U.S. President Donald Trump has scrambled the world order, but the chaos has created opportunities for Canada and the country is starting to seize them, panellists agreed Thursday at a Canadian Club event in Toronto looking at the country’s 2026 economic prospects.

The Logic was media partner for the event and CEO David Skok moderated the talk, which included Scotiabank’s chief economist Jean-François Perrault, Starlight Capital CEO Dennis Mitchell, CTV business reporter Amanda Lang and The Logic economics columnist and editor-at-large Kevin Carmichael.

Trump’s upside: The U.S. president is disruptive, said Perrault, but he’s triggered important rethinks of investments, productivity, and regulations in Canada and around the world. Those will likely lead to improvements and more prosperity, he said: “We can focus on the downside, but the kick in the butt that we’ve all gotten has motivated some change—which I think is very, very welcome.”

(Scotiabank CEO Scott Thomson was even more bullish on Trump this Tuesday, saying Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine of U.S. command in the Western Hemisphere is good for growth.)

Years of inertia left Canada with some easy wins available, Perrault said, and the federal government seems inclined to grab them by investing in resource extraction, energy, ports and infrastructure. 

Uncurbed excesses: Mitchell agreed with Perrault broadly that Canada has been shocked into action, but said he worries about a Trump administration getting out of hand. At least some Republicans now in Congress publicly oppose “his more base and more toxic ambitions” like taking over Greenland, but the people becoming American legislators are collectively getting worse.

As that deterioration continues, Mitchell said, “it becomes more and more possible for someone like Donald Trump to come north and take all the good stuff that we have.”

Don’t assume an apocalypse: Nevertheless, Lang offered, betting that the world will end is a bad strategy. If you turn out to be right, you still lose.

What’s mispriced: Skok asked the panellists to name an area of the Canadian economy that’s the subject of too much optimism or pessimism.

• Lang said quantum computing is overblown—“It doesn’t exist,” she said. It might someday, but not now.
• Carmichael said AI is overwhelming Canadians’ thinking. Earlier in the discussion, he said firms have rushed to invest in artificial intelligence and most aren’t seeing payoffs yet.
• Mitchell, acknowledging his bias as a “real estate guy,” said real estate is undervalued and housing for seniors is a particular opportunity.
• Perrault agreed. The sector is “an ugly, ugly picture” for developers right now, he said, but the long-term prospects are good.