Authored by Siavash Shekarian, Chair of CILA’s Business Immigration Committee.
Canada’s productivity challenge is the silent crisis of our time.
For decades, we have rested on the laurels of a resource-rich landscape, yet our primary engine of prosperity—productivity—has stalled.
We have a widening “prosperity gap” that hits Canadians where it hurts: their wallets. Today, our labor productivity is roughly 30% lower than that of the United States, and real GDP per capita has seen a persistent decline. This isn’t just a technical glitch in a spreadsheet; it’s an “emergency,” as characterized by the Bank of Canada, that manifests as stagnant wages and a strained standard of living.
There is no magic-bullet to addressing the productivity crisis. Rather, it requires the pursuit of various policy initiatives in tandem such as encouraging more business investment.
One major untapped solution welcoming more entrepreneurs and investors to Canada.
For decades, Canada has marketed itself as a premier destination for global talent. We’ve built a national brand on the promise that if you are ambitious and hard-working, our doors are open. But today, that promise is fraying. A new report from the Canadian Immigration Lawyers Association (CILA), Engine of Growth, issues a stark warning: our business immigration system is far from achieving its potential of providing high-octane fuel for our economy. Instead, it has become a bottleneck of red tape, outdated categories, and missed opportunities.
If Canada is to remain competitive in a global economy defined by rapid technological shifts and aging demographics, we must stop treating business immigration as a niche policy area and start treating it as the national economic priority it is.
The problem isn’t a lack of interest by business immigrants; it’s a lack of ambition by our policymakers. The current system is struggling under the weight of its own complexity. Programs that were once flagship initiatives, like the Start-Up Visa (SUV), have become plagued by staggering 10-year backlogs.
This is more than just a bureaucratic headache; it’s an economic self-inflicted wound. When a visionary entrepreneur is forced to wait years for a decision, they don’t just wait—they take their capital, their jobs, and their tax revenue to the United States, Australia, or the UK. We are effectively exporting our future prosperity.
To fix this, we need a fundamental shift in how we approach the “business” of immigration.
First, the federal government’s main goal should be to develop a framework that enables it to test and iterate various business immigration programs until desirable policy outcomes are achieved. Employing an iterative approach will enable evidence-based policymaking and also avoid previous shortcomings of launching new programs and then abruptly shutting them down when policy objectives are not met, as was the case with the failed Immigrant Investor Venture Capital Pilot about a decade ago.
Second, we recommend the formation of a federal Canadian Business Immigration Council comprised of key government stakeholders and other experts to advise the government on business immigration program design and evaluate performance to ensure the programs can advance national economic development and prosperity objectives.
Critics will argue that in a time of housing shortages and infrastructure strain, we should be pulling back on immigration. But this misses the point of business immigration entirely. These aren’t just “newcomers”; they are job creators. A single successful entrepreneur can sustain dozens of Canadian households. They build the very companies that pay the taxes used to fund our schools and hospitals. They attract the capital necessary to boost productivity and grow wages for Canadians.
Our report isn’t just a critique; it’s a call to action. It reminds us that Canada’s greatest resource has always been its ability to attract people who want to build something better. But “potential” is a perishable commodity. If we continue to let our business immigration programs languish in inefficiency, we will find ourselves on the sidelines of the next industrial revolution.
It is time to stop tinkering at the edges. We need to overhaul the engine. By implementing the reforms suggested by CILA—a paradigm shift in how our policymakers think and the formation of an expert council that help the federal government achieve desirable outcomes for Canadians —we can ensure that Canada remains one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business.
The global race for talent is on. If we don’t clear the path for the world’s entrepreneurs and investors, someone else will. It’s time to get Canada’s engine of growth back on track.
