Kingsdale Advisors Founder and CEO Wes Hall is featured in the March/April 2026 edition of ICD's Director Journal, weighing in on one of the most consequential questions facing Canadian business leaders right now: what should boards be doing before the CUSMA review?
Wes, who sits on the Prime Minister's Council on Canada-U.S. Relations, is direct about where things stand. Free trade with the United States, as we have known it, is likely over. What comes next will be a trade agreement, but not a free one. For boards that have been operating on the assumption that North American trade will eventually return to normal, that distinction should be a wake-up call.
The article lays out a clear-eyed framework for directors navigating this shift. That means modelling downside scenarios beyond CUSMA, rethinking supply chains, and preparing for permanently higher tariffs not as a temporary disruption, but as the new baseline. The boards stress-testing these scenarios today will be far better positioned than those waiting to see how negotiations unfold.
As Wes puts it, “It has to be baked in now. We can't just hope and pray.”
The piece also addresses the broader structural challenge facing Canadian companies, including the urgent need to diversify trade relationships, reduce dependence on the U.S. market and build the kind of world-class businesses capable of competing globally. The message throughout is consistent: complacency is no longer an option.
Directors looking for strategic advice to get ahead of what could be a very different trade landscape by year's end, please email strategy@kingsdaleadvisors.com.
