Whoever wins the elections on Monday will have a huge task of rebuilding the Canadian economy after years of stagnation, and in front of a growing commercial war with the United States.
They will have their work cut for them. But CEO and industry leaders say that these twin crises offer what many industry leaders are calling a generational opportunity. In interviews and speeches through this campaign, they have raised concerns, they marked opportunities and brought what politicians should do once the campaign ends.
Party leaders agree on many (but not all) ways to eliminate the economy. Here are four steps that any of the parties in the race to form the government could take to stimulate the very necessary economic growth.
1. Accelerates the approval process for natural resources projects
Canadian energy companies say that the threats of the United States have highlighted the need to build the energy infrastructure of this country.
“Canada has a limited opportunity for the time to strengthen our economic sovereignty, build our economy and restore our global position,” François Poirier, CEO and president of TC Energy, based in Calgary. “We can do this providing energy security and allowing emission reductions for our allies through the export of Canadian liquefied natural gas to replace the highest emitting coal.”
In an open letter published at the beginning of the campaign, the CEOs of some of the largest energy companies established what they believe should be done to boost Canada’s economy through energy investments.
“The Federal Government’s Evaluation Law and the prohibition of oil tankers are preventing development and should be reviewed and simplified. Regulatory processes must be simplified, and decisions must resist judicial challenges,” said the open letter.
That is a key nuance. Energy CEO are asking for a review of the legislation instead of discarding it completely and starting from scratch.
To that end, both the conservative leaders of the Liberal and Liberal Party have promised to accelerate the approval process.
The conservatives have promised to build a “national energy corridor” and create a rapid resource project office to obtain approved projects within a year. Liberals have promised to create an important federal project office forced to make decisions about projects within two years
2. Eliminate long -standing interprovincial commercial barriers
From the labeling requirements to the professional license standards, the notorious commercial barriers of Canada make it difficult or even impossible for Canadian companies to do business among themselves in all provinces. Even so, they have resisted the pressure to change in the past. Each time, the instinct of protecting local industries has exceeded the national impulse that would come with the elimination of barriers.
But in the face of potentially economic rates, there is a growing call of calls to make a real change in practice.
An analyst called this at the same time the darker and easy -to -solve problem.
“It’s easy because first should be [the new prime minister does]. It is silly because it should not exist first, “Richard Dias, ICECAP ASSET MANAGEMENT.
In a 2019 research document for the International Monetary Fund, Trevor Tombe, an economist from the University of Calgary, wrote that eliminating non -geographical commercial barriers could drastically increase the commercial volumes of Canada to 15 percentage points.
That report found that completely eliminating all internal commercial barriers would see an increase in GDP per capita by 3.8 percent nationwide. The smallest regions would see some of the biggest profits: in a province like PEI, real GDP could increase by up to 16 percent.
In February, the Federal Government announced that it would eliminate 20 federal exceptions in the Canadian free trade agreement, reducing them from 39 to 19.
3. Manufacture of military equipment
Both the platforms of the Liberal Party and the conservative describe a plan to meet the objective of the NATO defense expense of two percent of GDP. Both promise to fix military recruitment, buy new equipment and update bases in the Arctic.
Reaching that goal of two percent would mean hundreds of billions of dollars in expenses.
“Depending on what you spend the dollars, an expenditure dollar in defense in Canada will provide you with two jobs and approximately two dollars in indirect and induced total economic activity,” said David Perry, president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, a group of international matters based in Calgary and Ottawa.
Key Canadian companies are internationally recognized as manufacturers of military equipment, such as armored vehicles made in London, Ontario, or drones built in Quebec and Alberta.
But even the product contracts that Canada has never built, such as submarines, will have a lower effect on the investment here.
According to a compensated program called Industrial Technological Benefits Policy, any company that makes an acquisition contract must make an equivalent investment in a Canadian company and in the Canadian economy.
“So, even if the money went to the United States, the American company that earns it has to agree to spend the equivalent value of that contract in the Canadian economy,” says Perry.
4. ‘Think of Canada’: the advantage of AI
The former Google CEO spoke at the TED2025 conference in Vancouver earlier this month about the growing economic opportunities around artificial intelligence. Eric Schmidt says there is a huge obstacle to that opportunity.
“There is a real limit on energy,” he said. “I will give you an example. There is a calculation, and I testified about this this week in Congress, which we need another 90 gigawatts of power in the United States.”
That is a lot of energy. The AI data centers absorb power at an almost unfathomable pace. However, says Schmidt, there is an obvious answer.
“My answer, by the way, is to think of Canada, right? People pleasant, full of hydroelectric energy.”
The sector is already very well established in this country. Two of the most important names in the industry, Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, are seen as pioneers in the field and lead research at Canadian universities.
The Federal Government made an investment of $ 2.4 billion in AI last year, with much of that aimed at a fund aimed at increasing access to computer capabilities and technical infrastructure.
The liberal platform undertakes to build that. The conservative platform promises to climb AI investment in almost $ 2.3 billion in the next four years, although it offered no more details. Previously, the party said that its plan was to “unleash hundreds of billions of dollars of investment” in areas that include data centers.
There are many more paths that win the elections they can take to rebuild the economy.
The question is whether the next prime minister will fulfill his promises. In many ways, winning the elections is the easy part. Actually, doing the job and seeing through priorities is difficult at best. And with a weak economy, facing the possible devastation of a commercial war, these are not the best moments.
