Like previous federal budgets, the recently released Budget 2025 fails to acknowledge a pressing generational shift for Canada’s economy: the succession crisis facing most Canadian family-owned businesses.

Over the next decade, 60 per cent of family enterprises will change hands — if those ownership transfers happen at all.

When ownership transfers stall or fail, jobs, investments and tax revenues are lost — not to mention the loss to the social fabric in communities across the country. Yet, despite these stakes, Budget 2025 offers little recognition of this looming challenge.

The government states that it is “ensuring Canadian workers and businesses have the tools they need to drive this transformation and thrive from it.” Yet there is no evidence of any measures to support and equip entrepreneurs and family business owners for generational transitions.

In Canada’s private sector, family firms own nearly two-thirds of all businesses, from mom-and-pop shops to international and global leaders in their respective sectors. Together they employ more than half of workers and generate nearly half of our private sector GDP.

The economic pressures and uncertainties — looming tariffs, the

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