BURST
Since Montreal-based National Bank completed a $5 billion merger with Canadian Western Bank in February 2025, its CEO, Laurent Ferreira, has had the added task of reassuring new customers the deal was worth it.
“(We’re) spending a lot of time right now with clients, understanding their needs, their concerns, making sure that we address that, making sure we provide them with equal and better service,” Ferreira told Postmedia this week after wrapping up his annual client meeting in Vancouver. “And a promise (that) we’re not taking away the reason why they were at CW.”
Based on National Bank’s 2025 financial results, former Canadian Western Bank customers are now part of a bigger, more profitable financial institution. Canadian Western’s assets were a big part in National Bank’s 47 per cent increase in first-quarter profits.
Though National Bank is based in Quebec, Ferreira said his institution shared an entrepreneurial DNA with Edmonton-headquartered Canadian Western Bank, so it was a natural target for its ambition to grow.
The timing of its acquisition has also proved to be convenient, considering Canadian Western’s position in Alberta and B.C. and its orientation to their resource sectors, as those industries are suddenly in the spotlight.
“We look at where the growth is right now across the country,” Ferreira said. “We do think that Western Canada has an opportunity to grow faster than Eastern Canada over the next four to five years.”
“So it’s a great transaction because it provides us with now a much bigger footprint in Western Canada to be able to grow from that platform,” Ferreira added.
Canada’s developing liquefied natural gas industry, which just saw its first exports from the massive LNG Canada facility in Kitimat, factored into Ferreira’s discussion with clients Wednesday, which he sees as one of B.C.’s distinct advantages.
“I talked about LNG today, which I think is something that, as a country, we should increase our capacity and we should definitely increase our export of LNG to Asian markets,” Ferreira said.
Before the U.S.-led conflict in the Middle East, market analysts and environmental groups sounded the alarm about an increasing glut of LNG building up in the global market, which made additional B.C. LNG facilities, such as LNG Canada’s proposed Phase 2 expansion, riskier ventures.
Ferreira, however, is in the camp that the conflict, which has reached a tenuous ceasefire, has “completely changed the dynamics” of the global market.
“There is definitely a very high demand for Canadian energy around the world, including in Asia,” Ferreira said.
“I think the opportunity for Canada” is in B.C., he said, “and I think we should be building LNG facilities in Eastern Canada as well.”
With proven natural gas reserves, Ferreira believes Canada has an opportunity to use LNG as a catalyst for technological innovation, which it wouldn’t have if the industry were constrained.
“I’m a firm believer that it’s with money that you can invest in technology, and it’s with technologies you’re going to innovate, and it’s with innovations that you’re going to be able to reduce emissions,” Ferreira said. “And it doesn’t mean by shutting down the valve.”
“Right now, there is demand for Canadian LNG and I think we should take advantage of that,” Ferreira added.
In B.C. and Alberta, Ferreira now sees National Bank having a new, higher, profile to take part in the potential. He noted that the merger with Canadian Western gives his institution 800 employees and 20 branches in B.C. that it didn’t have before.
“There’s always a need for bank facilities, that’s what we do,” Ferreira said. “We were there for (the Trans Mountain expansion) and we’d be there for increasing LNG facilities.”
And not just LNG, but real estate, forestry and mining as well.
“We’re there for the economy,” Ferreira said.