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Policy Matters: The B7 Summit Is Over, Now What?

Policy Matters: The B7 Summit Is Over, Now What?

It’s the shared responsibility of business and government to tackle the economic challenges holding Canada back from achieving our full potential.

June 10, 2025

The short answer is the work continues for Canada — as it does for the Canadian Chamber. The Canadian Chamber’s role as the 2025 B7 Chair isn’t over until the end of the year. Likewise, there are still ongoing G7 activities under Canada’s G7 Presidency, including G7 ministerial meetings, before Canada hands over the presidency to France in 2026.

With the G7 Leaders’ Summit set to take place in Kananaskis, Alberta, June 15–17, the B7 is ensuring that the voice of business will be heard. On the last day of the B7 Summit in May, the Canadian Chamber’s President and CEO, Candace Laing, presented the official B7 Communiqué to Canada’s G7 Sherpa.

The Communiqué is a key document that will inform the upcoming G7 discussions, providing a strategic blueprint for G7 leaders to address today’s most pressing economic challenges. Since B7 leaders have a front row seat to how global economic headwinds are impacting the ability of the private sector to operate successfully, they’re ideally placed to offer pragmatic solutions.

The Communiqué explores global trade, supply chains, AI and energy, as well as the key enablers that strengthen systemic security and resilience, including global health security, infrastructure resilience and cyber security preparedness. Additionally, given its cross-cutting significance, the Communiqué highlights the importance of critical minerals and materials and their essential role in safeguarding economic and national security.

The Communiqué is the culmination of months of collaboration with our B7 counterparts, who represent the business communities of the G7 countries and the European Union, and over 50 corporate partners that signed on to support the Canadian Chamber’s work.



Canada’s Role as a Global Partner

Natural resources commodities can be carbon-intensive to retrieve, refine, and transport, contributing to Part of Canada’s ongoing work (that continues even when we’re no longer B7 and G7 Chair) is building our economic security and sovereignty — not only to create a better life for all Canadians but to help our international partners do the same in their communities.

Given the expanding integration of global economies, businesses depend on their country’s economic stability and that of their trade partners to stay open. According to the OECD, about 70% of international trade involves global value chains. That means almost three-quarters of the world’s trade is made up of services, raw materials, parts, and components crossing borders — not final goods. A prime example of this is the trade relationship between Canada and the U.S.: Over 63% of Canadian exports to the U.S. and 50–52% of U.S. exports to Canada are intermediate inputs rather than final consumer goods.

In today’s highly interconnected global economy shared economic problems require shared solutions — which is exactly why the G7 was established in the 1970s.

While membership [in the G7] has evolved over the years as a result of geopolitical dynamics, its central goal has remained constant: Bringing together the world’s most advanced economies to act as a catalyst for global cooperation and progress.

For five decades, the G7, alongside like-minded countries, has fostered an era of unprecedented stability and economic prosperity…. The system it helped to create, based on rules and coordination, facilitated economic integration, multilateral engagement, and cross-border trade and investment.

2025 B7 Communiqué


Shaping the Next Chapter of the Global Economy

This system is evolving with the shift in global power dynamics.

According to a recent Chamber Chart from the Business Data Lab, over the past three decades, the G7’s relative economic dominance has been steadily eroding at the same time emerging economies — led by China, India, and other Asia-Pacific nations — have surged ahead. By 2030, Asia-Pacific economies are expected to account for nearly 50% of global GDP while G7 economies will account for less than 30%.

If G7 nations want to shape the next chapter of the global economy rather than watch from the sidelines, they need to rediscover their role as a “catalyst for global cooperation and progress” and take bold action now. Hopefully, that’s exactly what leaders will do June 15–17 at the G7 Leaders’ Summit, guided in part by the blueprint set out in the B7 Communiqué. 

As for Canada, our path is clear: We need our government to work with the business community on non-partisan policy solutions that address economic roadblocks and bolster our economic security and resilience.

That will require:

  • Delivering on the promise of free internal trade
  • Improving existing trade and transportation infrastructure
  • Cutting red tape and taxes to incentivize business investment and growth
  • Bridging the talent and skills gap

It’s the shared responsibility of business and government to tackle the economic challenges holding Canada back from achieving our full potential. The Canadian Chamber is eager to work with the new government and all parties to tackle urgent nation-building goals.

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