The Hunter Prize

How does this work?

Entrants are asked to consider our topic and challenge below, then provide a short synopsis of their policy proposal. All entries will be adjudicated by an esteemed panel of judges, including Jeff Adamson, Bram Belzberg, Zita Cobb, Lucy Hargreaves, and Charles Lammam. The judges will select 10 finalists to further refine and develop their ideas before vying for $50,000 in cash prizes and the chance to translate their idea into actionable public policy. The Hunter Prize submission period is open until August 2, 2026.

The Problem

A “wicked problem” is an issue or challenge that is difficult to solve for three reasons: (1) it involves interconnected economic, cultural, and social factors, (2) it tends to be long-term in nature, and (3) its possible solutions can be contentious due to entrenched thinking and interests.

A wicked problem currently hampering Canada’s long-term economic prospects is the decline in entrepreneurship and business dynamism.

Entrepreneurs are central to a high-growth economy. They generate new ideas, start new firms, create jobs, commercialize technologies, challenge incumbents, and help move capital and talent toward more productive uses. Yet by multiple measures, Canada is becoming less entrepreneurial. The share of self-employed Canadians has fallen from 17.3 percent to 12.8 percent over the past quarter century. The decline is even sharper among self-employed Canadians with paid employees, a group more closely associated with firm growth and scale-up. According to the Business Development Bank of Canada, this rate fell from 3.0 to 1.3 per 1,000 working-age adults between 2000 and 2022.

The same pattern shows up in business formation. Statistics Canada data show that Canada’s business entry rate was 12.3 percent in 2023, down from 15.2 percent 15 years earlier and far below the levels seen in the early 1980s. International comparisons are also concerning. Between 2015 and 2024, annual business entries in Canada were essentially flat, while they rose by 34 percent in the United States, 40 percent in the United Kingdom, and nearly 86 percent in France.

This decline matters for the whole economy. A country with fewer entrepreneurs has less competition, weaker incentives to invest and innovate, and slower productivity growth. Over time, weak productivity shows up in stagnant wages, strained public finances, lower living standards, and diminished national ambition. A low-entrepreneurship economy risks becoming more comfortable with incumbency than disruption, more focused on redistribution than wealth creation, and more inclined to manage decline than pursue abundance.

Canada has many of the ingredients for entrepreneurial success, including talent, universities, stable institutions, skilled workers, ambitious people, and access to global markets. The problem is that its policy environment too often fails to reward risk-taking, speed, and scale. Entrepreneurs face regulatory accumulation, a fragmented internal market, mixed tax incentives, capital formation challenges, talent constraints, and competition barriers that can protect incumbents at the expense of challengers. Canada needs a new entrepreneurship agenda that makes it easier to start, build, finance, and scale firms

The Challenge

That is why we are challenging Canadian policy thinkers, scholars, and practitioners to answer the question:
What policy reforms could support Canadian entrepreneurs by increasing business formation and scale-up over the next decade? Explain the policy, how it would be implemented, and the metrics that would show success, while remaining consistent with fiscal discipline.

Previous Hunter Prize recipients

View winners and runners-up from past competitions to learn more about the policy ideas and submissions that have been recognized by Hunter Prize judging panels.

Year 1 – Health Care Reform

Winners – Ashley Flanagan and Kristina Kokorelias: The prescription to end hallway medicine once and for all

Runner-Up – Bacchus Barua: How we fund hospitals holds the key to health-care reform

Year 2 – Housing Affordability 

Winner – Benjamin Dachis: Want to lower both housing costs and emissions? It’s time to embrace utility financing of infrastructure

Runner-Up – Luhan Yao: Less government, less spending, less taxes, fewer regulations, more homes—The simple equation for more affordable housing in Canada

Year 3 – Economic Growth and Productivity

Winner – Matthew Chiasson: Canada is stuck in a growth rut, but competition can get us out

Runner-Up – Charles Lammam: Canada’s slow economic growth is a national emergency, and small tweaks won’t fix it