C&C #32: The Mega Deduction Matters

For every dollar per worker an American business puts into machinery and equipment, a Canadian company puts in 32 cents. That's the whole Canadian productivity story in one number — and this week Ottawa finally went after it. The new Productivity Mega Deduction lets you write off the whole machine the year it goes to work instead of a spoonful a year for a decade. 

Episode 32 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:

☕ THE BIG ONE: The Productivity Mega Deduction, explained properly. What capital cost allowance actually costs you, why the TIMING of a writeoff is the whole game, what's covered and what isn't — and the number nobody else is quoting: construction's effective tax rate on new investment drops from 18.3% to 13%, against 22.2% in the United States. We were four points ahead of the Americans. We're now nine.

💸 Nearly $500 BILLION pledged at the Canada Investment Summit — a $50-billion Maple Fund, $150 billion from TD, $100 billion-plus from Scotiabank. Nobody signs a pipeline at a conference. Here's what those pledges actually are, and why Chris Gardner's "faster, cheaper, smarter" is the next step.

🚧 613 JOBS IN WELLS. Osisko Gold's board gives the formal green light to build Cariboo Gold — $990 million, a 30-month build, first gold in early 2029. Eleven years from the first drill to a construction decision. That's the good news and the problem in one project.

🌉 Ottawa puts YVR and Calgary International in play — long-term private concessions on the two front doors for western Canadian trade.

📉 July building permits land the same morning: down 17.3% in a month, to $12.2 billion. Pledges are next year's work. Permits are this year's.

🗳️ Calgary-Shaw flips by 582 VOTES in a seat the UCP has held since 2019. A vote split, or the October 19 referendum? And what either answer means for the province asking the world to invest in it.

🛢️ Ksi Lisims LNG signs its THIRD international buyer in twelve months — 20 years, one million tonnes a year, with a final investment decision targeted before Christmas. And there's a new federal writeoff aimed squarely at it.