What will it take for Ontario businesses to successfully navigate the continued uncertainty around Canada-U.S. trade in the year ahead? OCC President and CEO Daniel Tisch was joined by FBO CEO Chris Conway; OFIA President and CEO Ian Dunn; and Guelph Chamber President Andy Veilleux on our “Commerce Talks” podcast to discuss the long-term impact of tariffs and the stakes at hand in the upcoming CUSMA review.
Access OCC tariff resources here: https://occ.ca/navigating-tariffs/
Daniel Tisch: Welcome to Commerce Talks, the podcast series where we tackle some of the most pressing issues facing Ontario's economy today. I'm your host, Daniel Tisch, president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
This is our very first episode, and so we wanted to choose the right topic for the moment. And not surprisingly, we're talking today about navigating trade uncertainty in Ontario's economy, something that's been very much top of mind for the last year. And in fact, it was almost exactly 12 months ago, just over 12 months that we had the announcement of the first US tariffs on Canada. And over that time, we've experienced constant change, rising protectionism, shifting trade alliances in an incredibly complex geopolitical landscape.
We know the stakes are really high because tariffs, of course, are harmful and they're reckless. Not only did they break the trade agreement that Canada has with the US and Mexico, but they hurt businesses and workers and communities, not just in Canada, but in the US and Mexico as well.
So trade uncertainty is affecting confidence in the economy. But here's the interesting thing. If uncertainty was one word that defined the economy in 2025, the other I'd say is resilience. And we're seeing surprising resilience. We're seeing the economy doing better than expected. We're seeing Ontario businesses adapt to the new environment. But it keeps changing.
Very recently, I was out shoveling my snow on a Saturday. I come back in and there's a text from a reporter saying what are my thoughts on the latest tariff threat from President Trump. So I go and look at my Internet and sure enough, he's threatened 100% tariffs on Canada.
Now that issue seems to be resolved, at least for now, but we don't know when the next one's going to strike. So it creates some imperatives for our businesses. How do we look after ourselves? How do we build our own economy? How do we attract new investment? How do we diversify trade to other markets while continuing to extend a hand to our largest trading partner?
So to unpack those challenges, we've got some really exciting guests today. The leaders of two of the most important industries in Ontario that are also deeply affected by shifts in international trade patterns, as well as the leaders, the leader of one of our most prominent Chambers of Commerce.
So delighted to welcome Chris Conway, Chief Executive Officer of Food and Beverage Ontario. Ian Dunn, president and CEO of the Ontario Forest Industries Association and Andy Veilleux, president and CEO of the Guelph Chamber of Commerce. Gentlemen, thank you all for being with us today.
Ian Dunn: Yeah.
Andy Veilleux: Thanks.
Chris Conway: Thank you.
Daniel: So let's, let's plunge into the discussion. So it's been a year. And what are your reflections on that last year? Tell us a little bit about what your members have been through. And Chris, since you're across from me, I'm going to start with you.
Chris: Well, thank you very much, Dan. I think first and foremost was shock when this happened and you know a lot of questions and people trying to figure out how they were going to adapt and the initial reaction was of as I said, shock and great concern.
We have some companies that are exporting 90% of their product to the US So there was a lot of concern about this and what it was going to mean. And then fortunately, as we got further into it, when we started understanding better the the CUSMA aspects of this, where people could qualify and effectively be exempted.
In our case under CUSMA, things began to return slowly to business as normal and we started to see in fact some significant investment, which is really encouraging and that's continued going forward, which is great.
Daniel: When you say investment, is that investment from outside? Is that investment that they're making in their own businesses? Where's that coming from?
Chris: Both. We've seen companies that have moved into Ontario that we've seen 1.3 billion in investment in the last year in the province in food and beverage manufacturing. And you know, as you know, we're the largest manufacturing sector by employment. So with that comes a lot of jobs. So we've also seen expansions of existing facilities that are selling throughout North America. So we've seen a series of these announcements with support from the province, which is fantastic and very, very encouraging in the current environment to see that vote confidence in our province.
Daniel: OK. I want to come back to how much that relies on U.S. market access, given that I think 80% of exports from your industry goes to the US. But let's hold that thought and let's get some of our other guests into the discussion.
Ian Dunn. Obviously the forest products industry has long been dealing with trade uncertainty and and aggression from the US in particular. How you holding up? What are your members saying? What are they thinking, what are they feeling?
Ian: Yeah, thanks Daniel. Thanks. Thanks for having us here. So just quickly about our organization, the Ontario Forest Industries Association, we represent 56 member companies in the province. They're grouped into companies that make things like lumber, pulp and paper, engineer wood products or energy and companies that manage public forests on behalf of the people of Ontario.
So we met, we have both of those companies are membership been around for 82 years and probably for the entirety of those 82 years our industry has been dealing with trade related issues that actually stretches back to the J Treaty of 1794. So this is nothing new for our industry.
Dan: Pre dating Canada itself. Almost pre dating the US itself.
Ian: Yeah, exactly. So it we're not, we're not totally new to this by any stretch, but what was new over the course of the year, that was the ratcheting up of anti dumping and countervailing duties on lumber and Section 232 tariffs on top. That's so early in the year we were at, we had, you know, 15% combined duties and tariffs by the end of the year was 45%. So essentially tripling.
Daniel: For, for people who may not be familiar with the, the, the, the minutiae of kind of how duties work and everything else, give us a sense of, of what the impact is for a typical member, right. A like a, like a lumber producer.
Ian: Yeah. So for, for lumber producers, it's a commodity product, products we rely very heavily on the US market, 65% of all lumber made in Ontario goes to the United States, 35% stays domestically.
Typically what we see is when there is an increase on the duty side, we see a reciprocal increase on the prices. So to a certain extent the the, the industry can absorb it because the the cost is passed on to the American consumer. Unfortunately, what we've seen in the last year is a decline in demand and home building on both sides of the border.So we saw—
Daniel: How bizarre when there's a housing crisis—
Ian: Exactly. Exactly.
Daniel: and affordability crisis.
Ian: Exactly. So bizarrely, we saw this huge increase on duties and tariffs, but we didn't see we actually started to decline in pricing. So combined, that's resulted in Mills, Kate taking extended downtime, curtailments, loss of shifts. There's a mill in ear falls Ontario 150 people lost their job there in a community of 1000 people. So just massive impacts for northern, rural and Indigenous communities right across Ontario.
Daniel: OK, well, we'll come back to how to, to, to how to how they're changing and how they're adapting. And I'd also be interested in what customers on the other side of the border are saying.
But let's get Andy into that conversation.
So Andy, you've got a different role here, kind of like mine actually, because you're not working in anyone industry. You're working across many industries as head of the Guelph Chamber of Commerce. What have you heard from your members in the last year and and how are they adapting to this uncertainty?
Andy: Yeah, I think it's really interesting because as you know, I'm about a year and a week into the job. So Donald Trump started January 20th and I started January 21st.
Daniel: Was your inauguration as impressive?
Andy: I don't believe it was. I guess it depends on Jeff Bezos—
Daniel: Jeff Bezos wasn't in the audience.
Andy: No, no. No Elon Musk. No Zuckerberg.
Daniel: Yeah.
Andy: But yeah, so it's been interesting. So I kind of came in with this sort of understanding that this might happen.
One of the first things that we did as a chamber or was was bring together a lot of our manufacturers particularly just kind of had a round table, spoke with them, had our elected officials at each level there just had some of this conversation because I think originally Guelph obviously was going to be one of the hardest impacted areas and it has been. But a lot of our auto manufacturers particularly were exempt because of CUSMA.
So obviously with CUSMA now being renegotiated, there is a little bit more nervousness, I would say in the marketplace, but it's kind of hit everybody I know. I was talking to a food manufacturer and they have two plants in Guelph and they were saying cross the street, no change. Nothing has changed at all for changed at all for them because they're more domestic. The one on the one side of the street, everything's changed. Their profit margins, everything has changed overnight and two massive plants for us.
So yeah, it's depends what you do, right, if you're in the international market or you're shipping domestically. So yeah, it's been very interesting.
Daniel: Well, maybe we'll invite you to pick up on that, Chris, because I know, I think you were telling me before you know about about a third of your production is domestic, 2/3 are international and mostly to the USA, right. So, so are your members looking at diversifying to other markets? What are the, the challenges involved in doing that?
Chris: Sure, absolutely. And thanks, Dan. It's, it's not all rosy and I, I shouldn't leave it with that impression either after my initial comments. And just for background for anyone who's listening.
So food and beverage manufacturing, essentially everything in the supermarket is, is processed to some degree. So other than fresh fruit and vegetables, our members are involved in everything from wine to dairy to bakery, confectionery, meat, poultry and so on. So it's really everything in the supermarket.
Daniel: It I mean, when we talk about manufacturing, you guys are, are the largest manufacturing industry.
Chris: We are and a lot of people wouldn't realize that. And so what's happened is, you know, a lot of plans have been put on hold. There's been a lot of trepidation in some cases about new investment in cases. And we have, you know, like many industries, different types of companies in the sense that we have domestic Canadian companies who are selling into the U.S. We have U.S. companies that are operating in Canada.
And this gets more and more complicated with food because everything's going across the border. Different, different aspects of that. Like with ketchup, you process the tomatoes here, they're packaged here, the packaging is coming up from the United States. The company may be American.
So we have a lot of situations like that. But all that to say, we have multinational companies, we have U.S.companies. So what ends up happening is if you have a company that's operating on both sides of the border, let's say it's headquartered in the US, the investment right now is going toward the US in many cases.
So we have one company that's told me they've opened six new facilities in the US in the last year. They haven't opened any in Canada because there is that fear and trepidation. People are gradually coming out of that. But CUSMA is the key to it for us. So it's a hugely important agreement, as was just said.
Daniel: Right. And so, so, so back to diversification. Is it how, how, how easy is it to, to, to like for those who are Canadian based manufacturers, what are some of the challenges involved as they try to think about exploring other markets or perhaps reorienting their supply chains away from the US, which is another thing we're hearing a lot of businesses are doing.
Chris: Well, that's a very good point about supply chains because you have different aspects of it. You have exporting your your finished product to other markets, which takes time. Supply chain as well has been affected. Our members who produce canned processed fruit and veg, they've been hit by steel tariffs. So that's made their product very uncompetitive.
We just saw an announcement last week that the premier and the province, there's a facility opening in Branford, Ontario that's going to do more production in Canada of cans to avoid that issue, which is fantastic. So we're on shoring some of that. But people have told me, you know, this takes a lot of time to establish these relationships. You're looking at a year minimum even for supply chain. Then you've you've got to build those relationships, you've got to meet the standards in that country you're exporting to and you do get tariffs on that.
And too, we just saw China with canola and EVs. And so there are tariff issues in some of those countries as well. So it's complicated. People are doing it, they are diversifying, they're working hard to do that. It takes time. It's not straightforward.
We've tried to facilitate that as much as possible. We've had webinars, podcast with Export Development Canada and others. So there, there are a lot of things moving at once with this. There is the possibility of doing that. It does take time and it does take time with supply chain as well. And you need to ensure that you have a sufficient supply of product. And I joke about this, but it's not a joke. We, we all had bottled water earlier. You can't get a bottle cap, you can't sell your product. So it doesn't take much to cause a serious problem with this from a supply chain perspective.
Daniel: So, OK, so we recently had the Prime Minister speaking in Davos, right? And obviously, I'm sure you all watched it. So most business people I've met watched it, which shows how attuned we all are to geopolitical issues right now. But it's clear there's been a rupture with the US, one that was, frankly, created by the US by its own president's choice. And the question seems to be, is this temporary or permanent? Right.
And what I'm wondering about is, are there a lot of businesses that are thinking, well, maybe this will just blow over. Maybe things will go back to the way it used to be. What are you hearing from your members? And I'll ask both of you to get in on this, on this question.
Maybe I'll, I'll start with you, Ian, just is, is, is, is this something which is, which is that's lighting a fire under under your members and actually making them think hard about, OK, how can I actually reduce my exposure to the US and reduce my risk? Or are they saying maybe this will all just go away?
Ian: So for Ontario lumber manufacturers, it's it's really challenging and it's an issue of geography essentially. We are so close.
Daniel: We're always gonna be, we're always gonna be tight.
Ian: Exactly. And the industry, the forest product industry on the coasts have much better access to overseas markets. Our members, a number of our members are already tapping in those markets in Europe and Africa and Asia. But it's typically on higher value furniture quality type products. It's not the commodity, it's not the big lumber producers in Ontario.
Now if, if those coastal provinces and jurisdictions can find those other markets, that relieves pressure from the American market and there's room to grow for the Ontario producers. But absolutely, I think our our members are looking at, at every opportunity to diversify away from the US right now.
Like I said earlier, 97% of all exports of all force product exports in Ontario goes to the United States. It's going to be very difficult to do overnight. But we also want to support our province and our federal government and that is a, a clear objective. They want to find these other opportunities and find these points of leverage with the US.
Daniel: Yeah. And they've made the, as far as I recall, I think it was the federal government, they made half a billion dollars worth of investors investment in your industry to help with diversification, right.
Ian: Yeah, $1.2 billion of, of loan guarantees essentially backstop loans through the financial institutions. And our members are tapping into that. There’s also—
Daniel: —but, but also trade diversification specifically.
Ian: Yeah, yeah. Now, some of those were actually most of those were committing to existing programs already in place, but still very, we've heard directly from Minister LeBlanc and Minister Hodgson and we heard, we've all heard our Prime Minister is clearly we want to get away from trading with the US. So our members are doing right.
Daniel: Well, it's a bit of a balance I find, right. Like, I mean, it's, it's, it's the US has given us no choice, you know, just like they've given many of their trading partners no, no choice but to reduce reliance.
But it's also important, I find that we recognize that American businesses overwhelmingly support free trade with Canada. You know, they, the American manufacturers overwhelmingly say CUSMA has been good for us, right? And we want it renewed.
Ian: The U.S. the U.S. cannot supply its own demand when it comes to forest products. There's a lot of big tissue manufacturers in the US that supply Walmart and Costco that depend on pulp coming from from Canada, from Northern Canada lumber, the home builders as well. There's also a lot of domestic opportunities and we might touch on that later, but we can do a lot here in Ontario as well.
Daniel: OK, so temporary or, or, or permanent rupture here? What's, what's your what's your sense?
Andy: Well, we saw it already the last time that Donald Trump was president, right? So a lot of this stuff is kind of like dusting off to a playbook from the last time.So for me, I think it is something that's temporary.The problem is some of these temporary measures do permanent damage, right?
So trust is really important when it comes to trade partnerships. So like any relationship in life, you have to have trust. There has to be integrity there. And when that trust is damaged, it takes so much longer to bring it back.
So I think, yeah, it's it's temporary measures that are going to have somewhat of a permanent impact because let's say he he leaves office the end of this term, he's gone suddenly, it's not like everything goes back to normal, right? It doesn't matter kind of who's running the, the government after that.
Daniel: Well, and and if there's probably the number one thing that people said to me last year, business leader said to me is we never want to be in this position again.
Of course, where, you know, A U.S. president comes along for whatever reason and says, you know, we're going to launch an economic attack on Canada for whatever reason and and we are left vulnerable, right.
Andy: Yeah. And just to give you kind of a a kind of look, look at Guelph particularly, you get kind of granular with it. We're one of the hardest hit CMAs obviously with this. So Guelph historically has been one of the most employed CMAs in Canada.
We've seen unemployment spike at 9.2% on adjusted at the end of last summer. We're coming down kind of the slope of that right now. But that affects a lot of people because when you look at all the businesses in golf that export about 85% export to a single source. Who's that single source? Predominantly the America, right, Like America as the main source.
So what ends up happening is that that damage gets done. You see layoffs, you see kind of quality of life adjustments in the city and everything. So hopefully, yeah, we can diversify away and hopefully it is temporary and we can fix the damage as soon as possible.
Daniel: Yeah. So Chris, I, I know you're, you're very soon and Ian as well. We're we're all going to be in Washington together. We're we're going to on a on a mission to to meet with American business leaders who overwhelmingly support the Canada, US, Mexico agreement.
So what does a successful review or renewal of this agreement look like for food and beverage manufacturers in Ontario?
Chris: In our case, it would be as close to what we have as possible. That's what we're looking for. That's what we've asked for. We understand that that may not be the case. In terms of what we discussed as well just now about the relationship, I think there is a rupture in the sense that the trust relationship is damaged. So that, you know, in our case we are so heavily integrated with the US and the products we're making. It is very difficult as the Premier often says, to unscramble an omelette. In our case that is, I can give umpteen examples of products where that's the case.
So, but in terms of what's happening right now, if we can get that extended as is, that would be a best case scenario. From what we're hearing, we may not get that exactly. There may be a bilateral agreement as opposed to a trilateral agreement. We'll see what happens.
I read the common sense from the comments from Jameson Greer recently about how he views some things. There are a few sticking points. He's mentioned dairy and you know others. So they throw these things in. I don't know if that's more symbolic for the Americans.
The last time I checked, they sell about a billion dollars worth of dairy in Canada. We sell about 1/3 of that. So it's I, I know it's on paper and it's a sticking point with them, but it's an agreement that works for them and for us.
Daniel: And well, and sometimes in trade negotiations, it's also you're also thinking about your political base. And you need to be able to be to, to, to be seen to achieve something, even even even if in reality, it looks very much like the last agreement, which is kind of which is what we happened last time in that CUSMA looked very much like NAFTA, right.
And so before I, I, I move on, I move to Ian. What you've got a lot of members who are multinational, right? You've got a lot of members who are actually U.S. companies and So what are they advising? What are they saying? What are they thinking? In a lot of cases, you know, they, I mentioned about the expansions they're doing this, but there's a lot of discussion going on before they make those type of decisions.
And I, I sort of wonder with some of the other countries that have done deals with the US, if they're not looking at the very long term and saying, OK, well, President Trump's is there for another few years. But longer term, what's this relationship going to be?
Historically, we've had a very good trading relationship with the US. We've had bumps in the road. But I, I think people are looking at the longer term. Some of the largest companies say to me, you know, they look for real stability in these type of, of relationships, these type of agreements. And so I think everyone's hoping to get back to that.
So it's going to be choppy waters for another couple of years, but then we'll see what happens. And I think they're they are thinking long term in those decisions that they're making.
Daniel: Everything I'm hearing suggests that the market is counting on CUSMA being renewed in some fashion, right? That it would be devastating for American businesses and, and, and communities, not as devastating as it would be for Canada, but pretty damn bad, right? And so you know, we're hearing the comments that are going into USTR are overwhelmingly pro-CUSMA, right?
Chris: It's a very good point. And I mean in our sector, we have a lot of large companies, but we also 90% of our sector small business. So I mean those are the companies that are really in in family run.
And I've had discussions with people running family run businesses where when this started, they pulled me aside and said, you know, we don't know what's going to happen with the future of our business, you know, third generation family business. So those are tough discussions. Those are the people that stand to lose the most.
In many respects, the big companies do as well. Obviously, they have a significant presence here. So, yeah, so there's a lot of concern, a lot of trepidation and CUSMA is absolutely crucial for us.
Daniel: Ian, what are your thoughts, objectives when it comes to these imminent trade, trade discussions with the with the US and Mexico?
Ian: Now our our experience with CUSMA has not been the greatest. So I mean, certainly for panels, pulp and paper, other forest products, free trade to the US remains very important covered in CUSMA. However, the lumber dispute which we're going through right now, over the last 10 years, 13 / 13 billion dollars of Canadian lumber producers money has been collected while under CUSMA.
So for lumber producers it's been a bit of a mixed bag. A chapter 10 of CUSMA – the by national dispute resolution process – that's going to be a very important thing for us to maintain. There's very few binding decisions and international law that the US has to adhere to, and that is one of them. Again, far from perfect. It's taken up to over five years to actually appoint the panelists. When the US does. They are wildly biased. Former petitioners counsel representing the US so far from perfect. But that that mechanism is there.
Daniel: Yeah. But the principle is important, right. And, and, and there been, you know, initially, as I think of the UK was, was the first, if I remember, but they're all these countries that started doing these what are what, what trade negotiators call Sharpie deals with, with, with the US, right, which aren't really binding, don't have dispute settlement mechanisms. And and you saw, you know, when Trump was covetous of Greenland, he threatened to, you know, launch tariffs on all these European countries in the UK—
Ian: —What good is an agreement?—
Daniel: —in violation of the agreement he signed. So, so having a a continuing trilateral agreement with some sort of formal dispute resolution mechanism seems to me to be a very valid objective.
Ian: Absolutely
Daniel: And good for the US, for US businesses as much as ours.
Ian: Exactly. And anytime this our dispute on lumber goes to an impartial third body, they rule overwhelmingly in favor of Canada. The WTO did exactly that, but non binding. So it doesn't matter.
Daniel: Right, right. Andy, you know, before we wrap up, I want to talk a little bit about inter provincial trade. And you know, that's something which was identified early on as well. It was long before Trump was in office. I remember going to meet the premier after he became chair of the the provincial premiers and saying, OK, you've got these different objectives. Can the US trade access to medications, bail reform? I said, can we add interprovincial trade to that? And to his credit, he said absolutely. And he said, you know, he doubled down on that after the tariffs began.
So are you hearing the bringing down of these barriers to interprovincial trade and labor mobility? Do do your members see opportunity there and and what kinds of opportunity are they seeing?
Andy: Yeah, I think particularly some of the alcohol manufacturing kind of distilleries, they see a lot of opportunity here. I think it's very fascinating because we also on the other hand of it see with counter L and what's sort of happening here because a lot of that is produced in Canada and yet we're looking at potentially stopping to sell it in Ontario because of the closing of I think it was Amherstville, if I'm not mistaken.
Daniel: Amherstburg.
Andy: So yeah, I think it's interesting. Cut on the one hand, we're saying the right things and you're seeing Tim Houston and Doug Ford and all these people, Wob Canoe, they're all hanging out. Hey, we're gonna do this. This is all great. And then all of a sudden when we have opportunities to do it in reality, we're not always following through on that. So I know some of the distilleries in Guelph, for instance, that are smaller, would love to export stuff over to BC or to Alberta, Nova Scotia and not have any sort of tariff or, or hold up to it. And it's just not the reality of what a lot of them are seeing right now.
I think we had an initial like energy to it. There was a passion. It was like, let's get this done. And then it's kind of slowed down a little bit. And then the cover all in particular is a bit of a fight.
Daniel: Yeah. Look, I, I, I think the reality is the easy headlines have already been earned and now it's time for the hard slogging, right? It's, it's, it's, it's, it's obviously there's these mutual recognition agreements, but beyond that, we've got to get to national standards where you try to get every province involved and into the tent and saying, you know, here are the standards we agreed to and they'll recognize them, right. What do you see opportunities in, in, in bringing down these barriers?
Chris: There are definitely opportunities. And I agree it's, it's sort of the devil's in the details with this. I mean, the announcements came out in the first thing I thought of as the few files we have worked on with that. It's complicated. We dealt with it with transportation actually of food and beverage products.
We had an extension on tractor trailers. The issue with that as you approve in Ontario, it has to be approved anywhere else you're going for example. So that's, that's an issue that's related to the logistics of the product. But there, there are many, many issues like that. So there's complexity around it and that's, that's sort of what we're looking at.
We hear these announcements, like you said, when the easy wins come out at first the headline, but then you've got to really get into that and look at, you know, what can be done and how's this going to proceed going forward.
So I think the spirit is there. That's nice to see. And we also at times have to be cautious when there are jobs in our industry that are located in other provinces as well. There was the famous incident of the Crown Royal being dumped out because they were closing a facility and they have hundreds of jobs in Manitoba at another facility. So, you know, there there is a linkage there with other provinces.
So that's the type of thing that it wasn't a good decision for Ontario, but they do have jobs in Manitoba, for example. So we have things like that going on as well related to other provinces. So we have to be really cautious and we have to be careful as we think this year we came across some things related to food safety early on with that, with meat regulation.
We worked on a file with that and everybody agreed that that had to be kept at the national standard for a whole host of reasons because Canada has such an excellent reputation for food safety and standards. So we actually went to the federal government and said please keep it at that level and they did. So that's one example of something we worked on related to that.
Daniel: Right, Right. Any perspective on interprovincial trade?
Ian: I think like like Chris said, I think there's some opportunities for sure. I, I, I, our industry faces a chronic shortage of licensed truck drivers.
And you know, if you have a commercial truck driver's license in Nova Scotia, PEI or Manitoba, you should be able to drive in in Ontario as well.
So we see some opportunity there in terms of movement of products in Western Canada, there is this east West movement of finished products probably going from Alberta into the Port of Vancouver. But in Eastern Canada, Ontario, Quebec and the Maritimes, it's typically in north-south, supply chains are are are meant so you can take finished product from Northern Ontario and bring it to the United States.
Very little finished products moves across provincial borders. I'd say less than 5%. So not a huge opportunity there, but I think more on the professional services equipment, machinery, there's there's some opportunity for sure.
Daniel: OK, All right. Well, we're, we're running out of time fast, but time flies when you're having such a great discussion. Maybe I'll just turn to each of you and, and this is your chance as sophisticated and effective advocates, what's you get? You get a, an unvarnished pitch that you get to make advice to government, federal and provincial governments. You can choose either or both. What, what do you think they should be thinking about? What should they be doing and prioritizing for 2026? I'll start with you, Andy.
Andy: Sure. Yeah. I think we're all stronger together, right at the end of the day. So we just wrote a letter recently where the Home Builders Association, it's like anytime you can pair up and kind of be singing from the same book and have the same kind of ideas and pushing the same things, it's really important.
I think that we need to keep some of the Team Canada mentality together and working together as we try and build more defense here. You've just seen in the news lately, South Korea is looking at building some stuff here. They've now signed up and they've signed a partnership with Sue Saint Marie. There's Steel, which is amazing, right? That's a plant that's going through some issues right now.
You're seeing that with SAAB jets potentially. If we build those here, they're looking at giving us the IP for that, which is fantastic.
So we kind of look at these deals and look at what we can do to market ourselves more on the international stage. And I think we do have some of the best labor in the world, some of the best knowledge in the world, and we really have to push that out as a country, obviously as a province as well. We would love to be a defense hub, I know here in Ontario. So yeah, just things like that. Stay together.
We might—this should blow over. There are mid turns coming. Trump's getting hit at home with his approval ratings. So I mean, the affordability crisis is hitting people pretty hard over there. So stay together. Don't don't give concessions, little concessions here and there because that's kind of what they want, I think. So, yeah, just stay together, be united in what we do and work together.
Daniel: Chris.
Chris: I would just say that I mean, it's versus where we are now versus where we could be. I say, you know, we have to look at sort of how we can be the most competitive, our regulatory environment, what can we do outside of anything to do with the US to make us really competitive from a business perspective. It's a great opportunity for that to happen. So I think that's an absolutely crucial piece of it.
There was the Dominic Parton report number years ago talking about how, you know, Canada could essentially be a food superpower. So I would say from our perspective, the value add stays here when we do this in Canada and it's part of critical infrastructure as part of our food security system. So trying there are many, many reasons why we want to keep that and we should be looking at where we could go with this and what we could become.
Daniel: Ian.
Ian: So I think I, I focus mostly on the challenges in our industry, this huge opportunity in the forest products sector, the bio economy in Ontario, most international jurisdictions are reaching a limit when it comes to available wood fiber. In Ontario we're, we're harvesting less than half of what is sustainably available.
We've seen huge private sector private capital being invested in Ontario, Georgia Pacific, for example, and Engelhardt American Company, $190,000,000 into that facility to modernize that facility. There's a huge opportunity to attract investment into Ontario's forest products sector and leverage what we can do domestically. Energy. On the energy side, we need 75% more electricity by 2050? Let's use sustainable force biomass. We need to build 1.5 million homes by 20-30? Let's use Ontario's advanced wood products sector.
Daniel: You know, great discussion guys. I want to thank you all so much. And I mean there are a few themes that have come out of the discussion that I think are really powerful from my perspective. I mean, I love the good news and the optimism around investment in Canada that we are seeing right.
You know, whether it's you know what you, what you, what you started out talking about, about about all the new investment that's coming in with obviously* that you know people are that there is an assumption that we're going to continue to have some sort of privileged access to the US market.
So that's important, but also just the the enormous opportunities to invest in a place that has a stable talent pool, that has a very stable regulatory environment and, and, you know, aligned political environment where the rule of law prevails.
And and that now we're actually seeing some positive signals in that you have federal and provincial governments aligned around a strategy that that's all geared to attract investment in Canada, to foster entrepreneurship and high growth Canadian companies and help them grow, helping to helping businesses invest in productivity and technology, using artificial intelligence to make businesses more productive and workers more valuable.
And finally, diversification. I think those are all really key themes that we talked about today. And of course, wrapped around all of this, the importance of preserving the Canada, US, Mexico agreement as a, as a trilateral binding mechanism to, to govern trade and access to this market and in the other markets in the US and Mexico.
Chris: Thank you too, Dan, for the work you and your team are doing at the Chamber. It's incredibly valuable. It's valuable for us as an industry. We really appreciate it. So thank you again.
Daniel: My pleasure, my pleasure. Well, thank you and thank you all for your collaboration. You know, one thing I realized early on in this role is, you know, that in essence, we can convene and mobilize and empower businesses together. And in the end, the whole purpose is to do more together than any of us could do alone, right?
So that's that. That fills me with energy and optimism as much as anything. So I want to thank my guest today to to to Andy and to Chris and Ian. Looking forward to continuing our collaboration and thanks also to our audience for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next time on another episode of Commerce Talks. I'm Daniel Tisch, CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. See you next time.