By Deborah Aarts | Public Policy Forum
Public Policy Forum’s Canada Growth Summit 2025 gathered some of Canada’s top leaders and policy minds. Here are some of their biggest and brightest ideas.
No Canadian has any doubt of the magnitude of this economic moment. As U.S. President Donald Trump’s mercurial tariff mandate unleashes market mayhem and geopolitical unease, Canadians have galvanized — buying local, putting the maple leaf on everything, ratcheting our elbows way up.
Which may explain the pronounced air of intent at the Public Policy Forum’s 2025 Canada Growth Summit, which took place this week at Toronto’s Royal York Hotel. Over the course of a dozen sessions, more than 40 speakers put forward a series of smart, actionable ideas for how governments, businesses, policymakers and communities can work together to advance our collective fortune.
There was plenty of debate — when isn’t there when you put more than 400 heavily caffeinated wonks, politicians and businesspeople in the same room? — but as the day unfolded, a few themes emerged. This is a moment for pragmatic clarity, not wishful thinking; for focus, not blue-sky experimentation. It’s a time to, finally, activate our long-lamented untapped economic potential.
Here are 10 of the day’s best ideas to make that happen, including reflections from SCP’s CEO Matthew Mendelsohn on the role of policy in attracting business investment in Canada.
Share with a friend
Related reading
New Canadian Tax Observatory seeks visionary founding CEO
Social Capital Partners and other funders announce a new, non-partisan, nonprofit Canadian organization to lead an informed national conversation on the links between taxation, economic fairness and a thriving democracy. The Canadian Tax Observatory is seeking a visionary leader who can shape and grow a permanent, influential Canadian institution connected to global networks identifying better, more effective ways to achieve tax fairness.
A new middle-power alliance would give Canada leverage and Canadians hope
Canada should lead the world’s middle powers in a collective and overdue weaning from American primacy by establishing a grand new security and economic alliance. As SCP Chair Jon Shell argues in The Hill Times, ten countries including Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, the U.K., Spain, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands, or the “Core 10," would amount to about the same GDP as the U.S., with significant natural resources, massive buying power - and significant leverage against American economic aggression.
The tariff war means a new normal for Hamilton businesses | Hamilton City Magazine
The wrecking ball that Donald Trump has taken to international trade has wounded relations between Hamilton businesses and their American suppliers and customers, reports Eugene Ellman in Hamilton City Magazine. Now, they’re looking east and west to replace traditional links to the south and pushing back. When Trump started pontificating about how Canada should become the 51st state and claiming the United States was subsidizing its northern neighbour, SCP Founder Bill Young and the team responded with Always Canada. Never 51 - part economic populism mixed with methodical policy-making, the series is devoted to the issues of wealth inequality and Canadian sovereignty.