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Laurent Ferreira. Photographer: Neal Rockwell/Bloomberg
National Bank of Canada’s chief executive officer called for a “complete overhaul” of the country’s economic and industrial policies just days before Canadians are set to vote in the federal election.
Laurent Ferreira, who has led the Montreal-based bank since 2021, said Thursday that the biggest risk facing the country isn’t US tariffs but “complacency.” In a speech at the firm’s annual meeting, he argued that Canada should prioritize infrastructure development for both renewable-energy and oil-and-gas projects.
“The next government needs to make sure that we have a process in Canada that works, and right now the process is broken,” Ferreira said in an interview following his speech. “It is extremely difficult.”
In the three and a half years Ferreira’s been CEO, National Bank has provided C$10 billion ($7.2 billion) in funding for renewable-energy projects, but 90% of that has been in the US, he said. He pointed to the Impact Assessment Act, part of Bill C-69, a Canadian law that investors say has wrapped projects in red tape.
“Everyone knows that this is just a major roadblock,” he said of the legislation. With voters set to go to the polls Monday, Ferreira declined to say who he’d support, but said it’s encouraging that both major parties — Mark Carney’s Liberals and the Conservatives, led by Pierre Poilievre — have spoken during the campaign about the need to speed up approvals. “What we need now is leadership to work with the business community in figuring out the best way to move this forward and become competitive.”
His comments come as the CEOs of Canada’s other big banks have also become vocal proponents of the country moving faster to exploit natural resources in the face of economic threats from US President Donald Trump.
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Trump’s shifting policies on global trade have created uncertainty for investors and held up mergers and acquisitions, Ferreira said, adding that Canada is at risk of slipping into a recession in the second half of the year.
“I don’t think this probability is 75% to 80%, but definitely higher today than it was at the beginning of the year,” he said.
National Bank, which acquired Canadian Western Bank in February, held its annual meeting in Calgary, emphasizing its ties to the province of Alberta. The firm, which is Canada’s sixth-largest lender and looking for growth outside its home province of Quebec, now has 2,500 employees in British Columbia and Alberta, Ferreira said.
Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analyst John Aiken this week cut his rating on both National Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce to hold from buy. He cited the two firms’ greater exposure to the domestic economy as a risk that could lead to higher provisions for potentially bad loans.
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