{"id":869563,"date":"2026-10-03T16:46:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T16:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/869563\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T16:46:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T16:46:17","slug":"quebec-has-lost-its-economic-ambition-high-profile-business-leaders-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/869563\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec has lost its economic ambition, high-profile business leaders say"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Andrew Lutfy, owner and CEO of fashion retailer Groupe Dynamite Inc., says Quebeckers shy away from talking about wealth but shouldn\u2019t if they want to stop thinking small.Boris R. Thebia\/The Globe and Mail<\/p>\n

A group of high-profile business leaders is calling on Quebec\u2019s<\/a> future government to take bolder action to foster growth and build collective wealth, saying the province has lost its economic ambition and is drifting further and further behind other jurisdictions in many aspects of daily life. <\/p>\n

Billionaire Andrew Lutfy, owner and chief executive of fashion retailer Groupe Dynamite Inc. GRGD-T<\/a>, is spearheading the corporate appeal, which comes three days before Quebec\u2019s provincial election<\/a>. He\u2019s joined by Alain Bouchard, founder and chairman of convenience giant Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ATD-T<\/a>, Laurent Beaudoin, whose family built Bombardier Inc. BBD-B-T<\/a>, and Paul Desmarais III, senior vice-president of Power Corporation of Canada POW-T<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe more wealth Quebec creates, the more choices it will have, the more capacity it will have to invest, to get through harder times, to finance its priorities, to decide its own fate,\u201d Mr. Lutfy said during a speech at Montreal\u2019s Four Seasons Hotel on Friday, which was attended by about 400 Quebec Inc. executives and entrepreneurs. He said Quebeckers shy away from talking about wealth but shouldn\u2019t if they want to stop thinking small. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s rare for business leaders in Quebec to go public with their concerns and even rarer for them to do so at such a sensitive time, just ahead of a provincial vote. The separatist Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois is poised to win power<\/a> on Monday, bringing an end to eight years of government under the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec. <\/p>\n

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Mr. Lutfy insisted his initiative is non-partisan and that he\u2019s not telling anyone who to vote for. He said timing of his appeal speaks more to the urgency of the matter and the fact that people are \u201cpaying attention\u201d to issues right now. He cited research showing Quebec ranks in the bottom 10 per cent of Canadian provinces and U.S. states on key prosperity performance indicators. <\/p>\n

Quebec can do much better and business leaders are ready to take up the challenge if political leaders create the conditions and \u201cclear the path,\u201d he said. He called on the next provincial government to set specific targets on gross domestic product, adding that 3-per-cent real GDP growth a year over the next several years and an economy worth $1-trillion by 2033 were achievable goals.<\/p>\n

In a report on the state of Quebec\u2019s finances released in August ahead of the election campaign, the provincial finance department projected that real GDP growth would be 0.7 per cent this year and 1.4 per cent next year. <\/p>\n

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\u201cYou look at the state of our infrastructure, roads, bridges, hospitals, the homelessness in our midst. It\u2019s mind-blowing,\u201d Mr. Lutfy said. \u201cThe problems are deepening and we need more money, there\u2019s no question … We\u2019re very good at talking about distributing wealth in Quebec but where will it come from? At some point, we need to talk about wealth creation, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quebec is a global power in aluminum and aerospace with renewable energy resources and several multinationals that are the envy of the world. But its economy faces several structural pressure points, including an aging population. Since U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, the province has also been the biggest Canadian casualty of his protectionist trade agenda.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters after Mr. Lutfy\u2019s speech via video feed from Asia, Mr. Bouchard said Quebec remains overburdened by regulations, some of which were put in place decades ago and have never been reviewed, and that those need to be addressed. He said the Quebec government also needs to break out of its impulse to provide subsidies to companies, which often benefits foreign-based corporations to the detriment of local entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n

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

Alain Bouchard, founder and chairman of convenience giant Alimentation Couche-Tard, in Montreal last year.Christinne Muschi\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The Couche-Tard chairman recently called for the government to give workers more time to learn French to facilitate their integration. More generally, he said government needs to concentrate its efforts on fundamental missions such as health and education, suggesting Quebec has a bloated civil service that is stretching needlessly beyond its core competencies. <\/p>\n

Corporations and investors will put their money elsewhere if this doesn\u2019t change and to some degree, that\u2019s already happening, Mr. Lutfy and Mr. Bouchard said. <\/p>\n

Mr. Lutfy said Groupe Dynamite does business in about 50 provinces and states in addition to Britain and that Quebec is \u201cthe most onerous jurisdiction to do business in.\u201d He called it \u201cuninvestable, or at least, much less attractive than other markets around the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr. Bouchard said Couche-Tard continues to push its expansion and now operates more than 17,000 stores internationally. But he said the company is underinvested in Canada compared with the revenue the country represents, notably because of a complex and costly regulatory regime. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs business leaders, if we don\u2019t speak up about this, if we don\u2019t intervene, we\u2019ll just continue to complain amongst ourselves,\u201d Mr. Bouchard said, adding that he\u2019s taking a risk in going public with his thoughts. \u201cThe situation has become intolerable. We need to do something about it.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Andrew Lutfy, owner and CEO of fashion retailer Groupe Dynamite Inc., says Quebeckers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[2428,2416,2429,4,2408,2430,28,103,2407,2422,2423,2418,2409,2406,101,526,192,2421,2414,2441,2410,2411,2420,2417,149,983,2431,2413,2436,2437,2439,2434,2438,2432,2435,2412,2425,2426,111,2424,2433,2415,74,2427,2419,194,965,2440],"class_list":["post-869563","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-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\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}