For years, Canada has positioned itself as a cost-effective gateway to the North American market, offering entrepreneurs tariff-free access to many markets, chiefly the United States.
That strategy is now being tested.
With a trade war now causing growing economic uncertainty, Vikram Khurana, Board Chair at the Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC), believes Canada has to learn to stand on its own.
“Our role at TBDC is to ensure that these founders don’t just launch, but also scale from here.”
It’s a shift TBDC understands well.
The organization was originally built to deliver government-backed small business programs. But TBDC now focuses on listening intently to the market, and specializes in providing targeted support to specific founders and high-potential businesses.
In this conversation, Khurana lays out how Canada can capitalize on its unique strengths, why immigrant entrepreneurs are key to the next wave of innovation, and how TBDC wants to pave the way for global founders to establish and expand their businesses in Canada.
The following transcribed Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.
For those that may be unfamiliar, how would you sum up TBDC’s mission?
TBDC was established to help small businesses and self-employed individuals scale their businesses. Over the years, we’ve evolved from a broad small-business support agency into a highly specialized launchpad for international entrepreneurs.
Our mission is to attract and empower founders with intellectual property and innovations, by connecting them with the resources, capital, and networks to scale successfully in Canada and internationally, helping them to successfully fulfill their entrepreneurial ambitions.
We specialize in creating the right conditions for immigrant entrepreneurs that have the potential to create wealth in Canada, and we take great pride in telling their stories to inspire founders everywhere.
You’ve mentioned TBDC has evolved over the years. What has that evolution looked like?
Over the years, our programming has pivoted to helping startups study the viability of their business in new markets, identifying gaps, and helping them mitigate market expansion risk.
We’ve moved beyond broad business education to personalized and meaningful one-on-one mentorship, helping entrepreneurs refine their go-to-market strategy, achieve product-market fit faster, and unlock funding and partnerships, ensuring real, scalable growth.
What does this look like in practice with your programming?
The big shift has been to proactively develop targeted initiatives that draw founders from global innovation hotspots and help them scale.
Many founders that are expanding need help in understanding and mitigating as many risks as possible. So, we work closely with these founders, ensuring they receive personalized mentorship and guidance to mitigate product and market risks and scale confidently.
Given the current trade war between our closest neighbour, do you think Canada’s pitch to businesses needs to change?
Yes, and it already has. Canada can no longer rely on being the “nearshore” alternative to the US. Instead, we must lean into our intrinsic strengths—our world-class education system, research institutions and financing, deep AI and ML tech prowess, innovation, and access to diverse talent pools.
Consider this: some of the world’s leading AI researchers and engineers are in Canada, not Silicon Valley. Geoffrey Hinton, the 2024 Nobel Prize winner for physics, who pioneered machine learning, is based in Canada, not the US.
Our universities are also leading the way in scientific research: McGill and University Toronto and University of Waterloo are key players in the burgeoning field of Quantum Computing; and University of Alberta and UBC are leaders in environmental and climate sciences.
Some of the world’s most promising startups are emerging from Canada’s ecosystem, not simply passing through it.
Where are you seeing opportunities for Canadian founders amidst all of this?
Founders everywhere are cautious in expanding to unfamiliar markets, regardless of their potential. Canadian founders are no different. The lucrativeness and proximity of the US market has kept many Canadian founders from expanding into, say, Europe or the Middle East as an example.
Currently the US market is unstable due to politics, and Canadian founders pivoting to expand internationally should be encouraged and supported to look beyond the US. Meaningful support can help them with viability studies, introductions within local markets, and facilitation of potential customer interactions in other markets.
Newcomer entrepreneurs that set up in Canada face the same challenges as regulatory hurdles, market unfamiliarity, and access to capital. Canada was one of the first countries in the world to announce the Startup Visa Program that helps international entrepreneurs come to Canada.
TBDC supports such founders with industry connections, mentorship by experts, and shared knowledge with seasoned Canadian founders who’ve navigated these same challenges.
Do you see Canada shifting away from the US as its default market?
While the US remains a key market, Canada’s startup landscape is becoming increasingly global. Newcomer entrepreneurs bring built-in connections to emerging markets – from India to Africa to the Middle East. This creates an opportunity to use its immigrant population as an asset for Canada to position itself as an exporter to many markets, not just the US
Canada has been a source country for talent to American companies, either through employment or acquisition. We should be asking: How do we ensure the next Shopify, the next BlackBerry, or the next world-changing AI company can be founded and scaled here.
Have you noticed that international entrepreneurs are more hesitant to expand into Canada?
Fear of making fatal mistakes while scaling their companies is a reality for most founders. Canada has many shining examples of immigrants who have built global businesses (and we’ve helped a few of them through TBDC). Founders look for three things: economic stability, a strong runway for growth, and a regulatory environment that encourages entrepreneurship. Canada delivers on all three.
Even as market dynamics shift in the US, Canada offers unparalleled access to global markets through trade agreements like CETA (with the EU) and the CPTPP (with Japan and the Pacific region). The US will always be an important market, but entrepreneurs today see Canada as more than a launching pad—it’s a market worth investing and scaling in.
Given TBDC’s evolution, where do you see its role in shaping Canada’s startup ecosystem?
Immigrant entrepreneurs hold great potential to help Canada’s economy. Their businesses create jobs; they bring new perspectives and innovative ideas; they strengthen our global economic ties while supporting our country’s economic growth. Our role at TBDC is to ensure that these founders don’t just launch, but also scale from here.
That’s why we are working on amplifying these success stories—we’re documenting 50 case studies of global founders who have built impactful businesses in Canada and using them to inform what’s needed to create a more competitive, entrepreneur-friendly environment for tech companies.
We also need to change the conversation around immigration. Not every immigrant is a job seeker. As mentioned, many are job creators. If we provide the right infrastructure—access to capital, streamlined regulations, and talent connections—these entrepreneurs can drive the next wave of economic growth for Canada through innovation-centric companies.
What excites you the most about Canada’s tech sector right now?
Canada is at an inflection point. By nature, founders thrive in, and often create disruption as a way of establishing businesses. Can Canada use this politically tumultuous time in the US to its advantage? Can we use our entrepreneurial spirit to be recognized as global leaders in innovating?
The next decade will be influenced by how we use the current instability in our chief market to diversify and grow in other markets. TBDC’s winning aspiration is to be a part of Canada’s entrepreneurial spirit. This makes our job so exciting.
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For further entrepreneurial insights, sector-specific information, or to learn more about our programs and entrepreneur success stories, visit TBDC’s website.
All photos provided by TBDC.