Despite its growing influence across multiple policy areas, few Canadians are aware of the IIU’s reach — or the extent to which their behaviour is being subtly shaped by design.
Canada’s Privy Council Office (PCO) has a behavioural science unit established under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that quietly shapes public policy and influences citizen compliance through psychological experiments and data modelling.
The Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU), which bases its framework on a UK government initiative and tools issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), has quietly pioneered its approach to behaviour change using psychology, economics and social sciences for years — but its role became most visible in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
