Yet when asked what entrepreneurship means, he rarely mentions money.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you need to be motivated by the idea that you actually want to create something,\u201d Archibald said.<\/p>\n
That idea sits at the heart of this year\u2019s Hunter Prize<\/a>, a national competition seeking solutions to one of Canada\u2019s most pressing economic challenges: declining entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n Supported by the Hunter Family Foundation<\/a>, the competition offers up to $50,000 in prizes for innovative, practical, and fiscally responsible ideas to help reverse the trend.<\/p>\n At first glance, this so-called \u201cwicked problem<\/a>\u201d seems like a niche concern for economists.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t. Entrepreneurship is ultimately about who gets to build the future.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cA country that cannot build its own future, through free people daring together to create what others need, will eventually rent that future from someone else,\u201d said Jeff Adamson, founder of Neo Financial and SkipTheDishes, and one of this year\u2019s Hunter Prize judges<\/a>.<\/p>\n Problem-solving mindset<\/p>\n This future-focused perspective surfaced repeatedly in The Hub\u2019s conversations with people who have spent their entire lives building companies from scratch.<\/p>\n For Derrick Hunter, president and CEO of Bluesky Equities\u2014whose family helped establish both the Hunter Prize and the University of Calgary\u2019s Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking\u2014entrepreneurship is the bedrock of all economic opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cEntrepreneurism isn\u2019t an art or a science,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a practice, and it applies to us all. It is about identifying opportunities in situations of imperfect information and having the conviction to act.\u201d<\/p>\n For Hunter, entrepreneurship is simply practical problem-solving.<\/p>\n \u201cMy mother is an artist, and she was the first one to say that if you\u2019re an artist, you\u2019re an entrepreneur, right? If you\u2019re going to sell your paintings, you better be able to hustle and better be able to understand the market and how to get your brand out there and how to proceed if you\u2019re going to build a following.\u201d<\/p>\n That ability to notice a problem and do something about it is crucial. It requires both conviction and a leap of faith.<\/p>\n \u201cEntrepreneurship is optimism put into action,\u201d said Shelley Kuipers, co-founder of The 51, Canada\u2019s largest women-led financial platform and venture firm.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the courage to build something that doesn\u2019t exist yet, and the persistence to keep building when the outcome is uncertain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n i<\/p>\n Women walk in the financial district in Toronto, September 29, 2021. Evan Buhler\/The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n More than a few have described the experience as terrifying yet liberating.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like somebody gave me freedom,\u201d Archibald said. \u201cI would live and die by the decisions I made.\u201d<\/p>\n Canada\u2019s builder problem<\/p>\n Canada is producing fewer builders than it used to. The share of self-employed Canadians has slipped from 17 percent to just under 13 percent. More alarming is the data on self-employed Canadians who actually hire employees\u2014the very group that drives corporate growth\u2014which has plummeted by more than half since 2000.<\/p>\n The same pattern appears in business formation. Statistics Canada data show Canada\u2019s business entry rate fell from 15 percent in 2008 to 12 percent in 2023.<\/p>\n While the country continues to generate successful companies, many of the companies Canadians associate with success\u2014even relatively recent ones such as Shopify and Lululemon\u2014are now decades old.<\/p>\n In a recent episode<\/a> of Alberta Edge, Adamson noted that many of Canada\u2019s most recognizable brands were founded so long ago that they predate modern technology.<\/p>\n \u201cRoyal Bank was pre-electricity, I think,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen they started up. It was still during the fur trade when a lot of these companies first started up.\u201d<\/p>\n Adamson\u2019s point may have been tongue-in-cheek, but not by much.<\/p>\n The institution that would eventually become RBC was founded in Halifax in 1864 to serve Atlantic Canada\u2019s fishing, shipping, timber, and trade industries\u2014nearly two decades before another entrepreneur came along and built Canada\u2019s first water generator in Ottawa, which still powers the capital today.<\/p>\n As The Hub has documented<\/a>, the median age of Canada\u2019s 15 largest public companies was an astonishing 122 years in 2021. In the U.S., it was just 45 years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge isn\u2019t that we know how to build great companies,\u201d Adamson said. \u201cIt\u2019s why did we slow down doing that?\u201d<\/p>\n In his view, the country has shifted its focus from creating new wealth to managing what already exists. The numbers, as Hub contributor Charles Lammam chronicles<\/a>, are troubling.<\/p>\n Graphic credit: Janice Nelson<\/p>\n \u201cIn a lot of ways, I think we started treating Canada almost like an inheritance to be managed and not a project to be built,\u201d Adamson said.<\/p>\n Why it matters<\/p>\n Entrepreneurship is one of the primary ways a society renews itself.<\/p>\n Startups challenge stagnant incumbents, bring new ideas to market, create jobs, and solve the hyper-specific problems that massive institutions tend to ignore.<\/p>\n Many of the modern conveniences Canadians now take for granted\u2014from online commerce to agricultural innovations and energy technologies\u2014started as a risky, unproven idea that someone decided to pursue anyway.<\/p>\n That willingness to embrace the unknown is more critical than ever as Canada faces a rapidly shifting economic landscape shaped by AI, changing demographics, global competition, and sluggish productivity growth.<\/p>\n Ask any young person how they feel about the future, and their answer is revealing. Many no longer assume life will be easier than it was for their parents.<\/p>\n Solutions to these challenges won\u2019t come solely from government mandates or corporate boardrooms. They will come from individuals willing to experiment with something different. This requires an enabling environment and a culture that rewards risk-taking.<\/p>\n It\u2019s why this year\u2019s Hunter Prize focuses on building \u201ca new entrepreneurship agenda that makes it easier to start, build, finance, and scale firms.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal is to encourage more people to spot opportunities, tackle problems, and build things of value.<\/p>\n For Archibald, that remains the enduring appeal of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you create a business, you create almost like a living entity,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you do it properly, everybody feels like they have a hand in creating something worthwhile.\u201d<\/p>\n The danger of Canada\u2019s entrepreneurial slowdown isn\u2019t just a lack of new startups. A country that stops producing builders eventually stops producing opportunities\u2014leaving the next generation to simply live off the achievements of the past.<\/p>\n The Hunter Prize submission period is open until August 2, 2026.<\/p>\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Hub_HunterPrize2026_banner_1400x356_v1E.jpg\")
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