It’s Time to Make Canada More Competitive

Commentary

When Canada became a country in 1867, our founding constitutional act produced the phrase “peace, order and good government.” Some compare this to the United States constitutional well-known message of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But there’s a stark contrast. Canada’s vision exudes collectivism and government involvement, whereas the U.S. vision embodies unbridled capitalism and individual rights.

There is an argument that our approach was beneficial, perhaps even necessary, given our vast, harsh and thinly populated country. Without government backing we may not have built a cross-country railway, certainly not as early as achieved in 1885. Nor would we have established a national airline system or developed country-wide telecommunications networks.

I recall the days when most of the regional phone systems were owned by their respective provinces. Even the development of our natural resources was aided by many government initiatives. Think of the Arctic drilling credits and incentives supporting the pioneering work done by Dome Petroleum in that region. Or the offshore Eastern Canada petroleum incentive payments supporting that development, or the government’s partial ownership in Hibernia, both directly and through Petro-Canada, its national oil company.

There was the Alberta government’s support of early efforts to develop the oilsands. And, of course, the support for dairy, certain elements of the agriculture sector, and the auto and auto manufacturing parts sectors are well documented. Even our world-leading companies in the potash and uranium production businesses started out with government support and ownership. I had the privilege of working with the Saskatchewan government to help underwrite the IPOs (initial public offerings) of both those government-owned businesses over 30 years ago. It was also the era of Tommy Douglas and the creation of universal health care in 1947 in Saskatchewan.

But that was the past and a different time. Today, Canada is much more developed and has over 40 million residents and modern infrastructure. Yet we continue to operate in a government-dominated, monopolistic, and oligopolistic manner. Think government monopoly on health care and education systems, oligopolies in banking, insurance, railways, telecommunications, airlines, and heavy regulation in dairy supply management and parts of the food and auto sectors. Think of the billions of dollars of recent government subsidies for proposed electric vehicle and battery facilities.

The only meaningful sectors where Canadian industry truly competes on a global basis are oil and gas, mining, and perhaps forestry.

There is an observable East/West divide to these industries, and I believe this is a partial explanation on why the East and the West have philosophical differences on how Canada should be governed. A business acquaintance of mine for over 30 years who has been close to the inner workings of the federal government recently shared his response when queried about ideas for a potential political campaign slogan: “Make Canada Mediocre Again.”

Perhaps it is time that we stepped back and thought again about government regulation, competition, and individual rights, and a new vision for Canada.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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