Canada's resilient future

Left to right: Kelsey Gunderson, Jennifer Lee, Michael Hatcher, John Casola and Dean Khaled Hassanein

In the midst of shifting global trade parameters, reordered supply chains and geopolitical uncertainty, how can Canada secure its financial future?

The DeGroote School of Business 2025 Insight Lecture brought together a panel of experts at Toronto’s TMX Market Centre Thursday, November 13 to discuss this question.

The panel included John Casola, CIO of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, Jennifer Lee, senior economist and managing director for BMO Capital Markets, and Michael Hatcher, the Michael Lee-Chin and Family Industry Professor in Strategic Business Valuation at DeGroote. The panel was moderated by Kelsey Gunderson, president for Equity Trading and head of TMX Markets for the TMX Group, and an alumnus of DeGroote’s MBA program.

In many ways, DeGroote thought leadership is powering the national conversation about financial resilience.

Casola, who recently graduated from The Directors College at DeGroote, discussed the topic of Canada’s financial resilience in a recent interview.

Canada’s resilience depends in part on clean energy, Casola noted. “The largest single sector for deployment of our capital is in the clean energy space,” he said. “For example, AI data centres are very thirsty for power, and we need them for data sovereignty. It would be a wasted opportunity if we didn’t power them with clean energy.”

Earlier this month, in an opinion piece for the Hamilton Spectator, Hatcher argued that in order to thrive, Canada “needs leadership that invests in productivity, strengthens our resource and innovation base and prepares future generations to think critically and compete globally. Canada’s strength has always come from foresight and collective resolve,” he wrote.

Left to right, clockwise: John Casola, Jennifer Lee, Kelsey Gunderson, Michael Hatcher

McMaster Provost Maureen MacDonald takes a selfie with Khaled Hassanein, dean of the DeGroote School of Business, and Martin Horn, deputy vice-president, Research (Acting)

The event featured a networking reception before the lecture and a dessert reception following.