With a Donald Trump-led America set to abdicate its global leadership on the free trade front, challenges for corporate Canada will increase. But so will opportunities. And while attracting talent and investment might be atop to-do lists for Canadian businesses, a far more worrying corporate deficit in the looming Trump era needs attention: courage. That applies to political backrooms as well as executive suites.
Corporate courage has not traditionally been a strong suit for Canada. Proximity to and reliance on the world’s No. 1 economy has retarded its development. However, an American era of protectionism and self-concern could remedy that complacency and expose the shortcomings of myopic business visions. The incoming president’s campaign promises of cutting federal corporate income tax, meanwhile, could erase Canada’s current competitive business tax advantage.
Add in the growing complications in bringing pipelines or any other major project to market in this country and the challenges ahead for even a courageous enterprise are enormous.
Canada’s corporate courage shortfall was underscored earlier this year in TheFuture Belongs to the Bold. The Deloitte report noted that nearly 90% of Canadian businesses lack the courage needed to cultivate sustainable prosperity. It pointed out that too many risk-averse companies fail to make the needed short-term investments to seed long-term opportunity. And opportunity abounds – not just in a recovering American economy.
The Trump ascendancy signals a new world order. Canada can play a leading role in it. Belief that leadership will come from China in the absence of American free trade enlightenment is misguided: the Asian manufacturing giant still faces too many hurdles from internal governance dysfunction and a backward economy. Canadian business, on the other hand, needs to leverage the global perception of youth, optimism and outward global attitudes connected with the country’s relatively new political leadership.
But it can’t do that without upping its tolerance for risk.
