Canadian chief executives are feeling much more downbeat about the domestic economy than they were last year and are more pessimistic about the global economy than their peers worldwide, marking the first time in five years that Canadian business leader sentiment has broken ranks with global optimism, according to the 2026 Global CEO Survey by

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Only 27 per cent of Canadian CEOs say the country’s economy will improve over the next 12 months compared to 42 per cent last year, and 47 per cent expect the global economy to improve over the same timeframe versus 61 per cent of CEOs globally. The survey was conducted in October and November, with 133 Canadian business leaders and more than 4,500 global CEOs interviewed.

Strained trade and diplomatic ties between Ottawa and Washington, coupled with growing geopolitical instability worldwide and slower adoption of technologies such as

artificial intelligence (AI)

, have contributed to the gloomy sentiment among Canadian business leaders, Nicolas Marcoux, chief executive of PwC Canada, said.

More than half of Canadian CEOs are concerned about how United States trade policy could affect Canada, with 35 per cent anticipating that tariffs will reduce their profits over the next year and 35 per cent ranking geopolitical disruption among their top three concerns, compared to 21 per cent of CEOs globally.

Greater clarity on the future of the

Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA)

would boost Canadian executive confidence, Marcoux said. The deal is up for review this July, but U.S. President Donald Trump last week called the agreement “irrelevant” for the U.S.

“Capital craves certainty, and there’s a lot of uncertainty right now around the Canadian economy,” Marcoux said. “If we could get to some sort of resolution on CUSMA — with a deal or even to (know) if there won’t be a deal — then I think capital will start to flow into Canada.”

There are, however, silver linings, Marcoux said, pointing out that Canadian CEOs have been outperforming on diversification, with 56 per cent saying they have diversified their companies into new sectors in the past half-decade compared to 42 per cent of global CEOs.

They also remain as confident as their global peers when it comes to their own company’s prospects, with 49 per cent of both Canadian and global CEOs expecting their company’s revenue to grow over the next three years.

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“That’s a significant shift,” Marcoux said. “There’s a connection with the situation vis-a-vis CUSMA where Canadian CEOs are looking at new markets, (not) just geographic markets but also other product lines,” he said.

But Canadian execs say that their companies are lagging on AI adoption and Canada has fallen four spots to No. 12 on the list of countries where global CEOs want to invest. The top four places are the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany and India.

“We need to make Canada more attractive for investment, whether it’s through better taxation (or) making it easier to build stuff in Canada,” Marcoux said, adding it would only take a few CEOs to move the dial. “If we get the right ones to move capital, then we could unlock a lot of value and opportunity.”

• Email: ylau@postmedia.com