{"id":199271,"date":"2025-10-09T04:28:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T04:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/199271\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T04:28:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T04:28:08","slug":"canada-must-ditch-fear-of-mistakes-to-buoy-economy-secure-trade-deals-rbc-ceo-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/199271\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada must ditch fear of mistakes to buoy economy, secure trade deals, RBC CEO says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

RBC CEO Dave McKay says Canada needs to get out of its own way to secure trade deals.Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Canada needs to stop cocooning its economy in bubble wrap and leverage its significant natural resources to create \u201cgrand-bargain\u201d trade<\/a> deals with other countries, the head of Royal Bank of Canada RY-T<\/a> says. <\/p>\n

Speaking at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday, chief executive officer Dave McKay said that with more countries chasing Canadian fossil fuels to secure their energy supplies \u2013 including Germany, South Korea and Japan \u2013 Canada must move quickly to nail down deals.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir people want that product and want it delivered, but they\u2019re not going to wait forever \u2013 and they\u2019ve been tired of waiting for a while now. So, we actually have to start looking at pace and speed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s inherent fear of making a mistake means it has largely failed to take advantage of its assets, he said. But the current trade climate \u2013 including tariffs slapped on a swath of Canadian goods by the U.S., and the very real possibility that market will remain somewhat estranged even after free-trade agreements are renegotiated \u2013 means Canada needs to \u201cget out of our own way,\u201d Mr. McKay said.<\/p>\n

Doug Saunders: Carney\u2019s better off without a big Trump trade deal. Just ask the Europeans<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe royalties that will come from leveraging these deals are significant. What are we afraid of? We\u2019re afraid of making a mistake. Therefore, how do we minimize that risk? We\u2019ll have to accept some risks to do that, to create options for the next generation.\u201d <\/p>\n

The volume of trade opportunities for its natural resources and agricultural products means Canada \u201ccan get to a grand-bargain agreement\u201d with many markets, he said, but it will have to push hard and show political courage. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese are situations where your success will be defined by your legacy and what you did for Canada, versus what the polls may say in the short term,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe bubble wrap our economy, and we\u2019re waiting for someone else to solve it. We have to solve it ourselves.\u201d <\/p>\n

Approval delays and false starts of major projects have worn down companies to the point where they no longer want to invest time, money and energy in Canada, he said. Instead, they head to the U.S., where they can \u201cpush shovels in the ground\u201d and get return on their capital much more quickly. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat capital tells you very clearly, \u2018I\u2019ve got other options.\u2019 And even in this room, in the energy industry, those options often seem more attractive in the United States to build out energy infrastructure,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Mr. McKay is buoyed by what he\u2019s seeing so far in terms of the federal Major Projects Office and a vocal push by Ottawa and Prime Minister Mark Carney to get projects done, but said speed is of the essence. <\/p>\n

That means industry, government, Indigenous partners and communities working together, he said, including on projects such as the pipeline that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith<\/a> wants to see built to the B.C. coast. <\/p>\n

Lawrence Martin: It\u2019s humiliating to kowtow to Trump. But what choice does Carney have?<\/a><\/p>\n

The Alberta government is taking the lead<\/a> on the application for a major new oil pipeline in an attempt to break through several federal policies that Ms. Smith has blamed for scaring away private investors. The idea is to hammer out a proposal for a one-million-barrel-a-day bitumen pipeline. The proposal would be sent to the Major Projects Office by May, 2026. <\/p>\n

Mr. McKay said opposition to the plan is simply \u201carguing over hypotheticals,\u201d because there\u2019s no concrete route, let alone a proponent at the table. <\/p>\n

The current free-trade agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico is scheduled to be renegotiated next year. Mr. McKay doesn\u2019t expect Canada to emerge victorious from those discussions, and says it would be foolish to think that the U.S.\u2019s current nationalistic stand will dissolve. <\/p>\n

\u201cEven if I\u2019m wrong and everything goes back, why wouldn\u2019t we want to grow our economy, diversify and increase? I don\u2019t sit here at RBC saying, \u2018Oh, thankfully, I make 90 per cent of my profit in Canada. I never have to look at another country.\u2019 I\u2019m constantly growing in new markets,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: RBC CEO Dave McKay says Canada needs to get out of its own…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-199271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}