The limitations of our traditional economic models are becoming increasingly evident. We are significantly seeing this in the United States, where record corporate profits coincide with historic layoffs, stagnant wages, and widening inequality. Executive compensation continues to soar while many workers face precarious employment, and pathways to stability feel few and far between. Share buybacks reach new highs, even as investment in employee well-being, environmental responsibility, and community resilience declines.
These trends raise a fundamental question: Does our current approach to business truly serve the public good? This is not an argument for abandoning free enterprise, but rather an invitation to rethink how businesses create value and for whom. There is immense potential for reinvention.
As Canadians, we have both an opportunity and an obligation to demonstrate that private capital can advance broad, long-term well-being. Our national values of fairness, balance, inclusion, and empathy provide a foundation for modelling an economy that is prosperous, sustainable, and just.
A Tale of Two Directions
What is unfolding in the U.S. offers a cautionary lesson. In the pursuit of short-term gains, many companies have become disconnected from the communities and workers who enable their success. The implicit social contract that once guided the business of an understanding that progress is shared has weakened.
When organizations prioritize quarterly numbers above everything else, the public often bears the cost. These costs include environmental damage, weakened labour protections, suppressed wages, declining innovation, and tax avoidance that strains public services such as healthcare, transit, and infrastructure. The result is rising mistrust, polarization, and a perception that private enterprise is part of the problem rather than a partner in progress.
Canadian businesses must avoid this trajectory. We have a strong history of public-private cooperation, a robust middle class, and a culture rooted in fairness, which are meaningful advantages. However, they are not guaranteed. Without intention and vigilance, these strengths can easily erode.
Profit and Purpose: A Necessary Partnership
It is time to move beyond the outdated belief that profit and purpose are mutually exclusive. The reality is that long-term financial success depends on strengthening purpose. Companies that invest in their people, operate sustainably, and improve their communities consistently outperform those focused solely on profits and short-term results.
TELUS, for example, has long embraced community investment as part of its operating model, resulting in higher employee retention, stronger customer loyalty, and a brand built on trust. This is not just philanthropy but strategy.
In the decades ahead, leading firms will measure success not only by their financial returns but by the quality of their social and environmental impact. Global investors are demanding accountability through Environmental Social Governance (ESG) indicators, but too often ESG remains a marketing exercise. Real accountability requires leaders to ask: Who benefits from our success? Who is left behind? And how can our growth strengthen the fabric of society, not strain it?
Canada’s Distinct Advantage
Canada’s diversity, collaborative culture, and trusted public institutions offer a unique platform for ethical growth. Our multicultural population brings global insights, creativity, and adaptability. These are qualities that fuel innovation. These strengths attract talent and investment from around the world, and Canada can redefine what responsible economic leadership looks like in the 21st century.
By aligning private capital with public purpose, we can champion inclusive entrepreneurship, invest in Indigenous and newcomer-led ventures, and build industries that prioritize sustainability and resilience. Canada is known not only for its natural resources but also for shaping an economy where prosperity is measured by community well-being, not just output.
From Extraction to Empowerment
There is a fundamental difference between extractive and empowering forms of investment. Extractive models, common in parts of the gig economy, remove value from workers, nature, and local communities, and concentrate gains in the hands of a very few. Empowering models do the opposite: they reinvest in people, skills, and systems to expand opportunity.
Shopify is one example of a company that has chosen empowerment—investing in talent, digital infrastructure, and entrepreneurship to strengthen the broader ecosystem around it. Investors and entrepreneurs must embrace this mindset. That means supporting education for the future of work, backing clean technologies that address climate change, and funding enterprises that create good jobs and resilient local economies. This is not idealistic, but strategic; when communities thrive, businesses thrive.
Leadership for the Next Era
The shift toward aligning profits with purpose begins with leadership. Leaders who challenge outdated assumptions and act with courage will build organizations that attract talent, earn public trust, and perform better over time.
This requires prioritizing long-term community value over short-term pressures, measuring success through resilience as well as revenue, and recognizing that businesses exist to generate well-being, not only wealth.
Canadian companies can and should lead this evolution by embedding ethics, empathy, and equity into every decision. We now have an opportunity to lead by example and demonstrate what responsible, people-centred economic leadership truly looks like, and it’s time for us to act on it.
