The Business Council of Canada is a non-profit, non-partisan organization representing the chief executives and entrepreneurs of more than 150 of Canada's leading companies across all major sectors of the economy. Founded in 1976, it advocates for policies that strengthen Canada's economic competitiveness, investment climate, and long-term prosperity.
Canada appears to be entering a period of renewed economic ambition. You've described this as a "hinge moment" for the country. What makes this moment different from those that came before?
When you share a border with the G1, you're inextricably linked. When Canadians realized U.S. President Donald Trump’s "51st state" comments should not be taken lightly, it crystallized the need to take control of our own destiny, and the election of Prime Minister Carney reinforced that view.
Geography may never change, but we need to play to our strengths and have ambition about who we are and what we can be. President Trump has, in a sense, done us an enormous favour by waking us up to what Canada has to offer the world. This feels like Canada's moment. The message from the top is that we're going to use this moment and never again be so reliant on a single partner or customer. That doesn't mean we're leaving the neighbourhood. Anything we do will be built on preferential access to the United States, but Canadians increasingly see this as an opportunity to stand up, be counted, be confident and play to our strengths.
Canada is often described as a country with many of the assets the world needs. Why has Canada struggled to fully capitalize on its advantages?
I've often used a baseball analogy: Canada won the geographic lottery. We were born on third base, but sometimes we act like we hit a triple. That luck can create reliance, comfort and complacency. Canadians probably wouldn't dispute that we've been comfortable, and our relationship with the Americans reinforced that. Yet Canadian companies have been performing at elite global levels for decades, with strong global brands and reputations built on reliability and trust.
What's different today is that we've been awakened to the scale of the opportunity. This isn't just about the United States; it's about geopolitics, from Iran and Ukraine to Venezuela and the broader global realignment. Canada can be a reliable partner, a strong democracy with resilient supply chains. We have the natural resources and human resources to help address global challenges. What we need is investment in the trade-enabling infrastructure required to deliver food security, energy security, critical minerals, oil and gas, potash and uranium to the world. Canada can present a compelling investment narrative, and we need to make sure we're the best place for capital to be deployed.
Canada is competing for investment in an increasingly uncertain global environment. Who is Canada competing with most aggressively for capital, and what will determine whether it wins?
The United States remains our biggest competitor. Despite tariffs and other challenges, it has the economic might to continue attracting capital. It is highly competitive on taxes, regulation and its overall attitude toward helping businesses deploy capital. I was recently in Phoenix, Arizona, where they secured a $167 billion investment from a Taiwanese semiconductor company. We know we have to compete with that.
But Canada is well-positioned. In some areas, we are more competitive on taxes. Our marginal effective tax rate is the lowest in the G7 and 4.5 points better than the United States. We're also seeing significant regulatory improvements. Now we need to turn intentions into outcomes: pipelines built, ports and airports expanded, and rail systems strengthened. Indigenous communities are increasingly seeking equity partnerships and workforce development opportunities, supported by loan guarantees that help de-risk projects. In a world full of uncertainty, Canada can offer stability and growing alignment around the need to build infrastructure, attract investment and strengthen the country's economic future.
At the same time, CEOs around the world are increasingly concerned about large fiscal deficits and growing debt levels. That usually leads to higher taxes or efforts to generate more government revenue. Our focus has always been on growth because growth is how you address many of the social and political pressures we see today. You can't endlessly redistribute money you're borrowing. You can only redistribute wealth if you create it. Economic growth is what makes opportunity, social programs and long-term prosperity possible.
The United States remains Canada's most important economic partner, but the upcoming USMCA review will test that relationship. How high are the stakes for North America?
The relationship is stronger than any one moment. We've had challenges before, and we'll have them again. Like any neighbourhood, countries have to work through disagreements and find a path forward. Despite the rhetoric and tensions, I think we're entering a period where leaders recognize their responsibility to do no harm to North America and acknowledge that the agreement is creating jobs, attracting investment and supporting growth.
Our view, shared by Canadian, American and Mexican businesses, is that negotiators need to get to the table and have serious discussions. Trade negotiations are best done in a room, not on television. We want the agreement to remain trilateral, to be reviewed and renewed rather than renegotiated from scratch. It has worked well for five and a half years. The review needs to be timely, trilateral and ensure that compliant goods remain tariff-free. Encouragingly, momentum is building toward those conversations.
Investors place a premium on certainty, particularly during periods of geopolitical and economic volatility. What concerns you most about how the USMCA review process could unfold?
The biggest concern is prolonged uncertainty. Businesses are making decisions every week and every month about where to deploy capital on behalf of shareholders, pensioners, teachers, nurses and others whose savings are invested in these companies. They need confidence in the rules under which they're operating. The agreement remains in force until 2036 unless someone withdraws, which I do not believe will happen. The issue is that if we don't formally review and renew it, we fall into annual reviews, and annual reviews create uncertainty. USMCA is not just about tariffs; it contains 34 chapters covering everything from labour and telecommunications to mobility, safety and security.
Our message to policymakers is simple: keep North America strong and keep North America competitive. While Canada, the United States and Mexico compete in some areas, our real competition is across the oceans. We hear from investors in India, Argentina, Australia and elsewhere that they are attracted to North America as a market. They are not looking at Canada in isolation. They want access to all three countries. That's why maintaining a strong North American framework matters. No country should accept a bad deal, but we hope cooler heads prevail. If not, we should not allow the agreement to become trapped in annual reviews, because capital will simply not deploy in that environment.
This year marks both the 50th anniversary of the Business Council of Canada and your own 50th year in Canada. Having watched the country evolve over that period, what gives you the greatest confidence about Canada's future?
I hope we take full advantage of what we have been blessed with. If we do that, there is no stopping Canada. We have tremendous capacity in this country, and we can truly fly. I've often used the analogy of competing in sports and at the Olympics. We should be striving to own the podium. We can win. We can earn medals. In many cases, we can win gold.
We have the combination of human resources and natural resources, but now we also have a motive. We have a crystallized sense of purpose. What got us here is not going to get us there. We need to take control of our own destiny, stand up, be counted and leverage all of our strengths.
Most importantly, we need to reassure the world that it can count on Canada today, tomorrow and for decades to come.
