The Canada Development Investment Corporation is becoming a Crown Corporation, and the way it operates is going to change. This matters for companies and financial negotiations with the federal government.
Key points:
- In the past, CDEV operated largely out of sight, and this was by design. It operated as a flexible entity that could react quickly to the new and evolving needs of government as they arose.
- In the most recent Budget, a bill was introduced to turn CDEV into a legislated Crown Corporation. This creates a permanent federal platform for strategic investments, rescue financing, asset management, and industry-level interventions. CDEV is going to play a key role in helping the government be more strategic in the execution of industrial policy.
- Firms in distress will be sent more quickly and directly to CDEV to consider. This creates more transparency and better long-term accountability — but limits the government’s freedom to improvise in moments of acute crisis.
- Firms and companies should think carefully about how to approach complex financial negotiations with the federal government, which CDEV will now play a key role in facilitating.
Most Canadians, even most some of the most informed stakeholders and lobbyists, have never heard of an important government agency that is central to crisis response and how the government interacts in the economy – the Canada Development Investment Corporation (CDEV).
That’s not a criticism — even within Ottawa, you probably won’t ever come into contact with the agency, unless maybe you are a large and systemically important industry during a period of economic stress. If you were around the auto bailout, followed the Trans Mountain saga, or needed to get a refund on your airline fare that was cancelled during COVID, your life has been touched by CDEV. You just likely didn’t know it.
