Two Big Days for Canadian Business: What the Premiers' Summit and the Japan Deal Mean for You

Published: July 23, 2025 | Shannon Peel, MarketAPeel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOHPvo_HzV4

Two things happened this week that tell us a lot about where Canada is headed and where the real opportunities are for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone thinking about their next career move.

The premiers wrapped up a three-day summit in Huntsville, Ontario. And the US and Japan announced a major trade framework deal. Both events, read together, paint a picture that most Canadians are not paying attention to. Let's change that.

The Premiers' Summit: Canada Finally Trading With Itself

Here is something worth sitting with: it took Donald Trump and his tariff threats to get Canadian premiers to seriously tackle internal trade barriers. But whatever the reason, the movement is real and the opportunity window is open.

At the Council of the Federation meeting in Huntsville, BC Premier David Eby signed separate agreements with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, and Yukon Premier Mike Pemberton, with all parties committing to continue removing trade barriers between provinces and territories.

Why does this matter economically? Because the cost of fragmented internal markets is staggering. PM Carney has estimated that removing barriers to the free movement of workers, goods, and services would increase the size of Canada's economy by $250 billion equivalent to more than $6,000 for every Canadian. And at the federal level, the One Canadian Economy Act (Bill C-5) became law in June 2025, eliminating all 53 federal exceptions under the Canada Free Trade Agreement.

We are not at seamless sea-to-sea-to-sea free trade yet — most of the remaining barriers sit at the provincial level. But the direction is clear, and the direction creates opportunity.

Where the Manufacturing Gaps Are

At the summit, Premier Doug Ford flagged something practical and specific: Canada does not manufacture its own aluminum cans. We produce the aluminum, ship it to the US for fabrication, and import the finished cans back. Every step in that round trip costs money — logistics, labour, and now tariffs on top. The same gap exists with steel I-beams and rebar. Canada builds towers with steel it does not produce domestically.

These are not obscure industrial niches. These are fundamental inputs for construction, food and beverage, and consumer goods — industries that are not going anywhere.

If you are already in aluminum or steel manufacturing and looking at expansion, this is a signal worth taking seriously. If you are an investor looking for a manufacturing play with a ready-made domestic market and government tailwinds, this is where to look. And it is not just Ontario that needs this capacity, the economics of logistics mean that Western Canada needs its own supply chain too. Find out where the Coca-Cola and Pepsi bottlers in your region are located, and that tells you where a can manufacturing plant actually makes sense to site.

How to Fund It

The capital question is real, and there are more options than most people realize.

The federal government has programs specifically designed to support Canadian manufacturers who are replacing products that were previously imported from the US, particularly in steel and aluminum. The Business Development Bank of Canada has loan programs. Community Futures has financing. There are also nonprofit community business programs across every province.

Beyond government programs, there is an equity crowdfunding platform called Vested.ca (vested.ca) that allows Canadian businesses to sell shares to investors to raise expansion capital, a path to scale that does not require a full public offering. For larger capital requirements, a traditional IPO through a dealer like Raymond James is an option, though that route requires a company that is significantly further along.

Do not overlook strategic partnerships. If you are building aluminum can capacity, the bottlers, Pepsi Canada and Coca-Cola Canada bottling operations, have a direct financial interest in stable, affordable domestic can supply. Reach out to them. Check with the craft beer associations, the bottlers associations, and the aluminum associations. Joint ventures and anchor customer arrangements are how many successful industrial startups get their initial capital and first committed revenue.

Health Care: A Career Opportunity That Is Only Growing

The premiers also spent significant time on health care, and rightfully so. Canada's system is under sustained pressure, and the investment is starting to follow.

St. Paul's Hospital is under construction in downtown Vancouver. The Niagara region just received a building permit for a new hospital. Topics discussed at the Huntsville meeting included health, labour mobility, and immigration, all of which feed directly into the healthcare workforce pipeline.

If you are early in your career or reconsidering your path, nursing and medicine deserve a serious look. My son just started his career as a nurse, and the range of options available to him, ER specialization, travel nursing across provinces, different care settings, is genuinely wide. The premiers directed the Committee on Internal Trade to develop a service standard of 30 days or better to get people working faster and provide a plan for Canada-wide credential recognition, which means a nursing credential earned in BC will move more freely to Alberta or Ontario than it does today.

Brandon University in Manitoba just added 10 seats to its medical program. These are incremental numbers, but they signal sustained institutional commitment.

Major Projects Are Coming And They Need People

The National Major Projects Office is set to open on Labour Day. BC has $50 billion worth of projects in the planning stage according to Ecdev BC. Atlantic Canada is well advanced on electricity infrastructure projects. Alberta and Saskatchewan want a pipeline. Ontario and Manitoba are looking at energy projects reaching up toward Nunavut.

Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario signed an MOU on a pipeline route from Alberta through the prairies to a new port at James Bay. That sets up an interesting competition: James Bay or Churchill, Manitoba for the LNG terminal and oil export infrastructure heading to Europe. Churchill is already a functioning port with a town. James Bay is a greenfield proposition with political momentum behind it.

Wherever those projects land, they require trades, engineers, project managers, environmental specialists, and more. If you have skills in construction, energy infrastructure, or project coordination, or if you are choosing a trade school program right now, follow these projects. The work will be in regions that are not downtown Vancouver or downtown Toronto, but for the right person at the right stage, moving for a high-demand job in a growing sector is exactly the kind of calculated risk that builds a career.

The Japan Deal: What It Actually Tells Canada

Now for the other story of the week.

In July 2025, the United States and Japan reached a major trade agreement including Japan's pledge to invest $550 billion in US industries in return for lower tariffs on Japanese imports. Specifically, the deal lowered US duties from 27.5% to 15% on Japanese cars, with similar levies applied to many other goods.

That sounds like a reasonable trade-off on the surface. But look at what Japan actually agreed to.

In US officials' description, President Trump would have the discretion to direct the investment funds, and the US would receive 90% of the profits. Japan puts up the capital, $550 billion, nearly 14% of Japan's 2024 GDP, and receives 10% of returns on investments chosen by the US president. On top of that, Japan has committed to purchase $8 billion in US goods including corn, soybeans, fertilizer, and bioethanol, and has agreed to buy 100 Boeing aircraft.

Japan is currently dealing with stagflation, slowing growth and rising inflation. Committing 14% of GDP to a fund controlled by another government while opening your domestic rice market to American producers is not an obvious path to economic recovery.

What does this tell Canada? Quite a lot about what Carney is navigating.

Canada's Actual Position Is Stronger Than It Feels

Here is where the data matters more than the headlines.

Around 86% of the value of Canada's exports to the US have the potential to qualify for tariff-free status under CUSMA, giving Canada a significant comparative advantage over the rest of the world, which faces broad-based tariffs on nearly all exports to the US. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick himself acknowledged that 75% of US imports from Canada and Mexico cross the border tariff-free.

The sectors where tariffs bite hardest — steel, aluminum, lumber, and automotive — are real and painful for those industries. But Canada's resource exports, which are largely what the US needs to build the factories Trump keeps talking about, are predominantly CUSMA-compliant and moving largely tariff-free.

Trump wants to reshore pharmaceutical manufacturing, semiconductor production, and auto assembly to the United States. All of that requires Canadian critical minerals, Canadian steel, Canadian energy. The US can theoretically source those from China or Russia, but that introduces supply chain risk that American manufacturers will not want, and it takes years to establish. Canada is next door, politically stable, and already integrated into North American supply chains.

This means Canada has negotiating leverage — and it means Canadian resource and materials companies have buyers regardless of whether a formal trade deal gets done by August 1st or not.

The Canadian Business Opportunity Framework

When I look at both of these stories together, here is what I see:

Manufacturing gaps with government backing: Aluminum cans, tin cans, steel I-beams, and rebar are explicit targets. The capital programs exist. The market exists. The political will to support domestic manufacturing is at an all-time high.

Major infrastructure projects: Energy, pipelines, electricity, LNG, ports — these are multi-year, multi-billion-dollar projects that need trades, engineers, and project talent. Follow the project announcements in your province.

Health care: A sustained build-out of hospitals combined with credential mobility reforms creates one of the more reliable career environments in the country right now.

Export services: For businesses that want to start selling outside of Canada and the US, the government has put financial support behind export education and trade commissioner services. The Trade Commissioner Service is a legitimate resource that most Canadian businesses have never used.

The common thread across all of it: the Canadian Business opportunity is there, but it requires you to do the reading, ask the questions, and reach out to the right people. Call the associations. Go for coffee with someone who works in the industry. Talk to your MP about what programs are available.

None of this falls in your lap. But the people who go looking will find more open doors right now than at any point in recent Canadian history.

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Shannon Peel is the founder of MarketAPeel and a Narrative Strategist who helps Canadian businesses and professionals read economic signals and translate them into positioning and opportunity. She publishes weekly video analysis on Canadian trade, business resilience, and building opportunity in uncertain markets.

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