In 2025, the renewed participation of Canadian technology companies in federal politics had many parallels with the previous decade.
BetaKit wraps up the year with a look at the biggest tech stories of 2025. You can read the full series Here.
In early 2025, Justin Trudeau's Liberals found themselves a sinking ship after messy end until 2024. How to BetaKit noted in JanuaryWhile we're not a political publication, we track where politics intersects with technology. Throughout 2025, such crossovers were frequent and difficult to ignore.
For some Canadian tech companies, the final nail in the coffin was a proposed increase in the capital gains tax rate. more than 2000 leaders called “catastrophic”. But the end of Trudeau's tenure as prime minister also marked the end of a decade of work. failed innovation policy.
By March, the Liberals were under new leadership and the tax policy that had angered so many was scrapped. died on arrival. “I’m a pragmatist first and foremost,” Prime Minister-designate Mark Carney said at the time. “So when I see something isn’t working, I’ll change it.”
For many tech leaders, it was a signal that Trudeau's successor is listening in the upcoming federal election, and not the only one. Carney quickly adopted the “Building Canada” moniker. new technology-based advocacy group for various flagship policy.
To outsiders, it would appear that Canada's tech elite had suddenly become very friendly with Ottawa. But 2025 wasn't the first year Canadian tech companies organized their influence; this year was a restart of a cycle that last lasted almost ten years ago. While history doesn't repeat itself, it can rhyme.
“Used as leverage.”
There's been a lot of talk this year about how Carney liberals have embraced technology. They work with Shopify Leaders on R&D Reform! Federal ministers want champion technology companies like Koger! Every new policy is Build Canada anything-even a renamed federal exchange program designed to attract “outside leaders” from technology and business for public service.
For those involved in technology or politics at the time, it sounded a lot like the beginning of the Trudeau Liberal government, with Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke leading federal government-backed digital industries policy group. Or conversation with the Prime Minister about Canadian ambition and swagger. Or sitting on stage with Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains as he told the audience that Canada needs “10 Shopify, 20 Shopify, 30 Shopify“
“We shouldn't want the government to lead us. That's a big mistake. The government should be used as leverage.”
John Ruffolo
Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Tall poppies in business and technology will always be a popular target for any new government whose mandate is innovation. If we go back a little further, we can see further parallels in how Canadian technology is involved in politics and what has changed.
By 2015, Canadian investment in research and development and technology had declined overall. lag behind world analogues for many years under the leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His government faced criticism for restrictions and budget cuts for scientific research, delaying innovation.
Technology executives responded by creating an industry group called the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) to help shape national innovation policy. CCI founding member John Ruffolo, along with former BlackBerry co-CEO Jim Balsillie, advocated for the creation of a business council that would speak on behalf of the startup ecosystem with “one vote”
Shortly after, in an interview with BetaKit, Ruffolo openly spoke about the value of such a voice. “The private sector must always be at the forefront of these issues; we should not look to the government to guide us,” he said. “This is a big mistake. The government should be used as leverage.”
CCI was quickly able successfully lobby The new Liberal government will abandon its election commitment to increase taxes on share options. A year later, the Trump White House was introduction of tariffs across Canada and promoting new trade routes. Sound familiar?
Cacophony
In 2025, Canadian technology has moved beyond the consensus that Ruffolo championed in 2015.
Take Build Canada, which published Currently there are 47 political memorandumsall from prominent Canadian technology leaders, in the interests of ambitious national growth. Despite not being a registered lobbying group, Build Canada CEO Lucy Hargreaves told BetaKit at SAAS NORTH in November that government officials regularly call her to contact authors.
The direct line of communication, and perhaps the urgency of the national moment, has meant that the feedback from technology has become louder and more obvious. CEOs of Canadian technology companies have made it a habit to publicly criticize government policies. reciprocal tariffs And foreign direct investment this year.
#CDNTECH 2025
BetaKit looks back at the defining Canadian tech stories of 2025..
Resistance to technology has also grown louder, as this year those outside the industry have been forced to openly question whether countries should controlled by technocrats. The creation of Build Canada was thanks to the leaders of large US technology companies. flanked Trump on Inauguration Day and shortly before Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) unveiled dysfunction And fear in the US government service. Soon Build Canada, which also advocated cutting government spending, was fight against A DOGE for Canada label.
Political resistance also came from within the Canadian tech industry, where there were intersections between DEI rollback, simultaneously cuts in diversity initiatives from Shopify and a new political non-profit organization with strong ties to Canada's largest tech company (Build Canada co-founder Dan DeBow is a former Shopify executive; he is joined on the board by entrepreneur and Tobi Lutke's wife, Fiona McKean; the initial list of 28 Canadian tech advocates listed on Build Canada's website at launch included several current and former Shopify executives, including BetaKit board chair Satish Kanwar).
In February, more than 1,000 Canadian technology leaders, investors and workers signed an open letter stating that the ongoing rollback of DEI was the “wrong direction” for Canada and that unelected business leaders “should not be running the government.” It was a moment reminiscent of the 2017 open letter. support for diversity in response to Trump's “Muslim ban” signed by more than 3,000 people, including Lutke and several other authors of the Build Canada memo. But in 2025, Canadian technology no longer spoke with one voice.
What's next?
Whatever side of the political spectrum you are on, in 2025 it was clear that both technology leaders and technology myselfbecame a driving force in Canadian politics. It remains to be seen whether this “leverage” will help improve Canada's productivity, sovereignty or social cohesion.
It's also clear that, so far, the new Liberal leadership has welcomed the tech and business communities with open arms. But at one point it looked the same for Trudeau's Liberals. In 2026, BetaKit will be looking to see what new policies emerge from evolving relationships between industry and government, and whether those new relationships end up better than the previous ones.
Disclosure: BetaKit's majority owner Good Future is the family office of two former Shopify leaders, Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar.
Illustration courtesy of Madison McLachlan for BetaKit.
