Quebec Does Not Need a New Economic Model. It Needs to Orchestrate the One It Already Has.

Canada may be entering a new economic phase.

After a decade of weak productivity, insufficient private investment and excessive dependence on the United States, several growth engines are coming back into view: trade diversification, energy, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, defence, infrastructure and a more integrated domestic market.

For Quebec, the question is not whether it should take part in this shift.

It is what role it chooses to play.

Quebec will not become Alberta. Nor should it try.

Its advantage is not primarily oil or natural gas. It lies in a rarer combination: largely renewable electricity, strategic resources, sophisticated industrial capability, respected research institutions, world-class AI and aerospace expertise, and natural access to both

North American and European markets.

Each asset is significant on its own. Connected with intention, they can become an economic strategy.

The real issue is value capture

Quebec has often been remarkably good at building capability. It educates talent, develops technology, extracts resources, attracts investment and builds globally competitive companies.

Its recurring challenge is to capture the full value created by those capabilities.

A resource exported without local transformation creates less value than a complete value chain. An AI lab without broad business adoption remains a promise. Clean power that cannot reach the right project, at the right time and on competitive terms does not become an industrial advantage. A defence contract that fails to develop domestic suppliers, skills and intellectual property remains an expense more than a lever.

Quebec does not simply need more projects. It needs coherent value chains.

Treat clean electricity as strategy

Quebec’s hydroelectricity is more than a legacy asset. It can be the foundation of the province’s next industrial phase.

It supports low-carbon aluminium, electrified industrial processes, selected mineral-processing activities, high-performance computing and manufacturing investment that seeks reliability, competitive cost and decarbonisation at the same time.

But this advantage is no longer automatic. Available capacity, transmission infrastructure, connection timelines and predictable decision-making now matter as much as the price of power.

The right question is not whether to allocate electricity to any energy-intensive project. It is whether that project creates lasting value in

Quebec: skilled jobs, local suppliers, innovation, exports, credible emissions reductions and strategic capability.

Move from critical minerals to strategic value chains

Northern Quebec offers meaningful potential in lithium, graphite, nickel, rare earth elements and high-grade iron ore. Global demand is being driven by electrification, batteries, power grids, aerospace and defence.

The objective, however, cannot simply be to open mines at any cost.

It must be to build credible partnerships with Indigenous communities, advance rigorous projects efficiently, and retain a growing share of the processing, engineering, data and intellectual property in Quebec.

Economic development and environmental standards are not opposing forces. They must be designed together. Trust is a form of capital: without it, projects stall; with it, they can move more quickly and create better outcomes.

Turn AI leadership into productivity

Montreal has earned a global reputation in artificial intelligence. That is a genuine achievement.

The next step is harder—and far more important: making AI a productivity tool across the Quebec economy.

In financial services, aerospace, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, tourism, media and small and medium-sized businesses, the goal is not to experiment with AI for the sake of saying it is being used. It is to rethink processes, decisions, roles and data so that quality, speed, margins and customer experience improve in measurable ways.

Quebec can attract computing infrastructure and support sovereign capacity. But its economic win will not come from data centres alone.

It will come from thousands of businesses learning to turn their own assets—data, expertise, customer relationships and know-how—into stronger performance.

Build a defence industrial base, not just a procurement pipeline

Quebec already has a concentration of aerospace capability that few jurisdictions can recreate quickly: aircraft, engines, simulation, training, maintenance, components, software, satellites and advanced manufacturing expertise.

As Canada increases defence spending and modernises NORAD, Quebec can play a major role. On one condition: public procurement must be designed as industrial strategy.

Major programs should develop competitive domestic suppliers, transferable skills, applied research and exportable capabilities.

Otherwise, Canada will purchase security without fully building the capacity that should accompany it.

Diversify without illusions

The United States will remain essential. In 2025, nearly 70 per cent of Quebec’s international merchandise exports still went there, despite a meaningful decline from the previous year.

Diversification does not mean turning away from the United States. It means reducing a concentration that has become a strategic risk.

Quebec is better positioned than many regions to do this: trade agreements with Europe, the French language, historic ties to France and the Francophonie, and exportable expertise in services, aerospace, gaming, AI, engineering, clean technology and culture.

But companies need more than announcements. They need real export capability: financing, commercial support, logistics, regulatory expertise and local partners. Market access is not the same thing as market presence.

A more coherent Quebec

The debate should not force a choice between development and prudence, identity and openness, the economy and the environment, or the public and private sectors.

It should be about coherence.

How do we align electricity with industrial strategy? Resources with transformation capacity? Research with commercialisation? Public investment with productivity? International ambition with businesses able to deliver?

Quebec already possesses much of what it needs for its next decade of growth.

What it lacks is not intelligence, ambition or resources.

It is a more consistent ability to connect them with intent.

Real performance is not dictated by speed alone. It is built through coherence.

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Context sources: Institut de la statistique du Québec, International Merchandise Trade and Trade Balance — 2025 Highlights; Macquarie, “Canada’s New Growth Agenda: Seven Structural Drivers of the Next Decade,” September 7, 2026.