OTTAWA — With all the major federal parties running on strengthening Canada’s economy and responding to threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, MPs with a deep knowledge of innovation, business and the economy should prove even more valuable in the next Parliament than usual. 

Meanwhile, the parties’ shifting fortunes over the past six months have drawn a lot of new candidates onto ballots. The Logic pored over candidates’ biographies and asked the major parties to point to candidates with significant backgrounds in business, technology or economics. Here are some of them.

Liberals

Under Justin Trudeau, the party was set for a crash landing. Every time he turned around, another minister was announcing he or she wouldn’t run again. A few, such as Anita Anand and Sean Fraser, have cancelled their plans to spend more time at home as the party surged back in the polls, but the exodus has nevertheless opened up a lot of ridings where new leader Mark Carney has attracted candidates with business credentials. Candidates such as:

Tim Hodgson (Markham–Thornhill, Ont.)

Perhaps Carney’s highest-profile recruit from the business world, Hodgson was an advisor to Carney during his governorship of the Bank of Canada. He had a 20-year career at Goldman Sachs, including five years as CEO of Goldman Sachs Canada. Since then, he’s been on blue-chip boards, including the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and PSP Investments, and has chaired Ontario’s semi-privatized Hydro One utility (where he was appointed by Progressive Conservative Doug Ford) and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization.

Hodgson takes up the Liberal banner in this Toronto-area riding from former trade minister Mary Ng, who won re-election with more than 60 per cent of the vote in 2021.

Carlos Leitão (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, Que.)

A former Quebec finance minister in the Liberal government of Philippe Couillard from 2014 to 2018, Leitão was a longtime bank economist before politics. He spent 20 years at RBC, then 11 years as chief economist at Laurentian Bank Securities. For four years in opposition at the National Assembly, Leitão chaired the public accounts committee, which scrutinizes government spending.

He’s not running in the same Montreal riding he represented provincially, but the Liberals have held Marc-Aurèle-Fortin by comfortable margins since 2015 under retiring MP Yves Robillard.

Claude Guay (Lasalle–Émard–Verdun, Que.)

The former president of IBM Canada, Guay held numerous executive positions at the tech titan (a key player in Canada’s semiconductor industry) both before and after that. He also did a stint as executive vice-president of Gildan Activewear.

He told The Logic he was recruited by former Liberal ministers and Carney allies Scott Brison and David Lametti and was drawn in by a desire to help with “the Trump problem.”

Guay is challenging the Bloc Québécois’s Louis-Philippe Sauvé, who eked out a win with 28 per cent of the vote in a 2024 byelection after Lametti, who had won the riding comfortably in three elections, resigned as an MP.

Malalai Halimi (Dufferin–Caledon, Ont.)

An immigrant from Afghanistan in 2006, Halimi is a production manager at Taylor Certified Processing, which treats metals for use in planes and other aerospace products. She also founded Maawj TV, a video channel devoted to diaspora Afghan culture and news.

Conservatives have won Dufferin–Caledon in every election since it was created in 2004, and incumbent Kyle Seeback is running again.

Conservatives

Conservative nominations have been hot commodities as the party seemed destined for a majority government in the next election. Pierre Poilievre’s party hasn’t organized quite as deep a raid on MLAs and MPPs from provincial parties as Stephen Harper did in the run-up to the 2006 election (when he nabbed future finance minister Jim Flaherty, future foreign minister John Baird and future health minister Tony Clement from Ontario alone), but has former ministers from several provinces in his candidate ranks.

The Tories even rejected former B.C. finance minister Mike de Jong as a candidate, prompting him to run as an independent in Abbotsford–South Langley. They nevertheless have several new candidates who have worked in startups, tech and finance as well. Among them:

Grant Cool (Esquimalt–Saanich–Sooke, B.C.)

An entrepreneur with a PhD in aerospace engineering, Cool has most recently been a founder of AT2 Aerospace, a spinout of Lockheed Martin. It’s developing so-called hybrid airships, helium-filled, hydrogen-powered craft intended to deliver cargo and people to very remote places with minimal infrastructure. He was previously the CEO of Kivalliq Marine, which transported goods by sea from Churchill, Man., to Nunavut.

Though this seat is open with the departure of MP Randall Garrison, the NDP have won it in several consecutive elections in which the Conservatives haven’t done better than third. This time the NDP candidate is the mayor of Sooke.

Elaine Allan (Vancouver Centre)

Allan spent six years as executive director of Skills Canada B.C (ending in 2023), promoting careers in technology and the skilled trades. Her varied career has included co-ordinating a sex workers’ drop-in centre in the Downtown Eastside and six years heading Shelter Net B.C., which supported organizations that work with people who are homeless or at risk of losing their shelter.

Vancouver Centre has not recently been fertile ground for Conservatives: Hedy Fry has won every election for the Liberals there since defeating prime minister Kim Campbell in the local race in 1993 (including in 2015, when Allan previously ran for the Tories and placed third) and Fry is running again.

Iain Black (Coquitlam–Port Coquitlam, B.C.)

After stints as B.C. minister of labour and of economic development under premier Gordon Campbell, Black went on to work nearly eight years as CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. More recently, he’s been CEO and now vice-chair of Maximizer, a Vancouver-based company that sells a customer-relationship management platform.

Black is challenging Liberal incumbent Ron McKinnon, who has won three times in three-way splits with Conservatives coming close seconds.

Sandra Cobena (Newmarket–Aurora, Ont.)

A senior manager of commercial credit at TD who worked her way up from commercial banking associate, Cobena has a degree from the London School of Economics.

Newmarket-Aurora has tilted back and forth between Conservatives and Liberals over the years (including with the same MP, party-switching Belinda Stronach, in 2004 and 2006). Liberal Tony Van Bynen is retiring, so the seat is open.

Allan MacMaster (Cape Breton-Canso-Antigonish, N.S.)

MacMaster was Nova Scotia’s finance minister and deputy premier in the Tim Houston government until last fall, when he left provincial politics to seek a federal seat. He was an MLA for 15 years and had stints as minister of labour and minister of culture and tourism; before politics he was an investment advisor at BMO Nesbitt Burns.

He’s running in a riding Liberals have held since 2000, though Conservative candidates won more than 34 per cent of the vote in the last two elections.

Doug Treleaven (Kitchener-Conestoga, Ont.)

Treleaven is founder and former CEO of ThinkLP, a tech company with a SaaS platform for retail loss prevention—spotting, tracking and investigating thefts and damage. ThinkLP landed on lists of fast-growing companies, before selling to U.S.-based Alpine Software Group in 2023. He’s also been a member of the board of governors at Wilfrid Laurier University.

Liberal MP Tim Louis has won the riding by margins of a few hundred votes in 2019 and 2021 after barely losing in 2015 to the Conservative incumbent who held it through the Stephen Harper years.

NDP

The New Democrats’ fierce criticism of big businesses and ultra-rich CEOs doesn’t make it a natural home for bankers and tech founders turning to politics after exits. But it does have candidates who know finance and tech from different angles. They include:

George Wedge (Scarborough-Woburn, Ont.)

Wedge has worked in quality assurance and related jobs at aerospace companies (including Bombardier and De Havilland) and also worked for gun manufacturers like Sig Sauer; he’s on the executive board of a Unifor local that represents workers at companies that include Bombardier, De Havilland and MDA.

He’s also president of the Rideshare Drivers Association of Ontario, organizing drivers who work through platforms like Uber and Lyft.

Scarborough-Woburn is a new riding in eastern Toronto, comprising neighbourhoods that have voted solidly Liberal in recent elections. 

Cheryl Loadman (Carlton Trail–Eagle Creek, Sask.)

Currently a professor at the Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan, Loadman was chief of staff to the province’s finance minister in the 1990s. She went on to roles promoting trade and economic growth in the province, and then headed Saskatoon Services for Seniors.

She’s challenging Conservative MP Kelly Block, who has been in office since 2008 and has won 64 per cent of the vote or more in the last three elections.

Sandra Sousa (Davenport, Ont.)

A data systems engineer at edutech company Top Hat, Sousa got into electoral politics after co-founding advocacy group Davenport for Palestine.

Liberal Julie Dzerowicz is the incumbent; she’s won the seat three times but by narrow margins over New Democrats; the NDP won it in 2011.

Shannon Devine (Beaches–East York, Ont.)

Devine has been a senior union leader in industries severely affected by recent U.S. tariffs; she’s been director of communications at the Canadian Auto Workers and its successor Unifor, and is now head of communications and political action at the United Steelworkers. In between, she was executive director of the Ontario Federation of Labour.

The NDP won Beaches–East York in 2011, but it’s generally gone Liberal. Devine is challenging Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith; he’s won three elections in a row and is running again, though he sought to lead the Ontario Liberal party in 2023 and, after falling short, was going to just quit until Trudeau made him housing and infrastructure minister in December.