Business
Court’s ‘Aboriginal title’ ruling further damages B.C.’s investment climate
From the Fraser Institute
By Julio Mejía and Elmira Aliakbari
According to a 2024 survey of mining investors, 76 per cent of respondents said uncertainty over disputed land claims in B.C. deterred investment—the top policy concern among respondents for the province. And that was before this month’s “Aboriginal title” court decision
In a recent decision, the Supreme Court of British Columbia granted “Aboriginal title”—essentially, the right of Indigenous people to own their ancestral land—in Richmond, B.C. where private businesses and farmers already hold title. The landmark case, which is under appeal, will discourage badly needed investment in the province’s struggling economy.
According to the ruling, Cowichan Tribes and other First Nations hold title over land they once used as a fishing village before British colonization. By casting doubt of who actually owns the land, the ruling severely undermines the legal certainty investors rely on, likely deepening the decline of investment in B.C.’s energy and mining sectors.
In 2023 (the latest year of confirmed data), investment in B.C.’s mining, oil and gas sector totalled $7.7 billion, which was 24 per cent below the record $10.2 billion reached in 2011 (inflation-adjusted). And in the mining sector alone, from 2023 to 2025, investment dropped from $2.54 billion to a projected $2.06 billion—a 19 per cent decline. This decline in investment in B.C. comes at a time when global demand for energy and mining is on the rise.
The last thing B.C. needs is more uncertainty over property rights and land ownership. In fact, according to a 2024 survey of mining investors, 76 per cent of respondents said uncertainty over disputed land claims in B.C. deterred investment—the top policy concern among respondents for the province. And that was before this month’s “Aboriginal title” court decision. A 2023 survey of oil and gas investors showed similar results, with 83 per cent of respondents raising the same concern. Clearly, improving predictability and certainty regarding land rights is essential to restore investor confidence in the province.
Unfortunately, the provincial government has contributed to the problem. In 2024, Premier David Eby unilaterally froze existing mining exploration permits, requiring prospectors and mining developers to negotiate with Indigenous groups before resuming operations.
And earlier this year, the Eby government introduced a new “staking” rule, which forces miners to consult with First Nations to assess how their exploration claims might impact Indigenous “culture, spirituality, environment, and economy.” These measures increased uncertainty for investment, especially in regions with multiple First Nations communities.
Finally, rather than benefiting Indigenous people, these decisions—and the uncertainty they create—will ultimately hurt them. Reduced investment in the energy and mining sectors leads to fewer development projects and fewer jobs. These industries are not only among the largest employers of Indigenous peoples but also generate broader economic benefits for their communities.
According to the latest data from iTotem analytics, an Indigenous-owned data science firm in B.C., from 2018 to 2021, B.C.’s natural gas industry spent roughly $540 million buying from approximately 100 Indigenous-affiliated businesses in the province. More broadly, in 2024 the oil, gas and mining sectors contributed $11.8 billion to the province’s economic output, supporting nearly 32,000 direct jobs and paying wages significantly above the average.
The recent B.C. Supreme Court ruling, combined with onerous policies from the provincial government, have made the province less attractive to business and investment, particularly in key sectors such as energy and mining. Far from advancing Indigenous prosperity, creating uncertainty over property rights hurts all British Columbians, including First Nations.
From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss
In George Orwell’s classic 1984, he describes a dystopian world dominated by “doublethink”—instances whereby people hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously while accepting them both. In recent comments about the upcoming October federal budget, Prime Minister Carney unfortunately offered a prime example of doublethink in action.
During a press conference, Carney was critical of his predecessor’s mismanagement of federal finances, specifically unsustainable increases in spending year after year, and stated his 2025 budget will instead focus on “both austerity and investments.” This should strike Canadians as an obvious contradiction. Austerity involves lowering government spending while investing refers to the exact opposite.
Such doublethink may make for good political rhetoric, but it only muddies the waters on the actual direction of fiscal policy in Ottawa. The government can either cut overall spending to try to get a handle on federal finances and reduce the role of Ottawa in the economy, or it can increase spending (but call it “investment”) to continue the spending policies of the Trudeau government. It can’t do both. It must pick a lane when it comes to mutually exclusive policies.
Despite the smoke and mirrors on display during his press junket, the prime minister appears poised to be a bigger spender and borrower than Trudeau. Late last year, the Trudeau government indicated it planned to grow program spending from $504.1 billion in 2025/26 to $547.8 billion by 2028/29.
After becoming the Liberal Party leader earlier this year, Carney delivered a party platform that pledged to increase spending to roughly $533.3 billion this year, well above what the Trudeau government planned last fall, and then to $566.4 billion by 2028/29. Following the election, he then announced plans to significantly increase military spending.
While the prime minister has touted a plan to find “ambitious savings” in the operating budget through a so-called “comprehensive expenditure review,” his government is excluding more than half of all federal spending including transfers to individuals such as Old Age Security and transfers to the provinces for health care and other social programs. Even with the savings anticipated following the review, the Carney government will likely not reduce overall spending but rather simply slow the pace of annual spending increases.
Moreover, the Liberal Party platform shows the government expects to borrow $224.8 billion—$93.4 billion more than Trudeau planned to borrow. And that’s before the new military spending. That’s not austerity—even if Prime Minister Carney truly believes it to be.
Actual austerity would require a decrease in year-over-year expenses, smaller deficits than what the Trudeau government planned, and a path back to a true balanced budget in a reasonable timeframe. Instead, Carney will almost certainly hike overall spending each year, raise the deficits compared to his predecessor, and could even fall short of his tepid goal of balancing the operating budget within three years (which would still involve tens of billions more borrowed in a separate capital budget).
While budgets normally provide clarity on a government’s spending, taxing, and borrowing expect more doublethink from the October budget that will tout the government’s austerity measures while increasing spending and borrowing via “investments.”
Jake Fuss
Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute
From the Fraser Institute
It’s striking that Canada has around 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than two decades ago, even though the population has increased dramatically over that time.
Earlier this week, we marked another Labour Day, and Canada’s job market is losing steam. The slowdown is occurring against the backdrop of unprecedented tariff hikes, persistent geopolitical tensions, and a stagnant Canadian economy. Nationally, employment fell by 40,000 between June and July, with the job losses concentrated in fulltime private-sector positions. Total employment in July was scarcely higher than it was in January (measured on a seasonally adjusted basis). Manufacturing and construction are among the industries that have posted sizable job declines so far in 2025.
The picture is less gloomy on a year-over-year basis. Employment in Canada rose by 1.5 per cent from July 2024 to July 2025. But the month-to-month pace of job creation has been decelerating. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate has been ticking higher. In July, Canada-wide unemployment stood at 6.9 per cent, up from 5.7 per cent 18 months ago. Job vacancy rates have also been falling. Young adults are bearing much of the burden of Canada’s slumping labour market. Oddly, even amid a recession-bound economy, the federal government inexplicably continues to admit large numbers of temporary foreign workers.
Digging deeper into the data—and going back further to the pre-COVID years—yields insight into the dynamics of Canadian job creation. Looking at the period from January 2019 to July 2025 (roughly six-and-a-half years), we can track the trends in three broad employment categories: private-sector payroll jobs, public-sector jobs and the self-employed.
Since the start of 2019, public-sector jobs are up by almost one-quarter, while private-sector payroll positions have increased by 10 per cent. Meanwhile, the number of self-employed Canadians declined over the same period, suggesting a deterioration of the climate for entrepreneurship in the country. That’s troubling.
Entrepreneurs and startup businesses are the lifeblood of a dynamic market economy. Indeed, economists recognize that a key marker of a thriving economy is a healthy rate of business formation. New businesses are an important source of innovation and fresh ideas. They also help to inject competitive vigour into both local markets and the wider economy—something that’s clearly necessary in Canada, given years of subdued business growth and the cartelization of large swathes of our economy. Accelerating business formation should be a top priority for governments at all levels. Supporting the commercial success of existing young firms is also crucial, given the outsized contributions they make to the overall economic growth process.
For entrepreneurs and others who invest in startup companies, the risk of failure is ever present. Many new businesses don’t survive. In the goods-producing sector of the Canadian economy, about 70 per cent of new businesses survive for at least five years; in the broad services-producing sector, the rate is lower (56 per cent). Ten-year survival rates are around 50 per cent in goods-producing industries and just 35 per cent in service-based industries. Becoming a businessowner/operator is not for the faint of heart.
Canada urgently needs more high-growth businesses. This means building a robust pipeline of new entrepreneurial ventures.
Unfortunately, we have been falling short in this area, with the rate of business startups diminishing. It’s striking that Canada has around 100,000 fewer entrepreneurs than two decades ago, even though the population has increased dramatically over that time.
Canadian policymakers would be wise to ask themselves why entrepreneurship is faltering. Governments should act to modify their tax, regulatory and industrial policies to establish an economic environment that’s more conducive to entrepreneurial wealth-creation and the growth of small and medium-sized businesses.
Jock Finlayson
Senior Fellow, Fraser Institute
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