加拿大商業理事會給總理的信

致總理關於2025年預算的信

加拿大商業理事會首席執行官戈爾迪·海德 2025年10月1日
https://www.thebusinesscouncil.ca/publication/letter-to-the-prime-minister-about-the-2025-budget/

致加拿大總理馬克·卡尼議員閣下，關於2025年預算磋商的信。

尊敬的總理：

我謹代表加拿大商業理事會（BCC）感謝您給予我們參與聯邦政府財政審議的機會。我們剛剛完成了與加拿大頂尖經濟學家和政策專家的磋商，並對我們的會員進行了調查。我們收到的信息很明確：

加拿大正處於一場投資危機之中。我們國家需要更多的公共和私人投資，以提高生產力和經濟增長，並應對我們作為一個國家所麵臨的新挑戰和持續挑戰。

任何投資推動都必須納入可靠的財政計劃，以防止加拿大資產負債表進一步惡化。

甚至在過去五年全球經濟衝擊爆發之前，加拿大的商業投資就已經持續減弱，這體現在加拿大家庭和工人的生產率低下和收入停滯不前。今年，唐納德·特朗普總統領導下的美國政策轉變加速了全球貿易秩序的混亂，這隻會加深危機。

讓我們明確一點：特朗普政府的“美國優先”貿易政策赤裸裸地暴露了加拿大經濟長期存在的弱點和脆弱性。這些脆弱性並非由美國政策造成，而是加拿大自身政策行動（或不作為）的結果。

鑒於此，加拿大商界感到鼓舞的是，你們圍繞著吸引更多投資的需求製定了經濟議程。

在國家麵臨全球經濟和政治不確定性的艱難時期，你們肩負著製定促進增長預算的使命。我們支持能夠實現市場多元化、增強韌性、提升競爭力、吸引私人資本並提升經濟增長潛力的投資。降低企業投資和資本的稅率對實現這一目標至關重要。

但任何短期財政自由都必須附帶一些非常重要的條件。

首先，預算應該成為更廣泛增長戰略的一部分。加拿大的投資問題無法通過政府支出來解決。今天隻需動動筆，就能釋放私營企業和資本，而且政府無需花費一分錢。我們所需要的隻是政治勇氣。

其次，預算需要聚焦於投資。我們沒有時間或財政能力玩弄政治遊戲或花招。

第三，財政計劃需要附帶一項認真的中期赤字削減計劃。

我們不能靠借貸實現繁榮。如果你們的政府決定需要進行赤字融資投資，那麽就必須負責任地進行。任何財政狀況的惡化，即使出於投資目的，都必須輔以一項可信的、能夠逐年削減赤字的計劃。

為了具體化這一點，我們建議做出五項簡單的承諾：

製定一條可靠的赤字削減路徑。我們認識到起點艱難，也需要前期投資，但這應該以絕對赤字逐年大幅削減為保證。我們預計政府至少能在三年內將今年的高赤字減半。

控製支出。在中期內，將總支出增長控製在名義GDP增長以下，並進行全麵的、基於第一性原理的項目審查。控製支出還意味著不設立新的、沒有資金支持的永久性項目；任何持續的支出增長都應與永久性儲蓄或確定的收入來源相匹配。優先事項需要權衡利弊，而不是層層疊加。

隻為生產性投資而借款，不玩花招。 BCC支持負責任的借貸，用於那些能夠顯著提升我們經濟實力的項目和舉措，例如貿易基礎設施和戰略國防資產。然而，我們對拆分運營預算和資本預算的提議持強烈保留態度，因為專家警告稱，這沒有必要，而且有可能被用來將當前支出重新貼上“投資”的標簽。如果政府繼續推進，必須遵循清晰的公開定義和獨立的監督機製，以維護其可信度。

采用兩個明確的財政錨。除了赤字削減計劃外，我們建議采用額外的財政護欄來指導中期政策。我們至少提出了兩個建議：不斷下降的債務占GDP的比率，以及穩定或下降的利息收入負擔。政府應在財政可持續性指標方麵采取“控製和削減”的原則。

致力於促進增長的結構性改革議程。如果沒有一個明確的財政錨，一個可靠的財政計劃就不可能成功。

經濟增長。換句話說，沒有增長，就無法實現財政可持續性。我們敦促政府致力於關鍵且遲來的改革：進行全麵的稅製改革，以簡化稅製並鼓勵資本形成；消除石油和天然氣等關鍵行業的資本壁壘；並對加拿大的監管流程進行深入審查，以釋放私營部門的投資潛力。當投資者能夠評估時間和風險時，更多的項目將會順利完成。

同樣重要的是成功審查和續簽《美墨加協定》（USMCA）。如果我們不能保留對我們最大、最重要的貿易夥伴的優惠準入，加拿大就無法吸引經濟增長所需的國內外商業投資。我們的經濟增長戰略必須在增加與其他主要市場的貿易和投資的同時，保持與美國的高水平貿易和投資。

這些措施務實、非意識形態化，並且完全符合我認為我們雙方共同的目標，即為所有加拿大人創造更大的繁榮。

我們歡迎有機會進一步討論這些建議，並在您方便的時候分享我們磋商的詳細結果。

感謝您的關懷，以及您為加拿大人民做出的貢獻。

此致，

戈爾迪·海德爾

抄送：

財政和國家稅收部長弗朗索瓦-菲利普·尚皮涅

財政部副部長克裏斯·福布斯

Letter to the Prime Minister about the 2025 budget

by Goldy Hyde CEO Business Council of Canada  October 1, 2025

https://www.thebusinesscouncil.ca/publication/letter-to-the-prime-minister-about-the-2025-budget/

Letter to The Right Honourable Mark Carney, P.C., M.P., Prime Minister of Canada, regarding the 2025 budget consultations.

Dear Prime Minister, 

On behalf of the Business Council of Canada (BCC), thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the federal government’s fiscal deliberations. We have just completed consultations with leading Canadian economists and policy experts, alongside a survey of our members. The message we received is straightforward: 

• Canada is in the midst of an investment crisis. Our country needs more investment—public and private—to raise productivity and growth, and confront both new and ongoing challenges we face as a nation. 

• Any investment push must sit inside a credible fiscal plan that prevents further deterioration of Canada’s balance sheet. 

Even before the sequence of global shocks over the past half decade, business investment in Canada had been weakening and this has shown up in low productivity and stagnant incomes for the nation’s households and workers. The disruption to the global trading order, accelerated this year by U.S. policy shifts under President Donald Trump, has only deepened the crisis. 

Let’s be clear: the Trump Administration’s America First trade policy has exposed, in stark ways, longstanding weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the Canadian economy. U.S. policies did not cause these vulnerabilities. They are the result of policy actions – or inaction – here in Canada. 

In that light, Canada’s business community is encouraged that you have framed your economic agenda around the need to drive more investment into our economy.  

You have a mandate to construct a pro-growth budget at a difficult time for the nation, rife with global economic and political uncertainty. We support investments that diversify our markets, make us more resilient, improve our competitiveness, crowd in private capital, and lift the economy’s growth potential. Lower taxes on business investment and capital will be critical in this effort. 

But any fiscal latitude in the short term must come with some very important conditions.  

One, the budget should be part of a broader growth strategy. Canada’s investment problems won’t be solved by government spending. A lot can be done, with a stroke of a pen today, to unleash private enterprise and capital that doesn’t cost the government a penny. All that one needs is political courage. 

Two, the budget needs to be laser focused on investment. We have no time or fiscal capacity for political games or gimmicks. 

Three, the fiscal plan needs to come with a serious deficit reduction plan in the medium term.  

We cannot borrow our way to prosperity. If your government decides that deficit-financed investment does need to take place, it must be done responsibly. Any deterioration in the fiscal picture, even for investment purposes, must be paired with a believable plan that reduces the deficit year after year. 

To make this concrete, we recommend five simple commitments: 

1. Set a credible path for deficit reduction. We recognize the difficult starting point and the need for upfront investments, but that should be underwritten by meaningful year-over-year reductions in the absolute deficit. At a minimum, we would expect the government to halve this year’s elevated deficit within three years. 

2. Keep spending in check. Hold total spending growth below nominal GDP growth over a medium-term time horizon and run a comprehensive, first-principles program review. Spending control also means no new unfunded permanent programs; any ongoing spending increase should be matched by permanent savings or an identified revenue source. Priorities need to be traded off, not layered on top of each other. 

3. Borrow only for productive investment, with no gimmicks. The BCC supports responsible borrowing for projects and initiatives that demonstrably raise our economic capacity, such as trade-enabling infrastructure  and  strategic defence assets. However, we have significant reservations about the proposal to split the operating and capital budgets, as experts caution it is unnecessary and risks being used to relabel current spending as “investment.” If the government proceeds, it must be governed by clear, public definitions and an independent oversight mechanism to maintain credibility.  

4. Adopt two clear fiscal anchors. On top of a deficit reduction plan, we recommend the adoption of additional fiscal guardrails to guide policy over the medium term. We propose at least two: a declining debt-to-GDP ratio and stable or falling interest-to-revenue burden. The government should adopt a “contain and reduce” principle with respect to fiscal sustainability metrics. 

5. Commit to a pro-growth structural reform agenda. A credible fiscal plan cannot succeed without a growing economy. Without growth, in other words, there is no path to fiscal sustainability. We urge the government to commit to critical and overdue reforms: a comprehensive tax reform to simplify the system and encourage capital formation, remove barriers to capital in key sectors like oil and gas, and undertake a deep review of Canada’s regulatory process to unlock private sector investment. When investors can price time and risk, more projects will get over the finish line. Equally important is the successful review and renewal of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Canada will not attract the business investment, either foreign or domestic, needed to grow our economy if we do not retain preferential access to our largest and most important trading partner. Our economic growth strategy must maintain high levels of trade and investment with the United States even as we increase trade and investment with other key markets.  

These steps are pragmatic, non-ideological, and fully compatible with the objective that I believe we both share to create greater prosperity for all Canadians.  

We would welcome the chance to discuss these recommendations further and to share the detailed findings of our consultations at your convenience. 

Thank you for your consideration, and for your service to Canadians. 

Respectfully, 

Goldy Hyder

Cc:  

François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue 

Chris Forbes, Deputy Minister of Finance 

Michael Sabia, Clerk of the Privy Council