Victor Fedeli: On Trump & Trade

Abstract: At the recent Canadian Finance Summit, Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade, the Hon. Victor Fedeli, delivered a candid and wide-ranging address on the province’s economic priorities. He highlighted Ontario’s aggressive efforts to reduce the cost of doing business—resulting in $8 billion in annual savings and nearly 1 million new jobs—as well as its leadership in removing interprovincial trade barriers through groundbreaking legislation. Minister Fedeli emphasized the need to diversify trade beyond the U.S., citing $30 billion in recent foreign direct investment and strong growth in sectors like EVs, life sciences, and defense. He also pointed to the urgent need to accelerate mining development to supply critical minerals for global markets. Responding to audience questions, he acknowledged regulatory gaps in Web3 and crypto but reiterated Ontario’s commitment to creating a competitive, innovation-friendly environment.

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Gary Schwartz,President of the Canadian Lenders Association

Today I am honored to welcome Ontario’s Minister of Economic Development, Job creation and Trade, the Honorable Vic Fideli. Now, he’s easily recognizable, if you don’t know, because of his trademark yellow tie. And I can’t think of a more fitting person to be with us today given all the, you know, all the momentum politically around us. And Vic is a lifetime entrepreneur and I know kindred spirit to many in the room and so super excited to have the Minister with us. A little bit of background, you know, two term mayor of North Bay. Minister Fideli is now in his fifth term as an mpp. And in this particular role at the economic development of trade, Minister Fideli has become one of Ontario’s most active national and international voices.

The Minister has championed a very timely initiative called Protect Ontario through Free Trade within Canada Act, which does exactly that. It’s designed to break down interprovincial trade barriers which we know now is just so relevant, unlocking new growth opportunities in Canada. And as Ontario’s push to diversify its trading relationships, Minister Fideli has been at the forefront of high profile trade discussions with the usa, with the eu, with Asia, Minicia, Fidelity. Thank you for joining us.

Opening Remarks

The Hon. Victor Fedeli:

Thank you, Gary. Thank you for the kind words and the introduction. Hi everybody. Pardon me for taking my jacket off. I overdressed today. I was bloody hot out there. So we thought we’d try this today. It really is a pleasure and an honor to be here and to chat with you. And I think instead of giving the big long speechification, I’ll do the short version a little bit off my top of my head and we’ll open it up for questions and answers. I think I’d rather talk to you about what it is specifically that you want to hear about, if that’s okay. So we’ll do that. But certainly we are. Thank you. We are at a very important crossroads in our time.

Global Uncertainty and Tariff Impact

Global markets are facing rising uncertainty and forums like this I think are going to be really more important probably than ever before. Give you all a good chance to chat and talk about the things that are happening, solutions towards these things. Because as I have said in the legislature, day after day, President Trump’s tariffs are causing chaos and primarily they’re causing uncertainty. Everybody asks, well, you know, what are your predictions for the future? I predict it will be unpredictable because that’s what’s happening. You know, I was in Eastern Europe last week and they all said, you know what are these Trump tariffs like what are they all about? Canada’s been the canary in the coal mine. We haven’t felt it here in Eastern Europe.

Protecting Ontario’s Economy

And Thursday, when I got home, Friday, boom, there they were with 50% tariffs on June 1, which of course now has moved to July 9. And we’ll see what happens when it happens. But make no mistake, this is a once in a generational challenge that we’re facing. We’ve landed $70 billion worth of new investment in Ontario in the seven years we’ve been in office. And President Trump wants all those companies in the United States and he wants all those jobs in the United States. Just make no mistake about that. That is exactly what he wants. So our government continues to take action to protect workers and industries. If you’d seen the 2025 budget, you would know we started off with $11 billion worth of security. Nine billion to help delay and defray some provincial taxes. Two billion in a rebate, proportionally of WSIB.

WSIB Reforms and Business Savings

That’s not the first time we’ve done that or the second time. It’s actually the third. By lowering the cost of doing business, we reduced WSIB payments, not the benefits, but the payments for your clients by 50% permanently. That’s eight years. Seven years ago we did that. It’s two and a half billion dollars in annual savings. Talk about that a little bit later. But there was still so much cash in the wsib, so much cash, way beyond any financial obligation, way beyond any moral obligation. So we freed it up by reducing it by 50%. Two and a half billion annual savings. We gave another 1.35 billion out as a rebate in checks. Still a lot of cash. We gave another 2 billion out in rebates, still continuing the 50% off. And now we’re doing the third tranche of $2 billion.

Ontario’s Trade Leadership

But we’re not just lowering the cost of doing business in Ontario and doing work around the globe. We’re also, as Gary mentioned, removing interprovincial trade barriers. And that happens hopefully tomorrow. Today I spoke on third reading the final reading of the bill. It’ll be debated a bit more this afternoon. The hours will be up and tomorrow we’ll stand in our seats or stand in our places and vote on inter provincial trade. It’s pretty exciting, actually. If you want more details on it, ask in the Q and A and we can talk a little bit more about it, but. Well, I’ll just tell you now it does. I’ll just do the highlights. It has a labor mobility section. It has a section on direct to consumer alcohol. And it has a chapter on mutual recognition. You can sell your goods here.

Eliminating Exceptions and Modernizing Regulations

If we can sell our goods there, we’ll talk about that as well, what that means. But those are groundbreaking. They shouldn’t be. It should be the way we are. But also we have exceptions. All of the provinces and the federal government have exceptions. We signed a free trade Canada Free Trade Agreement some years ago. And while I just need this accepted and that accepted and this accepted. Next thing you know, Ontario has 23 exceptions, Quebec has 39. All the provinces have exceptions. We wiped our exceptions out a couple of weeks ago. If you go on the Canada Free Trade Agreement website and looked up the exceptions, you’ll see Ontario and it actually says none. First in the history of the country ever to do that. Leaves us exposed, it leaves us vulnerable. We’ve got to have the others join us in.

Major Investments and Economic Growth

But that’s where Premier Ford, the strength of Premier Ford will come in convincing the other premiers and the federal government to do the same. So we’re on more of a level playing field. But we’ve seen, as I said earlier, historic investments. We’ve landed $46 billion in four years in the auto sector. We’ve landed $6 billion in four years in life sciences. Places like Sanofi Roche, AstraZeneca Moderna all have facilities here. You know, a billion dollar plant here and a billion and a half dollar plant there. Those types of things are all happening here in Ontario. And of course tens of billions of dollars in tech. Since we took office seven years ago, close to 1 million new jobs have been created in Ontario. That’s what happens.

Cost Reduction Strategy

You know, we, when we first took office, we saw the auto sector sort of going off the cliff and Australia’s auto sector going off the cliff. And Australia decided to let it go, get out of the auto business. They’re gone. Premier Ford said no, no, put the brakes on it. We’ve got to figure out what’s wrong, why are they all leaving? And they all told us cost of doing business in Ontario is too high. Plain and simple. It just got too high. Electricity rates too high, taxes too high. All the costs were too high. So we began with WSIB, reduced it by 50%. We put an accelerated capital cost allowance in. Saves business another billion. We lowered the electricity rates for industrial and commercial by 16%. Another billion.

Results: Revenue Growth Without Tax Increases

Three, there was a tax the previous government had ready to come in January 1st of the year after were elected. 465 million. We cancelled that permanently. We lowered provincial share of your Local property taxes by 450 million. I can go on and on. All adds up to $8 billion a year in savings. So went back to the auto companies and said, and the life science companies and others. Here it is. Here’s what you asked. This is tangible. First of all, we’ve never raised taxes since we took office. That’s we’re in our eighth year now. Zero tax increases, not even your hunting or fishing license. Nothing has increased since we took office, only down. And the business, it’s 8 billion. And the auto sector said, yep, you did what you said you would do. We’ll come back.

Navigating EV Slowdown

Now, of course, the EV sector, as you all know, is not growing as fast as it was. It’s not falling. It’s just not growing as fast. That’s a really big difference. So we’ll get there. We’re all in. We’re investing, we’re staying investing. But it’s interesting, by taking an $8 billion a year haircut every year since we’ve been in office, two things happened. One, as I mentioned, a million new jobs were created because we’ve lowered the cost of doing business. Businesses took that money and did exactly what we’d hoped they would do. They invested it in their business and hired a million people. It’s a million people. It’s an astounding number.

Growing Ontario’s Global Trade Footprint

Second thing, again, we take an $8 billion a year haircut. We went from 150 billion in revenue the day were elected. Last Thursday, when the budget came out week ago Thursday, 220 billion. We grew by 70 billion. Almost a 50% increase without raising taxes by lowering the costs of doing business. So it’s a phenomenal Art Laffer curve. If you know Art Laffer, you would follow along that this is, we are his poster for the Laffer curve. I talk to him all the time about these things. This is exactly what we said would happen if we lowered the cost of doing business.

U.S. Trade Dependency and Risks Ahead

Unfortunately, all that progress we made is under threat today. We heard loud and clear from businesses who are worried about the future. They’re worried about our dependency on the U.S. You know, we thought we were doing a great thing, and I still think we did. When we took office, we were doing $400 billion a year between Ontario and the US—split 50/50, about $200 billion each way. Today we’re up to $500 billion.

So we grew by 25%, which under any normal metric, you would say, wow, that’s a great growth and good on you. But today it turns out it’s growth with someone who turned out to be not a very reliable partner. We’re worried about tariff-driven inflation, we’re worried about supply chain shocks, and we’re worried about the long-term effect of these haphazard tariffs.

A Pivot to East-West Trade and Global Markets

So the Premier’s instructions to me as his Economic Development Minister and as his Trade Minister is: buddy, the north-south days are over. It’s east-west. And I said to him, yeah, Premier, I gotcha, we’re there—but it’s not anything new for us. Last year I think we did 25 countries. This is long before Trump.

In 2023 and 2024, Ontario landed 184 foreign direct investments. Those 184 companies brought $30 billion into Ontario and hired 18,000 people. That’s our FDI stat from the last two years. So you can imagine why President Trump is so ticked at us. We have grown our trade around the world.

Ontario’s Global Reputation for Stability

As a for instance, in a country like Germany, our two-way trade is up by more than $2 billion a year since we took office. It’s up in virtually every country that we’ve been traveling to and dealing with. Our trade is on the increase.

And the value proposition we continue to bring? When we sit with companies in Asia or Europe, they all say the same thing: in this terrible turmoil—Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine, the war in Israel, China, and this daily supply chain threat—there’s a beacon of light across the ocean. And that’s Ontario.

They tell us Ontario is predictable, dependable, reliable—almost boring. And boring is good in business.

Safety and Confidence in Ontario

And then they add, especially compared to the US, Ontario is safe. Safe for workers, for executives, for families. This is the reputation we’ve developed—and we intend to keep it.

Just last month, we were in seven countries, doing two things:

1. Looking for companies to bring back to Ontario (like we’ve done with 184 others).

2. Looking for great landing spots for Ontario companies looking to expand globally.

Leadership on Interprovincial Free Trade

While we’re doing all of that globally, we’ve also jumped into interprovincial trade. The Prime Minister is now talking about it in Saskatoon. They have a bold ambition to eliminate all their exceptions by July 1st. I hope they do. We’ve already done it.

Our bill leads the way for provinces. Just think about this:

• In the EU, 27 countries trade freely.

• In the US, 50 states trade freely.

• In Canada, with 13 provinces and territories, we still can’t trade freely with each other.

Personal Anecdote: The Tembec Example

Let me tell you a story that really stuck with me—one that helped push me into politics. When I was mayor of North Bay, Ontario, just 45 minutes from Quebec, there was a big plant: Tembec.

Trucks filled with logs would leave North Bay, cross the river into Quebec, and stop. The Ontario truck uncouples the trailer and drives away. A Quebec truck backs up, hooks on, and drives the trailer just 60 feet into the Tembec lot. Then another Tembec vehicle moves it onto the property.

That’s the kind of interprovincial nonsense that happens every day in this country.

Absurd Regulatory Differences

We’ve had different tire pressure requirements in each province. Different first-aid kit standards—the length of a Band-Aid, thickness of gauze—all different. It’s ridiculous.

Ontario is now saying: enough. We are recognizing that if a product is legal and safe in one province, it’s good enough for Ontario. That’s what mutual recognition means.

Mutual Recognition Agreements and Impact

Examples:

• A Nova Scotia pizza company can’t ship nationally because each province has different packaging standards.

• With mutual recognition, we say: if it’s certified in your province, we’ll accept it in ours.

We’ve signed MOUs with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, Alberta, PEI, and Saskatchewan. This is just common sense.

This initiative alone is projected to unlock $200 billion in GDP. Ontario’s share? $23 billion.
The cost of doing nothing? About 14.5% gets added to every good sold in Canada due to unnecessary friction.

Labour Mobility Reforms

We’re also addressing labour mobility. After this bill passes, if you’re an architect in Manitoba, you can come to Ontario and start work Monday. You’ll have six months to get your paperwork sorted.

We did this in healthcare already—nurses can now practice as-of-right. We’re extending that to engineers and other regulated professions.

Direct-to-Consumer Alcohol

And lastly—direct-to-consumer alcohol.
You remember the Supreme Court case: a man from New Brunswick was arrested for bringing beer from Quebec. He lost.

Well, Ontario has now removed all restrictions. Take as much wine or beer as you want across borders. And now, direct-to-consumer means wineries can ship to you. You don’t need to drive there and haul it home.

This took seven years. It took Donald Trump to scare us into freeing ourselves from ourselves.

Critical Minerals Strategy

Final point—critical minerals.
Trump says he doesn’t want anything from Canada: no steel, no aluminum, no cars. But 80% of the nickel used in US fighter jets comes from Ontario.

• 53% of the nickel the US defense sector uses comes from Ontario.
• 60% of the aluminum used in the US comes from Quebec.

Without us, they’re not making planes, soup cans, or beer cans. They can’t function without Canadian metals.

Speeding Up Mine Development

But here’s the issue: it takes 15 years to open a mine in Ontario. In Australia, it takes two. We have everything—cobalt, lithium, gallium, nickel, silver—and yet we’re losing to jurisdictions that move faster.

That’s why we’ve introduced Bill 5 to accelerate permitting and approvals.

Conclusion

So on behalf of Premier Ford and the Government of Ontario, thank you for letting me speak with you today. If we still have time, Gary, I’d be happy to take questions.

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Q&A Begins

Question: Web3 and Crypto Policy

Landon Gardner, CEO of Web3 Toronto:
Canada is falling behind in Web3. Ethereum started here, but founders are leaving due to unclear regulation. What’s the province doing to attract and retain crypto startups?

Hon. Victor Fedeli:
Appreciate the question. That’s a file for the Minister of Finance, and I won’t step on his toes.

From our ministry:

• We’re funding 100,000 STEM grads annually

• We offer clean energy, concierge investment support

• We support hiring through Mitacs and others

We do everything possible to support tech businesses here—but Web3 regulation is for Finance.

Question: Venture Ontario and Defense Investment

Norm Cappell, North Exit Ventures:
What’s the opportunity behind the new $50 million in Venture Ontario for defense tech?

Hon. Victor Fedeli:
Thank you for your work with Venture Ontario.

I was just in Latvia, Romania, Czechia, and Poland:

• We met with fast-growing firms interested in Ontario

• We’re positioning Ontario firms to help rebuild Ukraine post-war

The $50M defense tech fund will help seed and support those companies. Germany is spending $500B on defense—we want Ontario firms to win that work.

Gary Schwartz:
Thank you, Minister. When someone joins one of our events, they become part of our family. We look forward to working closely with you in the coming year.

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