To close out the year, we’ve asked our contributors and staff to make a prediction about 2022. You would think, at least since the early days of 2020, that we’d have learned our lesson about making predictions, but we couldn’t resist. Feel free to save these if you want to embarrass us with them later.

Abortion will be a big topic in 2022

By Ben Woodfinden

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an abortion case that is likely to shake up American politics next June. The composition of the court makes the current moment the best chance likely in a generation for a significant overturning or weakening of the decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

It looks quite possible that the ruling will be a landmark victory for the pro-life and conservative legal movement, and if SCOTUS does overturn or weaken Roe and Casey it will turn American politics on its head with abortion becoming a live political issue in a way it hasn’t been for decades.

If this happens, it will have an impact here as well. It won’t produce and legal or political changes here, but given how so many of our culture war issues here imitate debates in America, Liberals especially will be eager to thrust this into the centre of the political debate and use it as a wedge to bludgeon the Conservatives. In summer 2022, expect abortion to become a political issue here again in the way many American culture war issues so often do.

Ben Woodfinden is a doctoral candidate and political theorist at McGill University. In addition to being a Hub contributor, Ben publishes The Dominion newsletter.

The Charter will be up for debate

By Brian Bird

Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is hard to overstate the magnitude of the Charter’s impact on Canada over the past four decades. Apart from securing a host of landmark rulings by the Supreme Court on fundamental issues, the Charter has embedded itself firmly into Canadian identity.

There will be many events in 2022 to commemorate forty years of the Charter. My farfetched prediction—farfetched if for no other reason than the stringency of the formula for amending the Constitution—is that this anniversary will spark serious talk about possible revisions to the Charter. These discussions, if they take off, could lead to a meeting of Canada’s first ministers. If that happens, all bets are off.

And who among the first ministers will be the most cooperative on this file? Well, this is the season for hope: Justin Trudeau and Jason Kenney.

Brian Bird is an assistant professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia.

To close out the year, we’ve asked our contributors and staff to make a prediction about 2022. You would think, at least since the early days of 2020, that we’d have learned our lesson about making predictions, but we couldn’t resist. Feel free to save these if you want to embarrass us with them later.

Prepare for the bitcoin-backed mortgage in 2022

By Chris Spoke

I’ve got two big bitcoin-related predictions for the new year.

First, the price of bitcoin will surpass $100,000 CAD in 2022, and second, we will also see the first purchase of a home in Canada using a bitcoin-backed mortgage.

Here’s how that will work.

Let’s imagine a house priced at $1,000,000. Someone will stake $1,000,000 worth of bitcoin to access a bitcoin-backed mortgage of $1,000,000 to cover the full cost of the house.

The house will then also become security for the mortgage so that we’re really dealing with a bitcoin-and-house-backed mortgage.

And it will be the first of many more to come.

Chris Spoke is a real estate investor and the founder of August, a Toronto-based agency that designs and builds digital products.

There will be a supply-chain shortage in clothing in the new year

By Rob Leone

There will be a broader return to work desire in the Fall of 2022.  Enterprising individuals have spent two years perfecting the business-above-the-waist, party-below-the-waist business attire (former MP Will Amos maybe perfected it a little too well. That is why my prediction is that there will be a supply chain shortage in business attire for men and women from the waist down. You won’t be able to find pants, skirts, and more, which will inevitably delay the full return to work to sometime in 2023. Shorts, flannel PJs, and leggings, and more (or less) will continue to get a few extra seasons of wear before getting relegated to a box in the attic.

Rob Leone holds a PhD in public policy and serves as an Associate Professor of Leadership and Policy at Niagara University in Lewiston, NY. In addition, he is a Principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group in Toronto.