Takeaways On The Federal Budget From Calgary's Only Liberal MP
A recap of November 13th's Calgary Tech Thursday's session on the Federal Budget with Liberal MP Corey Hogan.
Last week’s Tech Thursday session, co-hosted by Crestview Strategy, was a fireside chat with Calgary’s only Liberal MP, Corey Hogan, on the recently approved federal budget.
This is our recap of the top takeaways from our Fireside Chat with Corey and what the budget means for Tech and AI.
“This is an economist’s budget because it’s looking at it and saying, how do we build the base that will allow companies the ability to do the things companies do best, innovate, spur each other on, and really drive change”.
- Corey Hogan, Liberal MP, Calgary Confederation
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TL;DR
Productivity and Infrastructure Are Major Points of Emphasis: With over $220 billion committed to productivity/competitiveness and infrastructure (including AI data centres), the government has made it clear that these are crucial items moving forward, especially within tech.
Lacking Investment Is A Major Issue In the Canadian Productivity Crisis: Through limited investments, it can be difficult to maximize the amount of work done in an amount of time; through investments and innovation, Canadian companies can more easily build tools to increase productivity across the board.
R&D Speed Is Key To Unlocking Productivity: Lacking private research and development (R&D) often limits innovation as a result of slow processes and reliance on the public sector. Driving privatized R&D allows for faster processes, increased innovation, and as a result, an increase in productivity.
Takeaways On The Federal Budget From Calgary’s Only Liberal MP:
1. Productivity and Infrastructure Are Major Points of Emphasis
With over $220 billion committed to productivity/competitiveness and infrastructure (including AI data centres), the government has made it clear that these are crucial items moving forward, especially within tech.
Why this is important:
The sheer amount of capital committed to topics of productivity, competitiveness, and infrastructure evidence a clear desire by the federal government to not only acknowledge, but significantly address these issues. By making it a focal point, not only will more capital be invested into Canadian ventures, but Canada will continue to build its independence, becoming less reliant on other countries, like the United States (while still ensuring crucial relationships, like the one with the US, remain in tact).
Key Takeaway: The Federal Budget numbers show a clear direction, both philosophically and monetarily, to addressing some of the biggest issues currently facing Canadian Tech.
Thank you to Crestview Strategy for sponsoring this Tech Thursday!
2. Lacking Investment Is A Major Issue In the Canadian Productivity Crisis
Through limited investments, it can be difficult to maximize the amount of work done in an amount of time; through investments and innovation, Canadian companies can more easily build tools to increase productivity across the board.
Why this is important:
When picturing the productivity crisis, it can be easy to connect a lack of productivity to less hours worked, when the core issue is one of investment. Investment not only provides a safety net for innovation, but can lead to creation of more efficient tools, decreasing the amount of time needed on certain tasks, and therefore, significantly increasing productivity.
Key Takeaway: Productivity isn’t a result of hours worked, but how efficiently time is used. Increasing investment, and therefore, innovation, can allow companies to streamline processes, thus addressing the productivity issues at hand.
3. R&D Speed Is Key To Unlocking Productivity
Lacking private research and development (R&D) often limits innovation as a result of slow processes and reliance on the public sector. Driving privatized R&D allows for faster processes, increased innovation, and as a result, an increase in productivity.
Why this is important:
Slow processes due to a reliance on public funding can leave companies in limbo for as long as 6 months, stifling momentum, limiting innovation, and, naturally, slowing productivity. Increasing private R&D will allow for more companies to receive funding faster, addressing the innovation and productivity challenges, and leading to a stronger Canadian ecosystem.
Key Takeaway: More funding into the ecosystem will address underlying issues that are currently plaguing it (speed of R&D, productivity) allowing for additional investments into more companies promoting increased innovation.
A Sincere Thank You
To our panelists, sponsors, attendees, and anyone who played any sort of part in Calgary’s Tech Thursday this year:
Thank you for making 2025 truly transformational. From our first event to our most recent one; from founder dinners to sold out audiences; from discussions about leadership to addressing the federal budget; thank you for being a part of it.
Tech Thursday is only what it is because of you, and while we can try to express our gratitude, it truly doesn’t reflect just how thankful we are.
As we enter 2026 with some very exciting things on the horizon we can’t wait to share with you, we hope that the winter months provide some time to reset and recharge.
Be sure to follow us on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube - 2026 figures to be Tech Thursday’s biggest year yet.
- Philippe and the Tech Thursday team