PwC–Chamber: Canada invents and digs — then exports the value

Canada keeps inventing and digging up value, then watching too much of it leave the country — that is the core finding of Beyond Potential, a PwC Canada and Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released Tuesday on five sectors that should be national strengths: AI and quantum, mining and critical minerals, energy, defence and agri-food.

The authors say Canada has the resources, research labs, skilled workers and market access to lead, but underbuilt value chains — growth-stage capital for AI firms, 10-to-15-year mine timelines and offshore processing, energy exports that still send about 85% to the U.S., defence spending that risks buying foreign systems instead of Canadian IP, and agri-food stuck in commodities rather than ingredients and processing — block scale-up.

Common bottlenecks cut across industries: slow permitting, thin project and growth capital, infrastructure chokepoints, specialized talent gaps and fragmented policy. Chamber CEO Candace Laing said Canada is slow and does not follow through enough; PwC’s Anita McOuat said the barriers are fixable and inside Canada’s control — keep more processing, commercialization and scaling at home.

With U.S. trade pressure pushing diversification, the report argues market forces alone have not produced enough global Canadian champions. If capital gaps, slow procurement and weak domestic demand signals are not fixed quickly, governments may need a more active hand — a competitiveness bill that shows up as higher productivity or keeps showing up as higher living costs.