Canadian government policies still present more hurdles for homegrown tech companies than U.S. tariffs, say CEOs of several tech firms.

In fact, the Trump tariffs are an opportunity to change those federal and provincial government policies to better support tech companies and innovation and grow a Canadian technology powerhouse, they said during a national roundtable hosted by the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI).

“A crisis is a terrible thing to waste,” said Nic Beique (photo at right), CEO of Helcim, a Calgary-based fintech offering payment solutions for businesses.

“I think we can become a data infrastructure superpower,” he said. “This is our moment to start building an audacious vision of what Canada can be.”

Canada needs to define its strategic priorities, like other countries are doing, so it can target government support and investment, said Gina Pecore (photo at left), CEO of Mount Pearl, Nfld.-based Genoa Design International Ltd., which provides 3D modelling and production design services to shipbuilding and ocean industries.

“We also need a higher appetite for risk and more empowerment of the bureaucracy to make things move,” Pecore said.

Instead of worrying about what the Trump administration is doing, “we should be out storming the beaches globally right now to get us started in conversations [to increase our exports],” said Craig McLellan (photo at right), CEO of Etobicoke, Ont.-based ThinkOn, which helps businesses with data management and cloud computing.

Trump’s 25-percent tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, auto parts and vehicles so far aren’t affecting the tech companies’ relationship with American customers and investors, the CEOs said. None of the six companies are in those sectors directly hit by tariffs.

Sean O’Connor (photo at left), whose Salmon Arm, B.C.-based company 4AG Robotics, which is raising funding in a Series B round, said “there’s been a tonne of interest” from American investors. 4AG Robotics has developed mushroom-harvesting robots.

“Investors in the U.S. still like Canadian companies. That’s super-encouraging,” O’Connor said.

 However, if Trump’s tariffs start to affect 4AG Robotics’ customers in the United States, the company may have to look at starting to build its robots in the U.S., O’Connor said. As a proud Canadian, he said, “It breaks my heart but that could actually be the option we have to [choose].”

Beique said Helcim’s entire team is based in Calgary, although two-thirds of the company’s business comes from the U.S.

“What we’ve seen so far [from the impact of U.S. tariffs] is Canadians are even more supportive,” he said. Also, “We haven’t seen a pullback from the American side.”

Sana Remekie (photo at right), CEO of Conscia, said her company has been able to diversify its market and most of its customers are now in Canada and Europe, which has shielded the company from the direct impact of U.S. tariffs.

Toronto-based Conscia helps Google enterprises and the Ontario government orchestrate data and simplify complex digital infrastructure across their technology systems.

The U.S. is a large and important market, Remekie said. However, “if we do want to do more work in the U.S., with Trump we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

Pecore, whose Genoa Design International firm works largely in the defence and security sector, said the company hasn’t been directly affected yet by the U.S. tariffs.

However, she added: “For anyone working in defence and security, one of the worries is how this trade war will spill over into a defence piece.”

Genoa Design International has a lot of customers in the U.S., she added. “The trade war certainly will affect the defence sector in Canada because we buy a lot of products from the U.S. and vice-versa.”

It is also uncertain what an ongoing trade war will mean long term for the defence relationship between Canada and the U.S., whose North American defence and security systems are still closely interconnected, Pecore said.

Government procurement of Canadian technology is “an absolute priority”

Hélène Moore (photo at right), CEO of PharmBD, said the Canadian biotech and pharmaceutical  industries haven’t been affected yet by U.S. tariffs, but “we’re still holding our breath.” PharmBD, with locations in Montreal, Paris and Tokyo, provides strategic advising services in the fields of pharmaceutical, biotech and medtech globally.

U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that his tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs will be coming “very shortly.” Trump has long bemoaned a lack of domestic pharmaceutical production and has repeatedly promised tariffs to bring more production capacity into the U.S.

If Trump imposes tariffs on pharmaceuticals, it will likely drive up costs and cause shortages of critical Canadian-made drugs, according to a study led by the University of Toronto.

Up to now, “The U.S. has been a fantastic success story of innovation, of letting people think and invent and translate all that into economic value,” Moore said.

But the Trump administration is cutting research funding and science programs and censoring “free thinking and brains,” she said. “Now I’m hearing from academics from everywhere wanting to come to Canada where you can write a [research] grant and you don’t have to censor for key words.”

Pecore said that no matter what the Trump administration does, procurement by Canadian governments of Canadian technologies and services “is now an absolute priority.”

“This is the time for Canada to have the courage of Canadian procurement and the risk appetite as well,” she said.

McLellan pointed out that ThinkOn is the only Canadian company competing with seven U.S. organizations for federal government cloud computing business in Canada.

“It’s an example of where procurement and leadership failed the ecosystem and really failed the supply chain,” he said. “We all have to step up right now and help all levels of government understand that there are great suppliers here.”

Remekie of Conscia agreed, noting that she has had some “major grievances” with the Ontario government over procurement.

Companies have to get on the “Vendor of Record” list to be able to sell to the Ontario government, a process that’s complicated and cumbersome, she said.

Most of the companies, especially digital technology firms, that are on the Vendor of Record list are U.S. companies and they are currently favoured, Remekie said.

U.S. companies secure Canadian government contracts by establishing a Canadian entity, but that entity “is really just an office in Canada with a bunch of salespeople that sell to the government. The actual work happens in the U.S.,” she said.

“So the brain drain has already happened in a big way, where our engineers and IT professionals have already gone to the U.S.,” she added.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has vowed that all U.S.-based companies are banned from participating in provincial procurement as part of retaliatory measures against U.S. tariffs.

However, the province’s new Procurement Restriction Policy defines a U.S. business as a supplier, manufacturer or distributor that has its headquarters or main office in the U.S. and fewer than 250 full-time employees in Canada at the time of the procurement process.

That means a U.S. company with more than 250 employees can still technically bid for Ontario government procurement, which amounts to $30 billion a year. The policy also allows procurement from U.S. companies when they are the only viable source for the good or service and the procurement cannot be delayed.

Also, Ontario’s Procurement Restriction Policy doesn’t apply when public sector entities use existing Vendor of Record arrangements, so companies – including U.S. firms – that have already been authorized to do business with the province could continue to do so.

“In our own Canadian market, let’s at least give Canadian companies a chance to be suppliers and vendors for our own government instead of spending billions of dollars on non-Canadian vendors,” Remekie said.

Canada needs to target sectors for support, grow exports and promote its “brand”

Pecore said as part of a more strategic approach to innovation and growing Canada’s economy, there are some industries and sectors, such as healthcare, regional services, marine tech and others, where Canada has advantages and should be investing in and scaling into global competitors.

O’Connor agreed, saying Canada needs to grow its exports as much as possible. “We’ve got a lot of natural resources. We’ve got to find a way to turn [those] into money and grow that [economic] pie,” he said.

Canada also needs to find a way to attract more private capital to tech companies, rather than depending on government funding. For example, government could implement a policy of charging no capital gains tax on money reinvested in Canada, O’Connor said.

The CEOs said Canada also needs to be more aggressive about promoting its “brand” and protecting its sovereignty when it comes to homegrown technologies and international trade.

“There is this element of trust that Canadians and Canadian companies have on a global stage that I think at this point U.S. companies are losing,” Remekie said. “Not because they’re at fault but who’s leading them is [i.e. President Trump].”

Canada’s brand includes a value system that the country cares about all its citizens and about diversity, equity and inclusion, “things that south of the border they’re starting to not care about,” she said.

Remekie encouraged all Canadian companies to publicly declare their values and what they stand for.

“I think we need to be unapologetic about being Canada,” Beique said. “There’s amazing talent here and we can grow amazing companies right here.”

“I think the world is looking to us right now as the model of how to push back in this insane trade war,” he said.

Canada also needs to strengthen its sovereignty by breaking down barriers between provinces and working together as Canadians, Moore said. She pointed to a recent strategic alliance between BIOQuébec and Life Sciences Ontario to collaborate to strengthen the life sciences sector.

Remekie said Canada also needs to push for data and knowledge sovereignty. She noted that all of the global players in AI and big data are U.S. companies. “All of these companies are essentially taking our data and learning from it and making their [AI] models better.”

“We need to be putting some capital into homegrown AI companies so that we can keep our data here, we can keep our knowledge, the learning from all of that data in-house,” Remekie said. “That will lead to economic sovereignty and freedom.”

When it comes to the federal election campaign and innovation, Moore said the campaign has been “polluted by a manufacturing narrative” that worked in the 1950s but is outmoded now in the global digital and knowledge economy.

“I would like to hear about bold solutions,” Moore said. “We are in an economy of knowledge, not an economy of making things."

McLellan said Canadians have spent “eight years talking to a party in power who would nod their heads, acknowledge that they’ve heard us and then actually do nothing to demonstrate that we were at least speaking clearly and giving them fair ideas.”

“I worry about four more years of being listened to but not really heard,” he said.

But Beique said the difference now is that, spurred by the Trump tariffs, the entire Canadian populace is awake and filled with Canadian pride.

“I think when we’re pushing the [next federal] government for policy changes, there’ll be wind behind our backs this time.”

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