Charting Canada’s Economic Future
The breakdown of trade negotiations with the United States marks an important moment for Canada. For decades, our economic relationship with the United States provided Canadian businesses with a level of stability and predictability that helped both of our countries prosper. That relationship remains enormously important, but we must also recognize that the economic environment has fundamentally changed.
Canada negotiated in good faith. We sought an agreement that would protect workers, provide greater certainty for businesses and preserve access to our largest trading partner. But no agreement is worth compromising our sovereignty, our culture or the long-term interests of Canadian workers and businesses. Canada must always be prepared to work constructively with our partners, but we must also be prepared to stand firm when our interests are at stake.
The question before us now is not simply how Canada responds to the latest American tariffs. It is how we use this moment to build a stronger, more competitive and more resilient economy for the decades ahead. Canada has everything it needs to succeed: abundant natural resources and clean energy, world-class researchers and entrepreneurs, a highly educated workforce, strong public institutions and access to markets around the world. Our challenge is to turn these advantages into greater investment, productivity and economic growth here at home.
That means building major projects and the infrastructure needed to support them faster. It means encouraging businesses to invest in new equipment, technologies and production capacity. It means continuing to remove unnecessary barriers to trade between provinces and making it easier to buy Canadian, hire Canadian and build Canadian. It also means helping our businesses reach new customers around the world. The United States will remain an essential trading partner, but Canadian businesses should not have to depend overwhelmingly on a single foreign market for their success.
Quebec is particularly well positioned to help lead this next chapter. Our strengths in aerospace, aluminum, artificial intelligence, clean energy, advanced manufacturing and life sciences give us an important competitive advantage. These are not simply industries that contribute to our economy today; they are strategic sectors that will help determine Canada’s economic strength in the years ahead. We need to create the conditions for these businesses to invest, innovate, expand and compete not only in North America, but around the world.
We must also stand behind the small and medium-sized businesses that form the backbone of Quebec’s economy. For companies facing the immediate consequences of American tariffs, finding new markets cannot happen overnight. Government has a responsibility to help businesses protect jobs, invest in productivity, strengthen their supply chains and reach new customers. Supporting them through this period is not only about responding to today’s trade dispute; it is about making our economy more resilient for whatever challenges may come next.
Canada did not choose this trade dispute, and there is no benefit in pretending that the transition ahead will always be easy. But our economic future will not be determined solely by decisions made in Washington. It will also be determined by the choices we make here in Canada: what we build, where we invest, how productive we become and how successfully we bring Canadian products, resources, technologies and expertise to the world.
This moment should therefore be about more than defending what we already have. It is an opportunity to accelerate work that Canada needed to undertake regardless of the outcome of these negotiations. We can build a more competitive Canadian economy, deepen our relationships with trusted partners around the world, strengthen Canadian industries and create good jobs here at home, while remaining ready to rebuild a stable and mutually beneficial economic relationship with the United States.
Canada’s response to this moment must ultimately be about building what comes next: a stronger economy at home, greater opportunities abroad and a country increasingly capable of determining its own economic future.
Carlos Leitão, Member of Parliament for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin
