CUSMA review ‘a big point of uncertainty’ for firms: Stephen Poloz CUSMA review ‘a big point of uncertainty’ for firms: Stephen Poloz

Companies are shying away from major investments prior to renewal talks about the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), says Special Advisor Stephen Poloz, in an interview with The Hill Times.

“If you look at the Bank of Canada’s business outlook survey, basically companies are saying they’re just doing maintenance investment, [and] not growing their company at all, not adding to their productivity, really just keeping the lights on because they don’t want to make any major investments when the whole thing could blow up during these talks,” says Stephen.

He also says that, while Canada’s GDP is expected to grow, jobs in sectors that are highly reliant on export to the U.S. are down. “If you look at employment overall, it looks like the economy is fairly resilient because we’re experiencing around one percent growth — or maybe a little less overall — despite all the bad news,” says Stephen. “But if you look underneath the hood, the parts that are exposed to the U.S. are down . . . that’s what I mean by worse than what appears on the surface.”

If you have a subscription to The Hill Times, you can read the full article by author Jesse Cnockaert posted on February 23, 2026.