What’s put political risk on the upswing in Canada

Canada’s no hotbed for political extremism, but there’s some evidence the winds could shift, notes a new report from Allianz Commercial that says businesses worldwide rank political risk and violence among their Top 10 concerns.

Political violence affects businesses by endangering employees and customers. It also can result in property damage and business interruption losses, says the firm’s Political violence and civil unrest trends 2025 report. Such incidents make businesses less attractive to customers and business partners, and create situations whereby people can’t access a company’s premises.

Responding to one of the report’s survey questions, 513 global business leaders say they’re most concerned about civil unrest and riots (51%), war (48%), impact on supply chain (41%), acts of terrorism and sabotage (40%) and protectionism or other government intervention (31%).

Related: How political risk insurers predict potential problems

Root causes of increased unrest include an unprecedented number of national elections during 2024 that stoked national disunity, ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, and a growing potential for regional conflicts in Asia. Global restrictions on public mobility introduced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic also remain a factor.

Insurers and brokers have worked with businesses to mitigate potential losses, including advising on ways companies can shift supply chains and move trade routes to mitigate losses at sea. But, notes Allianz, “the speed of change…has given companies little time to address their supply chains, meaning they have had to operate in an uncertain environment.”

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A look at North America

In some ways, Canada bucks the global trend because annexation threats by U.S. President Donald Trump have greater numbers of Canadians vocally advocating for national unity.

But Allianz’s report shows Canada ranks Number 17 for frequency of protests and riots in 2024 at 1,577. That’s a 14.2% increase from 1,381 in 2023. For comparison, the U.S. ranked Number 2, at 8,549 protests and riots in 2024, well behind Number 1 ranked India at 18,626. The report also notes the average lengths of protest actions globally have increased significantly over the past several years, bringing to mind Canada’s month-long trucker convoy shutdown of downtown Ottawa in 2022.

The report’s authors express concerns about the rise in far-right groups exerting pressure during elections in several European countries and say, “Australia also reported high levels of far-right violence, driven by domestic tensions, with the U.K., France and Spain also seeing activity.”

Plus, they add: “Incidents in countries such as Argentina and Canada also marked the spread of far-right extremism into regions traditionally less impacted by such developments.”

Last year, following an assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Trump, Benjamin Rossington, entertainment and sports account manager at Hub International, identified a shift in how insurers parse risk profiles when covering public events in Canada.

“Things that never used to be a concern are now a concern,” he said at the time. “Certainly, things such as what we call ‘active shooter’ or ‘active assailant’ [coverages are something] we must [now] consider for large public events.”

Related: How rising violence risks for public events is changing coverages

Phil Porado

Phil, an award-winning journalist with over 30 years of experience in financial topics, has been managing editor of Canadian Underwriter for more than three years.