April 30, 2025
The Right Honourable Mark Carney, P.C., M.P.
Prime Minister of Canada
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2
Dear Prime Minister Carney:
Congratulations on your, and your government’s, recent election victory. The Business Council of Alberta (BCA) looks forward to working with you to build a strong Canada and a good life for Canadians.
BCA is a non-partisan private sector policy organization representing Alberta’s largest employers and entrepreneurs. BCA’s 135 members, from across the province and in all sectors of the economy, directly or indirectly represent most of Alberta’s employment, investment and economic activity.
We want to work with you to achieve your priorities and commitments to Canadians. We share your sense of urgency and desire to create prosperity for Canadians during this challenging economic and geopolitical time. We, along with many Canadians, want to ensure that our economy is energized. We would like to see federal policies that have restricted Alberta’s economic contributions to the nation removed without haste. And we want to support your efforts to foster economic independence and enable every part of the country to play to its strengths.
We recognize that you will have many issues to tackle in the early days of your mandate. Before the election we laid out our recommendations for Canada’s next federal government in A Strong Canada. A Good Life. We believe Canadians want, and deserve, a good life which we achieve through a strong economy when we:
- Build and Trade
- Invest in Ourselves
- Compete and Win
We believe there are three actions to be taken right away that are critical to addressing Canada’s under-performing economy, creating more resilience and independence from the US, and will bring confidence back to Canadians. These are actions that directly align with your platform, priorities, and approach of using market mechanisms and leveraging private capital:
1. It’s Time to Build – restore confidence in corporate Canada so businesses can plan, invest, and grow:
- Identify and approve projects of national interest, including energy infrastructure such as pipelines to the West Coast, across Canada and to other strategic egress points, with immediate approval of those already in the queue;
- Launch a Trade Infrastructure & Egress Task Force to fast-track the national trade corridors you have proposed;
- Initiate a process to amend the Impact Assessment Act and associated regulations, focused on efficiency, reducing timelines, increasing predictability, and addressing constitutionality;
- Announce a national loan guarantee program to help de-risk new projects and unlock private capital; and
- Withdraw the proposed oil and gas emissions cap.
2. It’s Time to Invest in Ourselves – Canada’s economy needs skilled trades if we are to build and compete:
- Announce renewed and increased funding for pre-apprenticeship programs targeting youth and underrepresented groups, particularly by adequately funding the Labour Market Development Agreements (LMDA), and renew the Apprenticeship Incentive and Completion Grants which are set to expire this year;
- Reform how immigrants are selected (the points system) to focus on, and prioritize, individuals who meet labour force needs, such as skilled trades; and
- Launch a joint federal-provincial task force to standardize and expedite mutual recognition standards for non-standardized professions, and foreign credential recognition processes.
3. It’s Time to Compete and Win – Ensuring competitiveness, independence and security for our nation and creating optionality for Canadian companies to trade and do business, with less reliance on the US as our largest customer:
- Permit full deduction of capital expenses (i.e., Capital Cost Allowance and Accelerated Investment Incentive) to incentivize companies to invest more in ways that will increase innovation, productivity, and growth;
- Exempt capital gains from taxation when rolled over into another Canadian investment including Canadian corporations, venture funds, or other similar vehicles within 12 months;
- Launch a tax reform task force aimed at reforming Canada’s outdated tax code to incent more working, saving, and investment; and
- Convene an urgent First Ministers’ Meeting dedicated to finalizing broad mutual recognition agreements capitalizing on recent legislative actions by provinces like Alberta, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and PEI.
We are proud Albertans and Canadians. We wish to work with you to achieve our purpose – to make life better for all Canadians through a thriving private sector.
We welcome the opportunity to meet with you to discuss these and any other topics of your choosing. You may call on me any time. We will be in Ottawa May 28-30 with our Western Business Coalition peers from the British Columbia and Manitoba Business Councils and the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce and would be honoured to meet with you then.
Again, congratulations, and we look forward to working with you and your government.
Yours sincerely,
Adam Legge
President, Business Council of Alberta