Opinion | Why Mark Carney’s investment summit is Canada’s chance to build an economy no U.S. tariff can touch - Toronto Star

With U.S. trade talks broken off, writes Adam Froman, Prime Minister Mark Carney's investors summit on Sept. 14 and 15 must pitch a new way to build the Canadian economy.

With U.S. trade talks broken off, writes Adam Froman, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s investors summit on Sept. 14 and 15 must pitch a new way to build the Canadian economy.

Adam Froman is founder and chief executive officer of Delvinia, Ltd.

Just days before Mark Carney fills a Toronto ballroom with the most powerful investors on earth at the first Canada Investment Summit, the pitch is tougher than it was before trade talks with the U.S. broke off.

As the Prime Minister said, “we got attacked.”

Carney was right not to fold. The deal on the table was bad, and a country that agrees to fall in line on unfair, ever-changing terms has already lost.

But refusing to be shaken down is not the same as believing we can win a slugging match against an economy nine times our size.

Roughly three quarters of what we export goes to Americans. Replacing this trade with new international markets may be possible someday, but not soon. It’s likely going to be painful.

The real question is not whether we stand up to Washington, though. It is what we do now with the time this fight buys us.

Ottawa has started well. Promising tax relief for businesses caught in the tariff crossfire is the right instinct. But it’s going to take more than shielding the sectors taking the direct hits — steel, aluminum, autos and small exporters. We need to shield a larger potential casualty — services.

Services are about three quarters of our real economy. Resources are about seven per cent. The companies driving that larger share are our technology scaleups, and unfortunately for us right now, their biggest market and biggest source of growth capital is still the U.S.

When the border seizes up, it is not only the assembly line or the honeybee farm that suffers. It is the software firm in Kitchener and the AI company in Toronto, cut off from customers and investors at once. Relief has to reach them too.

The Trump-driven trade war will hang over Carney’s summit on Sept. 14 and 15. Cooler heads and a deal may prevail ahead of that — but maybe not, in which case we cannot walk into that room apologizing.

We need to sell the thesis Carney has built since his turning point speech in Davos, Switzerland earlier this year. The old order has, indeed, ruptured and will not return.

Canada is the stable, rule-of-law democracy where global capital should want to be. Investing in a reliable partner like Canada is better than taking a deal the other side signs in pencil.

The most important work, though, goes beyond this sales pitch. Now, it’s more crucial than ever to put our own house in order when it comes to trade and investment.

We have spent decades tolerating trade barriers between our own provinces that cost us more than most foreign tariffs ever will. A truck driver, a nurse, a bottle of wine, a set of building codes — all of these get stuck at provincial borders.

Ottawa and our premiers have made noises about fixing this.

If we’re serious about building internal capacity, we need to finish that job now. Full labour mobility. Mutual recognition of standards. One Canadian market, not 13. There is no better moment for it than now, while an unreasonable neighbour raises the cost of everything.

Anger at the U.S. is understandable and, most Canadians will agree, justified right now. But when Ontario Premier Doug Ford tells the U.S. president to kiss off (he was actually less polite), that may feel good, but it’s not a plan or strategy. Building a future-facing Canadian economy is.

Building is the part we have neglected.

We have created world class technology companies, then watched them get bought before they scale, because our founders can raise equity but cannot borrow against the one thing that is actually valuable — their intellectual property.

We need to fix this financial plumbing. A government backed loan guarantee, pegged to an independent read of a company’s enterprise value, would let IP-rich Canadian firms take on senior debt and grow without selling themselves to the highest American bidder.

Do that, and we stop feeding the acquisition pipeline that empties us out.

Now is the time for new thinking when it comes to Canadian financing, trade and investment. We need our commercial banks to support the businesses that will lead the Canadian economy in the future, and if it takes the government to help by backstopping them, it should be done now.

We will not win this just by shouting across the border.

We win by finally building a made-in-Canada financing structure that no tariff can touch.

Adam Froman is founder and chief executive officer of Delvinia, Ltd.

Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details