Technology scaleup lobbying group the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) has published an open letter signed by 150 Canadian tech leaders calling on party heads to share how they plan to build “a more sovereign, more resilient, and more prosperous Canada” at next week’s federal election debates.
The letter argues that the Canada-United States (US) trade war has been “a wakeup call” that requires policy changes to safeguard Canada’s sovereignty and ensure its future prosperity, referring to the present moment as “the greatest economic crisis our country has faced since the Second World War.”
“We need the government to—just like consumers—to step up, especially around procurement.”
Nicolas Beique,
Helcim
Signatories include AlayaCare co-founder and CEO Adrian Schauer, Axonify CEO Carol Leaman, Clio co-founder and CEO Jack Newton, Conscia co-founder and CEO Sara Remekie, Helcim founder and CEO Nicolas Beique, Jane App co-founder and CEO Ali Taylor, Lightspeed Commerce co-founder and CEO Dax Dasilva, PointClickCare co-founder and CEO Dave Wessinger, and Well Health Technologies chair and CEO Hamed Shahbazi, among others.
With an election now only weeks away, the letter’s signatories hope to see candidates to lead Canada’s next government share broader visions for building Canada that prioritize “bold industrial strategy, procurement reform, domestic capacity building, and economic sovereignty.”
“This election is happening in the middle of a global economic upheaval,” CCI president Benjamin Bergen said in a statement. “We’re watching capital markets crash and tariffs return, and yet none of the leaders have laid out a serious vision for how Canada will build wealth and protect its economic sovereignty in the years ahead. This isn’t a time for status quo thinking or recycled talking points—we need bold industrial strategy, clear commitments to domestic capacity, and leadership that’s ready to meet this moment.”
Last month, CCI put together an election primer about what innovators need to scale. That document featured a variety of specific policy recommendations for Canada’s next federal government, and Bergen recently joined The BetaKit Podcast to unpack them.
Among other things, CCI and its members are calling for the election winner to modernize the Scientific Research and Experimental Development tax credit, and ensure defence and security investments support Canadian tech firms in critical sectors like AI, cybersecurity, and quantum computing. They also want to establish a national economic security strategy to mitigate the risks of foreign takeovers and unfair trade practices, reallocate resources from allegedly ineffective programs like the Global Innovation Clusters, invest in domestic AI and compute infrastructure, and implement a Buy Canadian Tech strategy for federal procurement.
RELATED: An election primer on what Canadian innovators need
The Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association published a white paper of its own earlier this week pushing policy recommendations aimed at incentivizing domestic investment, asking for Canada’s next government to temporarily reduce the capital gains tax inclusion rate and roll out a national investment tax credit.
“The Buy Canadian movement isn’t just a trend, it’s really a turning point,” Beique told BetaKit in an interview. “Canadians, I think, are really waking up to the reality of the importance of economic sovereignty and national security and just our long-term prospects.”
Beique and the letter’s other signatories hope to see Canada’s next government commit to Buy Canadian and reform its procurement processes to prioritize domestic firms.
“We need the government to—just like consumers—to step up, especially around procurement, and really kind of put their money where their mouth is and show that they want to support Canadian innovation and champion a bold industrial and innovation strategy,” Beique said.
This is not just a federal issue. In an interview with BetaKit, Remekie said Conscia had been trying to sell to various Canadian governments since 2019 before finally securing a contract with Ontario in 2023—only to have the province nearly renege because the company wasn’t a vendor of record.
“It literally takes years to get anything done, and then what ends up happening is companies like us just typically give up because we’re trying to scale, we don’t have time and money and resources to waste on chasing down the government and trying to understand the bureaucracy and the red tape,” Remekie said.
Today’s CCI letter argues that “for too long,” Canadian government leaders have “prioritized short-term economic interests and photo ops over investment into Canada’s economic well-being,” citing the billions that have been spent luring foreign branch plants to Canada with “little or no analysis of the economic spillover effects.”
“If we’re able to go sell to Germany, and [the] UK, and France, we should be able to sell right here at home as well.”
Sara Remekie,
Conscia
The letter questioned why the federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund is reportedly still financing multi-billion-dollar foreign multinationals, while Canadian tax dollars are funding academic research that US tech giants commercialize.
“At the time when our sovereignty is questioned by our largest trading partner, we expect all political parties to bring an unabashedly pro-Canadian attitude to managing our economy, particularly economic growth,” the letter states.
The letter asserted that “now is not the time to litigate past choices,” arguing that the economic policy decisions that leaders make in the months and years ahead “will be critical for Canada’s sovereignty and prosperity.”
Remekie added that the next federal government’s approach to buying Canadian ought to “reflect the same enthusiasm that the rest of the country is showing.”
“If we’re able to go sell to Germany, and [the United Kingdom], and France, we should be able to sell right here at home as well,” she said.
Update (04/11/25): A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Conscia had a contract with the Government of Canada. BetaKit regrets the error.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by Devon Hawkins.