the work of faith communities in the area defined by the Centre City plan—25 spaces devoted to worship, mostly Christian churches and one Buddhist Temple. There are no synagogues, mosques, Latter Day Saints, Sikh or Hindu temples currently within the civic core.
Calgary's Centre City Plan is designed to provide room and services for 40,000 additional residents in the civic core in the years ahead. If the plan makes no reference to the need for continued growth of the faith institutions in the Centre City, what will flourishing in the future be like?
This report is the first phase of a multi-phase undertaking titled Calgary City Soul. Watch www.cardus.ca for more.
Every day Canadians rely on an extensive infrastructure provided by the charitable and not-for-profit sector to deliver the sorts of everyday social services often taken for granted.
In October 2009, a study by Cardus entitled A Canadian Culture of Generosity pondered the implications of Canada's impending "social deficit": how our institutions are going to suffer from the steady decline in charitable giving, volunteering and civic engagement. The study showed how a relatively small proportion of the population—dubbed the "civic core"—provides the vast majority of the needed resources in the charitable sector. A major concern is that this civic core is declining by 1-2% per year, raising obvious concerns regarding what this social infrastructure will look like a decade from now.
This paper, The Shifting Demand for Social Services, has crunched the numbers from StatsCan to identify the segments of our population most at risk in the growing gap. While the data is complex and not given to simple summary, the conclusion is clear. Demographics, immigration, and urbanization will combine to put upward pressure on what is expected from charitable organizations.
The Pascal proposal for full-day kindergarten has a hidden price tag that will impose very real costs on Ontario taxpayers.
This report was published under IMFC auspices.
The Cardus Education Survey brochure provides a brief summary of the nature and scope of this research project including key experts and project outcomes.
A Canadian Culture of Generosity: Renewing Canada's Social Architecture by Investing in the Civic Core and the "Third Sector" is a Cardus discussion paper looking at a strategic response to flagging volunteerism, philanthropy and civic participation.
Launched at Think Different
, Cardus published a compilation of some of the most creative ground level thinkers and doers on public religion and urban policy.
Including:
- Introduction by Michael Van Pelt, President of Cardus
- Bev Sandalack, Director Urban Lab (University of Calgary)
- Cheri DiNovo, MPP Parkdale-High Park
- Chris Cuthill, Art Chair Redeemer University
- Dani Shaw, Lawyer - former advisor to Stephen Harper
- David Smith, C.E.O. and Executive Director of Scott Mission
- Fr. Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, Poet Laureate City of Toronto
- Eric Jacobsen, Author Sidewalks in the Kingdom
- Faye Sonier, Legal Counsel Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
- Geoff Ryan, 614 Salvation Army, Cardus
- Gideon Strauss, President of Center for Public Justice
- Glenn Miller, Vice-President Education Canadian Urban Institute
- Glenn Smith, Executive Director Christian Direction
- Greg Paul, Sanctuary Toronto
- Heikki Walden, Real-Estate Agent
- Karen Hamilton, General Secretary Canadian Council of Churches
- Ray Pennings, Director of Research Cardus
- Russ Kuykendall, Director of Policy, Minister of Natural Resources
- Mark Peterson, Executive Director Bridgeway Foundation
- Joe Mihevc, Councillor City of Toronto
- Paul MacLean, Executive Director Potentials
- Paul Rowe, Associate Prof of Political Studies (Trinity Western)
- Peter Menzies, Commissioner CRTC
- Tim Sheridan, Pastor First Hamilton Christian Reformed Church
- Timothy Epp, Associate Prof of Sociology (Redeemer)
- James Watson, Salvation Army
- Conclusion by Robert Joustra, Cardus
This report measures the cost of family breakdown to the public purse in Canada for the fiscal year 2005-2006. It estimates the funding directed at poverty alleviation due to family breakdown.
This report was published under IMFC auspices.
Connecting parental marital status with teen attitudes and behaviours.
This report was published under IMFC auspices.
The deliberately provocative title is intended to highlight why the relevant data for properly answering the question is not being collected and available. Debates regarding construction labour have been trapped in an ideological pro- and anti-union paradigm.
This paper argues that the debate needs to be reframed in a "competitive labour pool" paradigm that opens up new questions and frameworks which, when followed with a subsequent data analysis, may provide suggestions for improving Ontario's competitiveness.
In this landmark speech, President Michael Van Pelt lays out the task of what he calls "renewing Canada's social architecture." He argues that civic, social, cultural and economic flourishing requires a new and different arrangement of our social institutions. This can only happen with a different understanding of culture-change and a new openness to public exchange which allows the sharing of our most deeply held convictions.
Over the past few years, much has been made among public policy opinion leaders of "the hollowing out" of Canada's industry by way of foreign investment, especially from the United States. But Canadian investment abroad is very strong, including in the United States. This discussion paper will look at foreign investment in Canada and Canadian investment abroad and consider its relationship to international trade.
Expanding on the findings made in Working Mobile, Ray Pennings further illuminates the labour situation in Canada's construction Industry by surveying local workers. Contact the Construction Sector Council to order a copy.
Removing the Federal Government from the business of child care is tricky—but it can and should be done.
This report was published under IMFC auspices.
Introducing the new marquee study for the WRF’s Stained Glass Urbanism Project, Toronto the Good. This investigative report brings urban centres and their religious institutions back into the dialogue of city building. Inside Toronto the Good you will find substantial, qualitative and original investigations with bearing on the problems and potentials in the city of Toronto, and its communities of faith and hope.
Toronto the Good is designed to connect hundreds of municipal, business, social service and municipal leaders with an interactive research initiative meant to change their understanding of city building, and the place of the church in the city.
Tradescapes, a Trade Corridors summary document from the September 11, 2007 Roundtable (published January 2008). This document is a summary of the three prominent models for understanding trade: gateways, global value chains and trade corridors. This summary overviews each tradescape, including the strengths and weaknesses of each and how each serves the Canadian economy. The focus of this paper shifts to the ability of Trade Corridors to account for the strengths of the other metaphors, and how Canada's largest export sectors or Trade Corridors are focused on the U.S. market. Challenges arising from the three most valuable Trade Corridors are summarized and, then, how recent public policy has affected them. Finally, "the Canadian advantage" that arises from Canada's Trade Corridors is described—factors that position Canada favourably in respect of international trade with the United States, in particular.
An energetic group of thirty-seven educators, administrators and business and cultural leaders gathered in California in December 2007 to begin an intense discussion of
- how culture movements happen,
- how education can better contribute to culture change, and
- how networks of passionate leaders can cultivate and embrace change together.
Out of the California conversation has come one overarching call: to keep talking and create a North American debate about the future of education.
Gateways, Global Value Chains and Trade Corridors by Senior Researcher Russ Kuykendall was published in Policy Options for the 20th Anniversary of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (October 2007). This article argues that Canada's international trade policy prioritizes the Gateways model with a view to increasing trade with Asia, especially China. Meanwhile Industry Canada is focussed on global value chains. While there are strengths and weaknesses to the global value chains model, Russ Kuykendall asks whether it provides an adequate explanation for trade. Instead, he proposes that the Trade Corridors model best explains Canada-U.S. trade—Canada's most important trading relationship—and that the model suggests where Canada should pursue development of trade.
Trade Corridors Roundtable: Next Steps, A Discussion Document, prepared by Senior Researcher Russ Kuykendall for the September 11, 2007 Roundtable. This paper examines the leading models of trade that Canadian businesses employ. Special attention is paid in the paper to the concepts of trade corridors, gateways, global supply chains, clusters, cross-border regions, and the anglosphere.