{"id":64870,"date":"2025-10-01T21:32:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T21:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/10\/01\/business-leaders-call-for-pro-entrepreneur-policies-as-joly-promises-ottawa-will-be-hawkish-on-competition\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T21:32:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T21:32:56","slug":"business-leaders-call-for-pro-entrepreneur-policies-as-joly-promises-ottawa-will-be-hawkish-on-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/2025\/10\/01\/business-leaders-call-for-pro-entrepreneur-policies-as-joly-promises-ottawa-will-be-hawkish-on-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Business leaders call for pro-entrepreneur policies as Joly promises Ottawa will be \u2018hawkish\u2019 on competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><\/div><p> \n<br \/><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Telecom competition is ramping up in Canada\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JBAm3nklHNo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p> The federal government will take a stronger approach to promoting <\/p>\n<p>                        competition<\/p>\n<p>                         in the country as Canadians continue to face rising costs, Industry Minister <\/p>\n<p>                        Melanie Joly<\/p>\n<p>                         said at the <\/p>\n<p>                        Competition Bureau<\/p>\n<p>                        \u2019s annual summit in Ottawa on Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cLet me be clear. The government will be hawkish on competition \u2026 because it keeps prices fair, drives innovation and provides Canadians with real choice,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ll continue to strengthen competition in Canadian markets because affordability depends on it.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Joly said \u201call parts of the government will be involved\u201d in its efforts to bring costs down and to \u201ccreate one strong Canadian economy.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Competition Bureau commissioner <\/p>\n<p>                        Matthew Boswell<\/p>\n<p>                         also called for swift action to improve competition, including breaking down <\/p>\n<p>                        internal trade barriers<\/p>\n<p>                         and harmonizing regulations across the country. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cA fragmented regulatory environment creates unnecessary trade obstacles for business and workers,\u201d he said during his speech. \u201cWe cannot build a dynamic economy if businesses are forced to navigate 13 different regulatory regimes in one country.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> The Canadian economy has become \u201cmore extractive and less inclusive\u201d in recent years, according to Boswell. Citing a 2025 Statistics Canada study, he said the federal regulatory burden jumped 37 per cent between 2006 and 2021, which was linked to a decline in business dynamism, gross domestic product growth, business-sector investment and employment growth. <\/p>\n<p> Boswell added that \u201cthis is not a call to deregulate. We need regulation \u2026 but how we regulate is important and has consequences.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Growing competition in the country also requires policies and programs that empower startups and small businesses, according to business leaders. <\/p>\n<p> Andrew Graham, co-founder and chief executive of Borrowell Inc., a Toronto-based fintech that provides credit scores and loan financing, said Canada needs to first define what it means to build a successful pro-competitive and pro-entrepreneurship economy. <\/p>\n<p> He said policymakers should focus on actions that help Canadian companies get ahead and focus on a range of metrics that includes, but is not limited to, job creation. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cLet\u2019s stop being Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts \u2026 and say we\u2019re going to help Canadian companies win and we\u2019re going to send our politicians to go to the opening of a Canadian-headquartered company \u2026 (rather than) the opening of an Amazon distribution plant,\u201d he said during a panel discussion at the event. <\/p>\n<p> Graham said non-Canadian companies setting up shop in Canada might create jobs, but \u201copening an Amazon distribution centre is not the same as a Canadian-headquartered company getting bigger and growing its headquarters and global reach here.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> Canada also needs to widen access to resources for underrepresented groups such as women and immigrant entrepreneurs, said Marwa Abdou, senior research director at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, who called them the \u201cgreatest potential for Canada\u2019s entrepreneurship climate.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> The government must \u201cmake room\u201d for more people to contribute to the economy by providing greater access to credit, finance, networks and resources, and giving people the ability to navigate cumbersome tax and regulatory systems, she said during the panel discussion. <\/p>\n<p> Rachel Wasserman, founder and principal at Wasserman Business Law and fellow at the Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project, said that Canada is \u201cmaking entrepreneurship a privilege. We do a big disservice to this country by not changing that lens and making it more accessible.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> She also highlighted Canada\u2019s \u201ctsunami\u201d of business succession, citing a 2022 report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, which found that 76 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses will change hands between 2022 and 2032, representing $2 trillion in value. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cHalf of that will be sold to third parties. These deals are coming and there\u2019s no one buying these businesses other than asset managers,\u201d she said during the panel. \u201cWe are facing \u2026 the potential extinction of entrepreneurship in this country if we don\u2019t find a solution to make entrepreneurship easier.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> The simple solution, Wasserman said, is providing debt financing to Canadians who want to acquire those companies. <\/p>\n<p> \u201cOne of the fundamental problems here is that \u2026 we may have a Rolodex of private-equity firms and who are the competitors that want to buy this up, but we have no infrastructure for finding entrepreneurs who are capable of running these businesses,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n<p> Graham added that it\u2019s not \u201cthe easiest time to be an entrepreneur in Canada.\u201d <\/p>\n<p> \u201cNo one\u2019s under any illusions,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you\u2019re graduating from Waterloo in computer science and you want to start a tech business, there are compelling reasons to do that in California or Texas or New York versus Ontario. We need to be aware that it is a competition. We are competing for those super bright graduates and entrepreneurs \u2026 to fix a problem.\u201d <\/p>\n<ul class=\"related_links\">\n<li>Competition Bureau to probe whether Amazon&#8217;s rules are unfair to sellers and consumers<\/li>\n<li>Competition Bureau warns Canadian landlords and property managers about illegal discussions on rents<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <em>\u2022 Email: ylau@postmedia.com <\/em> <\/p>\n\n<br \/>Business leaders call for pro-entrepreneur policies as Joly promises Ottawa will be \u2018hawkish\u2019 on competition<\/a><br \/>\n<br \/>2025-10-01 21:32:56<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The federal government will take a stronger approach to promoting competition in the country as Canadians continue to face rising costs, Industry Minister Melanie Joly said at the Competition Bureau&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/smartcdn.gprod.postmedia.digital\/financialpost\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/no1001joly.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/64872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pantheregroup.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}