Category: Perspectives

C’est bien connu : Montréal est une ville emblématique, parsemée de cônes orange, de panneaux « DÉTOUR » souvent contradictoires, et de nids-de-poule. Naviguer dans la ville peut parfois se révéler être un véritable défi, suscitant frustration et jurons chez piétons et automobilistes. Pourtant, pour d’autres, l’expérience montréalaise s’avère bien plus fluide. 

C’est le cas pour plusieurs industries qui, ces dernières décennies, ont choisi Montréal comme leur pôle canadien. Leur succès montréalais leur a permis de rayonner non seulement au Canada, mais aussi à l’échelle mondiale. 

Prenons l’exemple du secteur de l’aérospatiale. Avec des poids lourds comme Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney, Airbus et CAE, ainsi que des centaines de partenaires, Montréal s’est imposée comme le 3e pôle mondial dans ce domaine. C’est d’ailleurs le seul endroit au monde où un avion peut être entièrement assemblé à partir de composants fabriqués localement. 

Montréal s’affirme également comme la capitale mondiale des jeux vidéo. Fondée en France, Ubisoft a ouvert son premier bureau nord-américain à Montréal en 1997. Aujourd’hui, il s’agit du plus grand studio de développement au monde, avec plus de 4 000 employés et des franchises à succès comme Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs et Rainbow Six. Le succès d’Ubisoft à Montréal a encouragé d’autres studios et entreprises d’animation à venir s’y installer, contribuant à l’essor de cette industrie dans notre métropole. 

Plus récemment, c’est l’industrie technologique, et plus précisément celle de l’intelligence artificielle, qui a fait de Montréal sa plaque tournante. Avec l’Institut des algorithmes d’apprentissage de Montréal (MILA) et la plus grande communauté universitaire en IA au monde, des géants comme DeepMind, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Samsung et Thales ont tous choisi d’y investir.  

Malgré les critiques récurrentes sur l’état des infrastructures, le système d’éducation et l’accès difficile aux services sociaux au Québec, comment Montréal est-elle devenue un catalyseur de croissance pour ces industries ? Et pourquoi ces entreprises ont-elles préféré Montréal à Vancouver ou à la Ville Reine ? Vancouver bénéficie pourtant d’une main-d’œuvre hautement qualifiée et d’un emplacement stratégique pour le commerce international, notamment avec l’Asie. De son côté, Toronto, la plus grande ville du Canada et la capitale financière du pays, bénéficie d’une économie diversifiée qui fait d’elle un choix privilégié pour les grandes entreprises et les affaires internationales. 

Il se trouve que plusieurs facteurs ont contribué à la création de cet écosystème unique à Montréal, devenu aujourd’hui incontournable pour les industries cherchant à propulser leur croissance. Tout d’abord, l’emplacement stratégique de Montréal offre un accès direct au marché nord-américain ainsi qu’une ouverture privilégiée vers l’Europe. 

Réputée pour sa diversité, Montréal est aussi un véritable creuset de talents, d’idées et de perspectives. La ville abrite deux universités anglophones, deux francophones et plus de 50 chaires de recherche, attirant des talents venus des quatre coins du monde. Les partenariats entre institutions éducatives et industries ont permis de créer des programmes de formation spécialisés, assurant une main-d’œuvre qualifiée et prête à répondre aux besoins du marché. 

Enfin, le gouvernement du Québec a su soutenir ces secteurs grâce à des initiatives favorisant l’innovation et l’investissement. Des programmes gouvernementaux, des incitations fiscales et des incubateurs ont facilité l’émergence de startups et l’installation d’entreprises bien établies. 

Montréal est ainsi devenue un terreau fertile pour l’innovation, attirant entreprises, investisseurs étrangers et talents désireux de profiter de ces conditions idéales. 

Malgré l’exode massif vers Toronto dans les années 70, Montréal a su conserver sa réputation de ville à l’avant-garde de l’innovation. Et tandis que la ville continue d’être marquée par ses travaux routiers incessants, on peut se demander : quelle nouvelle industrie y trouvera bientôt son essor ?

It feels like a lifetime ago that in 2019, 181 CEOs of the biggest companies in the United States came together to redefine the purpose of a corporation to promote “an economy that serves all Americans.”  

We can laugh at the hubris of the proclamation, but it responded to a real demand for businesses to stand for something beyond profits. The year 2020 intensified that demand. The murder of George Floyd sparked calls for racial justice and equity. The immediate impacts of one global crisis (COVID-19) forced people to think deeply about other crises, like climate change and income inequality.  

Above all, it was a time when businesses seemed to understand that, in the big picture, they operate because of their customers, employees, suppliers, communities and shareholders. And it was time to start acting with all those interests in mind. 

Since 2020, the stakeholder capitalism movement has had a rough go. Emmanuel Faber, who famously boasted that his company, Danone, had “toppled the statue of Milton Friedman” with its purposeful approach to capitalism, was sacked; Nike cut 30 per cent of its sustainability staff; and Larry Fink, one of the leading proponents of stakeholder capitalism, stopped talking about it altogether. 

The strains of this movement were predictable early. Today they’re clearer and starker.  

To start, the issue environment that businesses seemed eager to enter is highly polarized. Take ESG, for example. While it was once widely believed that embracing these principles was strategic from both an ethical and risk management perspective, a rising tide has written the framework off as woke moralizing or a deliberate attack on energy producers, with 18 U.S. states passing laws that discourage the practice. 

Take the Israel-Hamas war as another. While every company should place a high value on human life and oppose race- or religious-based violence of any kind, very few are equipped to offer constructive messages on a complex conflict with age-old roots. Most have chosen the simpler route of retreating altogether. 

Another diagnosis is that for some Canadians, businesses have lost the right to lecture them on social issues. U.S. President Joe Biden famously likes to tell Americans, “Don’t tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” 

It appears many Canadians are making similar assessments of their employers. If executive compensation continues to outpace worker pay, carbon emissions continue to increase, and race-based inequities persist, they feel they’ve seen what they need to see about corporate Canada’s “values.” 

It would be easy to declare the stakeholder capitalism movement dead or dying in Canada. The harder question: What could make it work?  

The solution comes back to the first principle that companies driven by an intrinsic purpose fare best over time, both for themselves and society. In practice, that means defining your priorities and strengths and leaning into them as core focuses, leaning out from others. In other words, speaking loudly on issues of principle and purpose, but saving the virtue signalling for others. 

This discussion should influence human resources, capital allocation, operational planning and strategic message development. We need more than just statements and slogans, but businesses with clarity about what they stand for.  

Achieving this can help build alignment with stakeholders, encourage open, fact-based discussions about future plans, and help to sustain trust in a rapidly changing economy and society. 

Stakeholder capitalism may be dying as a term, but this form of pragmatic, long-term planning rooted in real purpose should not. 

Canada’s auto sector has many of the fundamentals right. Our educated workforce, history of high-quality assembly and parts manufacturing, and close trading relationship with the U.S. have been pillars of our success for decades. 

As the industry shifts toward the manufacturing of electric vehicles, or EVs, our abundance of critical minerals offers us an even greater advantage in a global arms race to build and power the cars of the future. 

Federal and provincial governments alike are seized with this opportunity and have invested billions to support EV and battery manufacturing on home soil. And while I support these investments, it’s also important to reflect on the true strength of Canada’s auto sector: its diversity. We’ve never kept all our eggs in one basket. And we shouldn’t change that in the years ahead.  

We can’t be selective or ideological when it comes to auto jobs. Realistically, if you look at the Detroit Three (General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis), pickup trucks pay the bills. The three companies committed over $120 billion towards EV and EV battery manufacturing, but their major profit centres remain with internal combustion engines (ICEs).

A few years ago, Ford made a big splash with the F150 Lightning, its flagship EV pickup truck. The result? In 2023, Ford sold 24,165 EV pickup trucks, and about 750,000 F150s.

With Trump threatening tariffs and a rollback of Biden-era EV policies, the industry will be under even greater pressure. But counterintuitively, if Pierre Poilievre wins the election and comes out saying the Canadian government will no longer be an active participant in the EV market, we’ll pay one hell of a price.  

Ontarians will remember that one of the first things Doug Ford did when he became premier was cancel the incentives to buy an electric vehicle. I was okay with that in isolation, because he was basically penalizing Tesla, one of the most anti-union companies in the world. But here we are in 2025 and what is he doing? Heavily investing in electric vehicles and marketing Ontario as a destination of choice for the sector. 

An incoming government should bypass any uncertainty and embrace the sector from day one. We should demand and expect a credible plan that looks past immediate political pressures and prioritizes the long-term protection and diversification of our auto sector. 

Jerry Dias was the founding president of Unifor and served as an advisor to Canada’s NAFTA negotiating team.

Most young people I talk to just don’t really know what lies ahead, and they haven’t seen the government coming to the table for them in the last several years. They’re looking for a new path forward. For many years, young people parked their votes behind the Liberals or the NDP or the Greens, and nobody seems to have delivered. Especially right now, young people are frustrated and they are willing to give the Conservatives a chance. The party has put forward a strong voice, and they seem determined. Young people are also very determined, and so they kind of identify with that. The Conservative Party has been the one that has come out and said: “We see you’re struggling. You’re not alone. We don’t want you to struggle anymore.” 

And one thing the Liberals often have said lately is: “Oh, it’s just a communications error. People just don’t understand what we’re trying to do. We’re doing good things. They just don’t understand how it’s a good thing.” But if they were doing good things, people wouldn’t be in these situations where they are living in overcrowded housing, or they wouldn’t be grocery shopping at Dollarama. That’s not a communications issue. That’s a policy failure. 

I see people of different ethnicities and genders, of different sexual orientations coming to the Conservative Party. It’s very insincere when people tell you what political party you should belong to. That’s identity politics. Identity politics are a horrible thing that young Conservatives are quite frankly sick and tired of. 

The number one issue [driving young people to the Conservatives] is the cost of living. When you used to go to university, you were more or less promised a good job in your field or something close to it. And that’s not the case for a lot of people.

I have always had more trouble telling other gay people that I’m a Conservative than I have telling Conservative people that I’m gay. The party, to me, has never been anything but welcoming. They don’t care who I am going to get married to someday. They care that I work hard, I’m a team player, and I’m loyal, and that I’m always trying to get smarter. 

If Pierre Poilievre becomes prime minister, he and his cabinet ministers will sit down and say “Young people voted for us. We are going to deliver for them.” I think it’s very reasonable to expect we haven’t seen the last of young people coming to the Conservative Party. Hopefully, we’re just getting started in that regard.

Levi Cottingham is President of the University of Ottawa Campus Conservatives and works as a Legislative Assistant on Parliament Hill.

Any entrepreneur worth their salt is very careful about who they do business with. 

Backgrounds are checked. Past employment is measured. Every effort is taken to ensure that, when a crisis comes for you, your business partner will be there for you, not the reason you are there.  

For me, this centring of trust echoes both in my professional career and in my reality as an Indigenous person. 

When I am looking at beginning a business partnership with a company, before I examine the profit margins or the reputational impact, I ask a very simple question: who are you? 

Are you a person who looks for profit or prosperity? 

Do you think about yourself first or about community? 

Do you evaluate the scope of a project by its impact on your bottom line or on the environment? 

Now, Indigenous peoples are not a monolith. However, this is how I believe the majority of us examine every decision we make.  

We are people who strive for abundance. We believe that there is enough for everyone, and that is a fact that should be celebrated and guaranteed, a reality that should be centred in everything that we do. We put aside our personal opinions and take a look at things broadly, not linearly. All-encompassing, not top-down.  

But this top-down, linear perspective has been the root of several failures in relationships between leaders of industry and Indigenous communities. 

In 2021, after the discovery in Kamloops, the Canadian public briefly escaped this entrapment. Canada opened its heart to the Indigenous community, offering sympathy and apologies to us in a moment where we were reeling emotionally. Canadian businesses in particular appeared ready to step up. 

But it’s critical that this be more than just a burst of participation. Relationships aren’t built overnight and require sustained, reciprocal engagement. 

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission Call to Action 92 urges the corporate sector in Canada to adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework. 

From a legal perspective, this can be complicated, but the principles are simple. It means meaningful consultation and respectful relationships, including working patiently to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous peoples before proceeding with economic development projects. 

It means equitable job and training opportunities for Indigenous peoples and advancing long-term sustainable benefits from economic development projects. And it means education for management and staff on the history of Indigenous peoples, so that we can gradually foster intercultural competency. 

For leaders who are used to a top-down form of thinking, this may be an adjustment, but it’s part of a necessary mindset shift for long-term, truthful, trusting, and fair-minded relationships with Indigenous communities.  

It’s those relationships that will prepare us to work together better to figure out the changes, challenges, and opportunities we all face in the years ahead. To me, that reset towards the pursuit of abundance is worth prioritizing. 

Karen Mackenzie is the President of MacKintosh Canada, an Indigenous-owned, international consulting company.