He urged businesses and policy makers to ramp up trade diversification and AI adoption to avoid an outcome where GDP growth does not recover, Canada becomes a less attractive place to invest and affordability worsens. “We can be victims of U.S. tariffs and AI disruption, or we can lean into structural change, expand our internal market, diversify our trade, embrace new technology and raise our productivity.”
If adopting AI faster is the solution, we are in danger.Macklem said Bank of Canada research and data show that while businesses have started to adjust to the new reality, trade diversification is just getting underway, while AI adoption in Canada has so far been slow. Complicating the picture in Canada is slowing population growth.
The small but growing share of exporters that have increased sales to markets outside the United States is largely limited to existing clients, Macklem noted.
“Businesses have not found many new clients just yet. And with so much of our exports going to the United States, the increase in other markets only provides a partial offset,” he said.
Meanwhile, AI adoption looks to be gaining traction, but it’s early days.
Macklem warned that if the Canadian economy fails to restructure, productivity and GDP growth will not recover and Canada will become a less attractive place to invest. In this dire scenario, he said businesses will become less competitive, job and wage growth will be weak, incomes won’t recover, and affordability will worsen.
“That’s what we really can’t afford,” he said. “That’s why we need to lean into this structural change.”
Macklem said the economic restructuring he envisions is going to take years and although it has been less than a year since the protectionist policies of the United States became clear through tariffs, businesses can’t afford to wait to respond.
“Our trade relationship with the United States is fundamentally fractured. Population growth is lower. AI is coming,” he said after his speech. “They’re not temporary, these changes. They’re not they’re not going to go away.
He added that Canadian companies have been slower to adopt AI than their U.S. counterparts, which have embraced the new technology without knowing how quickly it will transform our lives and economies.
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