We cannot build economic resilience by exporting potential

Canada is one of the world's great agricultural nations. We have an enormous land base, a sophisticated farming sector, world-class research institutions, an educated workforce and a global reputation for being a reliable supplier producing high-quality, sustainably grown crops.

Those are extraordinary competitive advantages. For too long, however, we have been satisfied to capture only part of their value.

Next week, Prime Minister Mark Carney will bring global investors, Canadian CEOs and public-sector leaders together in Toronto for the Canada Investment Summit. The ambition is significant: attract long-term capital, move major projects forward and position Canada as one of the world's most compelling places to invest.

Value-added agriculture and food processing must be on the agenda. It sits at the intersection of many of the issues Canada is trying to solve at once: productivity, investment attraction, domestic manufacturing, trade diversification, food security, innovation and economic resilience. It is agriculture, but it is also advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, engineering and intellectual property.

And it turns something Canada already does exceptionally well into products the world increasingly needs.

Our work across the sector suggests that expanding ingredient manufacturing, food processing and bioproduct production could generate as much as $25 billion in additional annual economic activity in Canada and support approximately 17,000 jobs. That is the scale of the opportunity if we turn more of what we grow into higher-value products here at home.

It is also the kind of opportunity that can bring regions of the country together. Investing in the crops and agricultural strengths of the Prairies is not simply a Western Canadian opportunity; it is an opportunity for capital, technology, manufacturing and expertise from across Canada to help build something of national importance.

From where I sit, working alongside companies that are commercializing Canadian innovation and building new markets, the question is increasingly not whether Canada can innovate. We can. I see it every day. The question is whether we can mobilize the capital required to turn that innovation into industrial capacity.

Innovation has moved forward. Now, investment must follow.

Our current trade dispute with the United States has made one thing unmistakably clear: relationships we once considered certain can change quickly. Governments around the world are becoming more deliberate about what they produce domestically, where they source critical goods and which countries they can rely on. Investors, too, are looking differently at resilience, supply chains and long-term economic security.

For Canada, that uncertainty presents real challenges. But it also presents one of the most significant economic opportunities we have seen in a generation. Canada has what the world wants, but our next economic chapter cannot only be about what we have. It must be about what we do with it.

We grow some of the world's best peas, lentils, canola, wheat and oats, then export much of that production as commodities. Other countries process our crops into higher-value ingredients, food, feed and bioproducts, capturing the manufacturing investment, intellectual property, jobs and economic activity that come with them.

Today's world demands that we become more ambitious. The question is not whether we should continue exporting agricultural commodities. Of course we should. The question is how we build on that strength by also processing more of what we grow here at home.

For years, Canada has produced reports describing our potential. We have commissioned reports identifying productivity challenges, studied barriers to investment and talked about the importance of diversifying trade. That work matters, but eventually strategy must become execution.

Investment decisions are being made now. Processing facilities are going to be built now. Companies are deciding where they will commercialize technology, locate production and invest capital. Canada is not competing against an idea; we are competing against jurisdictions actively putting forward incentives, infrastructure, capital and regulatory environments designed to win those investments.

This is where the conversations at the Canada Investment Summit matter. If Canada wants to attract productive capital and commercialize more Canadian innovation at home, we need to create the conditions to attract and support the companies that will turn our agricultural advantage into industrial capacity.

Canada already has the crops, the science, the people and access to markets. And we have a global economy that increasingly places a premium on reliable partners capable of producing essential goods.

The opportunity is not simply to sell more of what Canada grows to the world. It is to make Canada the place where more of what the world needs is made.

Now is the time to invest in making it here.