Corporate Canada has a gerontocracy problem

If stock markets are a mirror of a society’s animal spirits, then Canada’s reflection is that of a venerable, greying, old mare. Case in point: six of Canada’s top 10 companies by market capitalization today are a century old or more. This puts us almost on par with France, ahead of Germany and Japan, and far above the United States, which has none. When grouped together, Canada’s top 10 companies by market cap have been in business for over a millennia, beating out equivalent lists for the U.K., France, and Japan. Furthermore, they’ve racked up more than twice the combined longevity of their U.S. counterparts. This is not a badge of honour; it is a stark diagnostic of economic malaise. Canada’s high international ranking in corporate longevity as a share of market capitalization is both a symptom and a cause of a profound lack of dynamism. While America’s 10 largest publicly traded companies are a vibrant tableau of creative destruction, firms like Nvidia, Apple, and Amazon born first from the advent of the internet and now the AI revolution, many of Canada’s top-tier companies, like Bank of Montreal (founded in 1817), instead boast roots stretching back to the 19th century. This contrast is not merely interesting—it is a powerful real-world demonstration of the consequences of a generation of divergent economic policy making in Canada versus the U.S. America’s capital markets are poster children for hyper-modernity. Their market structure favours disruptive, high-velocity growth over legacy stability. Value is concentrated in asset-light, high-margin software and platform business models that scale globally with breathtaking speed. This “youth profile” is a testament to a capital structure that voraciously seeks out future growth potential, accepting the inherent volatility and risk for the promise of world-beating returns. It is the picture of a dynamic, forward-looking economy that powers productivity. Canada’s stock index, disconcertingly, looks more like France’s. Both nations sport high single digits of “centenarians” in their top 10 publicly traded companies by market cap, anchored not in digital innovation but in entrenched, often state-protected sectors. In France, the centenarians are luxury houses like LVMH and Hermès, whose moats are built on intangible cultural capital, and industrial giants like TotalEnergies and Schneider Electric. In Canada, the story is one of a “policy-enforced longevity,” dominated by an oligopolistic financial services sector. Four of the top 10—Royal Bank, BMO, Scotia Bank, and TD—can trace their lineages back to pre-Confederation Canada. Their persistent dominance reflects our longstanding preference for less foreign competition, more domestic regulation and legislation that, on balance, flavours the wants and needs of incumbent industries. Our centenarians’ decadal dominance is not the outcome of superior competitive performance; it is the result of government-created moats that insulate Canada’s largest companies from the creative destruction that is the raison d’être of properly functioning markets. The implication is sobering: If Canada’s economic structure most closely resembles that of France or Great Britain—nations gripped with economic sclerosis, rigid labour markets, and resistance to reform—then our capacity for meaningful economic renewal may be equally limited. We have built an economy where the pinnacle of success is dominated by firms whose foundational businesses were formed before the invention of television, in some cases electricity. This corporate gerontocracy both crowds out and sucks up capital, talent, and ambition, creating a risk-averse economic culture where new and disruptive business ideas struggle to compete. The path forward is not to vilify these century-plus champions, but to consciously create the conditions for their future-oriented grandchildren to emerge. Reducing the dominance of centenarians in our top 10 publicly traded companies requires a deliberate and specific set of reforms focused on three pillars: competition, taxation, and regulation. We need radical competition reform that seeds the ground for the next generation of Shopifys, particularly in finance and telecom, driving much-needed innovation and consumer choice. We require tax reform that shifts incentives away from safeguarding legacy assets and towards rewarding venture capital, startup formation, and radical scalability. Most critically, we need regulatory reform that moves at the speed of the contemporary economy, welcoming rather than resisting the technology-driven, pro-disruption business models that have come to define 21st-century capitalism. Yet, look at the policy landscape Ottawa is advocating for the country. The recent federal budget repeats a generation of misdiagnosis of Canada’s economic opportunities and challenges. It is preoccupied with redistributive measures and grand industrial schemes, all tinkering at the edges of our current economic model instead of engaging in fundamental reform. It does little to address the deep scleroticism expressed by our corporate centenarians’ dominance of capital markets. It speaks of building the “strongest economy in the G7” while leaving untouched the vast regulatory, tax, and competitive frameworks that preserve a millenia of corporate longevity in just 10 companies. Until Canada’s stock indexes begin to look more like their U.S. counterparts—where today’s corporate titans are constantly being challenged by new, world-beating innovators—our policymakers will be a long way from reviving Canada’s economy. We need to embrace the credo that a lower percentage of large publicly listed companies over 100 years of age wouldn’t be a sign of national decline, but one of renewed national vitality. It would signal that Canada is finally creating an environment where the next Shopify can not only be birthed, but go on to grow and displace one of our half dozen or so corporate centenarians. This is the path to long-term growth and prosperity.