Canada has enormous strengths

Theo Argitis delivers opening remarks to the Senate Finance Committee regarding the federal budget.

Mr. Chair, Honourable Senators,  

Thank you for the invitation to appear before this Committee.  

I am here today on behalf of the Business Council of Canada, which represents CEOs of over 170 leading Canadian enterprises across all sectors of the economy. Together our members employ more than 2 million Canadians, and their companies are responsible for most of this country’s private-sector exports, investments, and corporate philanthropy.  

The Business Council has one central mission: to help build a stronger, more competitive and more prosperous Canada.  

So, it’s a privilege to contribute to your study of the Budget Implementation Act and to support the Committee’s work in ensuring transparency, accountability and sound stewardship of public finances. 

Canada is at an important economic moment. And the central challenge before us is how to sustain economic growth and competitiveness while maintaining a credible, disciplined fiscal framework. 

Budget 2025 — and the legislation before you —  contains a number of measures that point in the right direction: steps toward a more competitive tax system, signals around improving the regulatory landscape, renewed efforts to attract talent, and additional financing for major projects. These are all positive moves. 

Our concern is that the pace of change may not be fast enough to break out of the low-investment trap the economy has fallen into.  For more than a decade, Canada has not been investing at the pace required to keep our economy competitive or to sustain the rising living standards Canadians expect.

In short, the productivity crisis we keep on hearing about is really an investment crisis. Our industries, and our workers are capital starved. This means that after a decade of underinvestment and uncertainty, we will need more than incremental progress. 

Canada has enormous strengths. We have the resources the world needs, the talent to lead in advanced industries, and the institutions to support long-term growth. What we need now is urgency and a focus on enabling private-sector investment at scale. The cost of inaction is continued stagnation. The reward for boldness is a stronger, more productive economy that delivers rising incomes and enduring opportunity for Canadians. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair.