Share Your Perspective: Help Shape Canada’s Business Succession Policy
The Big Picture:
Canada’s Succession Summit takes place on October 17th, 2026, in Calgary, but you don’t need to be in the room to help shape what comes out of it. Venture for Canada’s Canadian ETA Perspectives Survey asks buyers, business owners, advisors, lenders, and ecosystem builders about the barriers they face in business ownership transfers and where solutions should come from. Responses will inform the summit’s discussions and a policy whitepaper with recommendations to government, and a summary of the results will be shared publicly. The survey takes less than five minutes, is anonymous, and is open until October 16th, 2026.
What does the future of business succession in Canada look like? Canada’s Succession Summit is happening in Calgary on October 17th, bringing together business leaders, advisors, investors, and policymakers to help answer that exact question. The goal of this full-day event is to provide spaces and spark conversations about awareness, priorities, barriers, and opportunities that continue long after the summit is over.
Whether or not you’ll be in the room with us, you can still shape the conversation by taking our Canadian ETA Perspectives Survey and sharing your experience with the challenges and possible solutions in business succession.
Why this survey matters
We’re about to see the largest business ownership transfer in Canadian history. According to the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), 61% of small and medium-sized business owners are aged 50 or older, and nearly one in five are planning to exit over the next 5 years. These businesses represent more than $300 billion in revenue. Meanwhile, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) found that only 9% of business owners have a formal succession plan, and 54% say finding the right buyer is their biggest succession challenge.
Here’s the gap: these statistics show the scale of the transition, but not the stories behind them. That’s where the survey comes in — it asks questions about where sellers find buyers (or buyers find businesses), why ownership deals stall, what financing options are available, and whether sellers see entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) as a credible succession option.
“This is a really important moment in Canada's succession wave. We want to hear from everyone working in this space, the people who understand how business transitions actually happen in Canada today, about the obstacles they face and the gaps we need to close.”
– Mariana Reyes, Interim Director of Programs at Venture for Canada
What the survey asks
The Canadian ETA Perspectives Survey starts by asking you to share a little bit about yourself, including your role in the business ownership space, to help tailor the remaining questions so you’ll only be asked what’s relevant to you. Here’s a quick summary:
- The state of the ETA ecosystem: buyer supply, sale-ready businesses, and whether buyers and sellers can find each other
- Networks and deal sourcing: how people find businesses, and how much access they have to the networks where deals happen
- Barriers and where to fix them: the biggest obstacle and the level where it’s best addressed (federal policy, institutions, grassroots efforts, or individual deals)
- Financing and taxes: where the financing gap is sharpest, and awareness of tools like EOTs and the Lifetime Capital Gains Exemption
- For owners: what matters most in a sale, exit timelines, and willingness to offer seller financing
- Keeping it Canadian: foreign buyer activity, and whether owners would accept less to sell to a Canadian buyer or keep local jobs
These questions don’t just help shape future conversations and policies — they’re also tied directly to the sessions and panels taking place during Canada’s Succession Summit. This includes The Seller Perspective in Business Transition; Funding the Deal: Where Canadian Acquisition Capital Comes From; and Keeping it Canadian: Impact, Ownership, and the Deals That Stay Home. View the summit’s complete schedule here.
How your answers will be used
Before the summit, your responses will help shape the day’s discussions by highlighting the most common barriers, knowledge gaps, and opportunities across the country. After the summit, your input and insights from the discussions will inform a policy whitepaper with recommendations to government on strengthening business succession in Canada. We’ll also share a summary of the results publicly on our blog, so you can see what your perspectives helped surface.
“Not everyone with something to contribute can be in the room in Calgary. We see this survey as an opportunity to hear from the nation. Every response helps us understand the realities of business succession planning and entrepreneurship through acquisition across the country, and shapes the recommendations we summarize for all ETA stakeholders and policymakers.”
– Mariana Reyes, Interim Director of Programs at Venture for Canada
How to participate in the survey
The survey can be found here, and will be open until October 16th, 2026. It takes less than five minutes to complete. While we do ask for demographic information about your community and identity, responses are anonymous and will only be reported in aggregate.
If you know others in your community or network who should weigh in, we encourage you to share the survey with them. We want to hear from everyone in Canada’s business succession ecosystem to help paint an accurate picture of the current perspectives, gaps, and opportunities that people are experiencing.
Here’s a message template to help you get started:
Venture for Canada is running a short survey on business succession and buying businesses in Canada. It takes less than five minutes, it’s anonymous, and the results will help shape a policy report to the government. Worth adding your perspective: https://venture4canada.typeform.com/to/Nuilbd8b
Whether or not you’ll be joining us in Calgary on October 17th for Canada’s Succession Summit, your voice belongs in this conversation.
FAQ
What is the Canadian ETA Perspectives Survey?
The Canadian ETA Perspectives Survey, created by Venture for Canada, is intended to understand what people involved in or adjacent to entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA) are seeing in the Canadian market, the barriers they encounter, and the policy or institutional changes that could better support successful business transfers.
Who should take the survey?
Anyone involved in business ownership, succession planning, and/or ETA in Canada: buyers, owners, advisors, lenders, investors, policymakers, and ecosystem builders.
How will the results be used?
The survey’s responses will be used in aggregate to identify common themes and inform discussions at Canada’s Succession Summit in Calgary on October 17th. We’ll also share a summary of the survey’s results in a later blog article and use them to inform a policy whitepaper with recommendations to government on strengthening business succession in Canada.
