Business Council of Canada launches Strengthening Canada: An Economic Blueprint

The Business Council of Canada (BCC) today released Strengthening Canada: An Economic Blueprint, a report calling for a more pragmatic, collaborative approach to strengthening Canada’s economic resilience, attracting investment and building the capacity to compete in an increasingly uncertain world.

Based on consultations with more than 100 BCC members, leaders from the broader business and policy communities, as well as five roundtables, the project was led by three co-chairs: Kathleen (Katie) Taylor, former Chair, RBC; Jean-Francois Perrault, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, Scotiabank; and Goldy Hyder, President and CEO, Business Council of Canada. The report finds strong support for an investment-led growth strategy that reduces economic vulnerabilities, strengthens Canada’s productive capacity and deepens international economic relationships while preserving the advantages of Canada’s longstanding relationship with the United States.

The findings also reveal a significant challenge: Canada’s ambitions are outpacing its capacity to deliver. An overwhelming 96 per cent of survey respondents rated Canada’s ability to deliver on its economic agenda as weak or uneven. Nearly six in ten identified red tape and regulatory complexity as the single biggest obstacle to Canada’s economic success.

“Canada has enormous economic potential and to realize it, we need the investment, infrastructure, and the skilled labour to turn our shared priorities into results,” said Goldy Hyder, President and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. “This report makes the case for how and why business and government must work together to get things done. Business leaders have a responsibility to not only advocate for policy solutions but to help government solve the practical challenges that stand in the way of progress.”

The report sets out three broad imperatives for business-government collaboration:

• Mobilize capital and investment. Put private investment at the centre of Canada’s economic agenda, maintain competitive conditions for capital formation and ensure that public spending strengthens productive capacity while preserving fiscal discipline.
• Build economic capacity. Address workforce and skills shortages, diversify trade and investment relationships beyond the United States, and reduce barriers that prevent Canada from functioning as a more integrated domestic economy.
• Improve execution. Strengthen government delivery capacity, improve coordination across jurisdictions and bring business expertise to bear on the practical challenges of implementing major economic priorities.

The report also outlines two new Business Council of Canada initiatives designed to translate these priorities into practical action.

The Workforce Capacity Initiative will bring members together to identify emerging labour shortages associated with major investments, improve visibility into future workforce demand and develop solutions before skills gaps constrain economic growth.

The One Canadian Economy Initiative will focus on practical solutions to coordination failures and barriers that impede investment, labour mobility and economic integration across provincial and territorial borders.

The report acknowledges recent federal measures, including proposed reforms to the project approval and federal labour relations framework under Bill C-39 and the Productivity Mega Deduction, as important steps toward addressing concerns raised during the consultations. The blueprint is intended to build on that progress by focusing attention on the capacity required to turn policy ambition into economic results.

“Strengthening Canada is ultimately about strengthening the capacity of our public and private sectors to collaborate across the country and around the world to deliver concrete results for Canadians,” said Hyder. “In an era of unprecedented uncertainty, Canadians expect us to partner in pursuit of the ideas, initiatives, and innovations that will provide economic security, stability, and growth.”