The Donner Prize

Press Release

TORONTO, – Gregory Belton, Chair of the Donner Canadian Foundation, today announced the shortlist for the 2025-26 Donner Prize, the award recognizing the best public policy book by a Canadian.

“The Donner Prize exists to connect serious policy thinking with the public conversations that shape how Canada is governed, and this year’s shortlist arrives at a moment when that mission has rarely felt more pressing.” Belton continued, “Our jurors reviewed a strong field of submissions from publishers across Canada, in English and French, and have selected five books that collectively take stock of a country at an inflection point: the structural failures undermining federal governance, the mismanagement of Canada’s immigration system, the unfinished work of Indigenous self-determination, the converging pressures threatening national cohesion, and the consolidation of platform power reshaping economies everywhere, including our own.”

Jury Chair André Beaulieu commented: “What strikes me most about this year’s shortlist is how directly these books speak to the fractures and fault lines in Canadian public life right now. Each one offers not only a sharp diagnosis of a problem, but a credible path forward. The jury looked for books that combine intellectual rigour with genuine accessibility — works that can move the conversation beyond academic and policy circles and into the broader public debate where it belongs. This shortlist does exactly that. These are books that Canadians need to read.”

The prestigious Donner Prize, founded in 1998, annually rewards excellence and innovation in public policy writing by Canadians. In bestowing this award, the Donner Canadian Foundation seeks to broaden policy debates and make an original and meaningful contribution to policy discourse, all of which will help build an even stronger and more inclusive Canadian democracy. This year’s Donner Prize shortlist titles were selected from books published in English and French during the 2025 calendar year.

Now in its 28th year, the prize awards $60,000 to the winning title, while each of the four other shortlisted titles receives $7,500. The 2025 Donner Prize will be presented at a gala dinner in Toronto on May 14, 2026.

The 2025 Donner Prize finalists are:

Breaking Point: The New Big Shifts Putting Canada at Risk by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson (Signal)

21 Things You Need to Know About Indigenous Self-Government: A Conversation About Dismantling the Indian Act by Bob Joseph (Page Two)

Borderline Chaos: How Canada Got Immigration Right, and Then Wrong by Tony Keller (Sutherland House Books)

A New Blueprint for Government: Reshaping Power, The PMO, and the Public Service by Kevin G. Lynch and James R. Mitchell (University of Regina Press)

The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity by Tim Wu (Alfred A. Knopf)

The shortlisted authors are available for interviews.

For more information, please contact Sheila Kay sheila@naylorandassociates.com | 647-391-9829

For more information, visit www.donnerbookprize.com

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