The recent visit by King Charles III helped reassert Canada's traditions, legacy and global-facing posture. Next on the agenda? Use a national architectural policy to reinvent our traditions. Canada faces a similar fragility—only ours is spread across libraries, museums, streets and theatres, all built piecemeal without a unifying vision. With a new Liberal government under Prime Minister Carney, there is a renewed opportunity to develop a national architecture policy that could usher in a new era of architectural and urban design legacies for Canada. But a national architectural policy--should one ever be created--will need to bring together disparate issues such as rising construction costs, lengthy approvals processes, the need to realign the supply chain for construction, encourage prefabricated and modular construction, and lower interprovincial trade barriers as this country seeks to reassert our international-minded trade policies. This list of concerns is already a tall order in a world where the lowest bid often wins the project, and design excellence is either an afterthought or a matter of luck.
