Ontario businesses to Ottawa: Budget 2025 must be Canada’s turning point

(Toronto – October 28, 2025) – As Canadian businesses grapple with an unstable trade environment and a fragile North American economy, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) is calling on the federal government to make Budget 2025 a turning point for Canada’s economic future.

In its submission to the Government of Canada, the OCC calls for a national strategy to unlock private-sector growth, break down barriers to competitiveness and invest boldly in infrastructure and talent.

“At times of historic challenge, a great budget both sends a signal and sculpts a strategy,” said Daniel Tisch, President and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. “Budget 2025 can do both – signalling that Canada is open for business, eager for investment and committed to competitiveness – with a fiscally sustainable plan to achieve these goals.”

The OCC’s recommendations focus on four key priorities:

1. Driving a competitive business and trade environment: Scaling high-potential firms, dismantling trade barriers, accelerating clean and affordable energy development, deepening Indigenous economic partnerships and incentivizing business investment in artificial intelligence and productivity.
2. Advancing healthy, sustainable communities: Expanding credential recognition and immigration pathways for medical professionals, renewing investment across the biomanufacturing ecosystem, leveraging the Strategic Innovation Fund to attract global firms, and securing resilient medical supply chains.
3. Unlocking qualified, diverse talent: Aligning immigration and employment strategies with real-time labour market needs, expanding pathways for skilled newcomers in rural and remote areas and modernizing Employment Insurance to enhance incentives to work.
4. Building growth-enabling infrastructure: Accelerating housing development through multi-sector collaboration, expanding access to purpose-built and affordable homes and launching a coordinated national strategy for clean energy, digital connectivity, resilient supply chains and transit.

“Budget 2025 can’t be just a fiscal plan; it must be a blueprint for a future led by private sector growth,” Tisch added. “In the right climate, Ontario’s business community will deliver results.”

Read the Ontario Chamber of Commerce’s 2025 Federal Budget Submission here.

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About the Ontario Chamber of Commerce

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) is Canada’s largest and most influential provincial chamber and an indispensable partner of business. As an independent, non-profit advocacy and member services organization, the OCC represents a network of 60,000 members. It convenes, mobilizes, and empowers business and local chambers to bring inclusive and sustainable prosperity to Ontario’s businesses, workers, and communities.

For more information, please contact:

Andrea Carmona
Senior Manager, Public Affairs
Ontario Chamber of Commerce
andreacarmona@occ.ca | Mobile: (647) 234-0255