<img class="webfeedsFeaturedVisual" src="https://display.blogto.com/articles/20250422-canada-2040.jpg?w=1200&amp;cmd=resize_then_crop&amp;height=630&amp;quality=70&amp;format=jpeg" width="100%" /><p>In a future Canada imagined by the federal government's policy researchers, the dream of building a better life through hard work and education is all but dead.</p><p>A new foresight report warns that by 2040, upward social mobility could become a relic of the past, with wealth and opportunity increasingly inherited rather than earned.</p><p>The scenario outlines a country where rising inequality, inaccessible housing, and a broken promise of meritocracy leave younger generations disillusioned, disconnected, and doubtful that effort alone can improve their lives.</p><p>According to the <a href="https://horizons.service.canada.ca/en/2024/disruptions/index.shtml">report released in early 2025</a> by Policy Horizons Canada &mdash; the Government of Canada's in-house think tank that has a mandate to "empower" the federal government with "a future-oriented mindset and outlook to strengthen decision making" &mdash; six shifts are driving this decline, based on the trajectory the country is currently following.</p><h5>"Society increasingly resembles an aristocracy"</h5><p>This includes the collapse of post-secondary education as a reliable pathway to success, with people potentially looking for alternative forms of training in new niches that appear to offer upward mobility.</p><p>Housing affordability issues, previously generally isolated within the Metro Vancouver and Greater Toronto areas, have become nationally entrenched, especially since the pandemic.</p><p>The report warns that by 2040, housing affordability is essentially limited to the wealthy or those with family help; most new homeowners get help from family, some depend on intergenerational mortgages and have several generations of family living together, and others enter "alternative" household mortgages with friends, with a growing percentage of homeowners also owning rental properties.</p><p>"Inequality between those who rent and those who own has become a key driver of social, economic, and political conflict," reads the report.</p><p>Moreover, the report highlights a growing dependence on intergenerational wealth, noting that by 2040, inheritance is widely seen as the only reliable path to prosperity. "Society increasingly resembles an aristocracy," it states, as family background &mdash; particularly property ownership &mdash; becomes the defining factor in determining one's opportunities.</p><p>Canadians in this future rarely mix with others of different socio-economic status, and there is a clear disconnect between the aspirations of the country's youth and economic realities, which leaves most with limited expectations of success.</p><p>And finally, the rapid propagation of artificial intelligence has dramatically reshaped the labour market. By 2040, the rise of artificial intelligence will have significantly diminished the availability of jobs in creative and knowledge-based professions, once seen as stable paths to upward mobility.</p><p>While some benefit from artificial intelligence-powered tools, access to the most advanced systems remains costly, reinforcing structural inequalities. For most, precarious gig work and side hustles have replaced traditional careers, making it increasingly difficult to build wealth or stability.</p><p>Strikingly, despite the significant government investments and policies that have put climate action on the top pedestal over the past decade, the scenario does not attribute Canada's decline in social mobility to climate change.</p><p>While environmental issues are often central to long-term policy forecasts, this vision of 2040 is driven almost entirely by social, economic, and technological forces. The omission underscores just how deeply internal systemic dynamics alone can quickly destabilize the foundations of Canadian society, even in the absence of environmental catastrophe.</p><h5>Partial reversion of Canadian society to trade-and-barter and hunter-gatherer</h5><p>As a result of the six factors, Canada's economy could shrink or become less predictable, with the consumer economy shrinking in size, and a higher proportion of very wealthy, older people holding the capital capacity for investment in new businesses. Labour unions could also grow in power and size from a frustrated population. The mental health of Canadians could suffer from living cost challenges.</p><p>With these upward mobility issues, Canada may become a less attractive destination for immigrants, and there could be an exodus of young workers, which would exacerbate the issues with supporting the public and social services that support the country's growing cohort of seniors. This could also result in a labour shortage in industries where artificial intelligence is most difficult.</p><p>Perhaps most dystopian is a partial reversion of Canadian society to a trade-and-barter and neo-hunter-gatherer society by 2040, in response to declining trust in formal systems and reduced access to traditional economic opportunities.</p><p>According to the report, person-to-person exchange of goods and services could become more popular, resulting in a reduction of government tax revenues and consumer safety. Some Canadians may start to hunt, fish, and forage on public lands and waterways, disregarding government regulations, and small-scale agriculture could increase. Housing, food, childcare, and healthcare co-operatives could become more common.</p><p>"Governments may come to seem irrelevant if they cannot enforce basic regulations or if people increasingly rely on grass-roots solutions to meeting basic needs," reads the report.</p><p>"In extreme cases, people could reject the state's legitimacy, leading to higher rates of tax evasion or other forms of civil disobedience. Some may choose to blame those with capital, whether it is social, economic, or decision-making capital. Others may choose to blame immigrants, or another identifiable group. If such scapegoating becomes widespread, it could generate serious social or political conflicts."</p><h5>"People may lose faith in the Canadian project"</h5><p>Fundamentally, the report warns, "people may lose faith in the Canadian project. They may reject policies that promote education, jobs, or home ownership&hellip; They could lose the drive to better themselves and their communities. Others might embrace radical ideas about restructuring the state, society, and the economy."</p><p>While the report does not make any direct reference to history repeating itself, the scenario appears to echo not only the social disillusionment of the Great Depression in Canada and the United States but also the broader instability that engulfed Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.</p><p>In the aftermath of the First World War and amid widespread economic collapse, many Europeans lost faith in traditional institutions and liberal democratic values.</p><p>Across Europe, rising inequality, mass unemployment, and the collapse of upward mobility led many to abandon faith in liberal democracy and capitalist systems. This vacuum gave rise to a wave of radical ideologies &mdash; fascism and Nazism on the far right, and communism on the far left &mdash; as people sought bold alternatives to what they saw as broken, elitist structures.</p><p>In countries like Germany and Italy, this led to authoritarian regimes; in others like the Soviet Union and parts of Eastern Europe, revolutionary socialism gained further ground.</p><p>The report's vision of a future Canada &mdash; where trust in institutions collapses, effort no longer yields reward, and people yearn for systemic change &mdash; carries echoes of that dangerous historical crossroads, where ideological extremes once flourished in the face of prolonged despair.</p><p>With all that said, how likely is this precarious scenario of Canadian society in just 15 years from 2025?</p><p>According to Policy Horizons Canada, its "research suggests that it is plausible and would create challenges across a range of policy areas."</p>