Dan Herman🍁

Pretty thrilled that our documentary on Ukrainian startups during the war will launch tomorrow @WebSummit in the Ukrainian Pavilion - here's a sneak peek youtu.be/ons1MHfVuUw @tech_ukraine #websummit #Ukraine

During my 16 years in Asia (including Japan), I saw firsthand how Canadian delegations are well-liked, but there was usually a lack of follow-up and strategic relationship management sustained over an extended period of time. This undermined the credibility and gravitas of the country’s reputation at the elite level. Canada always scored high for character perceptions, but significantly lower concerning competence. And also a general sense that Canada was a small potatoes country on a tight budget. Hopefully that’s changing now.

@acoyne "This ad was paid for by your tax dollars" should be a mandatory component of all such comms, and would hopefully get people to question the value of them versus, say, investing in schools...

Constant barrage of ads from the Ford government – on radio, on TV on social media – telling me what a great job they’re doing, at my expense. Using public dollars to cement themselves in office. This sort of thing should not be allowed.

Canada's startup ecosystem lost $66 billion in value over a 5-year period thanks to startups missing out on early-stage funding. NACO Canada and Startup Genome lay it all out, and we've got the breakdown at BetaKit: betakit.com/sluggish-growt…

@lucyhargreaves4 It's not just Alabama/the US. We're losing ground against all our G7 + economies.

Alabama's unemployment rate is 2.7%. Canada's is 6.5%. Alabama now manufactures nearly as many cars as Ontario. How did the one of the poorest states in the US start outcompeting us? The Globe went down there to find out. The short version: Alabama spent 30 years treating economic development like a serious strategy... landing investments, making it fast and easy to build, and clawing back incentives from companies that didn't deliver. Canada spent the same 30 years writing reports about competitiveness and then not acting on them. Eli Lilly just put a $6B pharma plant in Huntsville. That could have been Montreal. Alabama is no paradise. Life expectancy is 74 vs 82 in Canada, minimum wage is $7.25. But there's a line in the piece that stuck with me. In 2007, the Harper government commissioned a competitiveness report. The conclusion as to why it's difficult to take the actions needed to be more competitive: "Canadians do not perceive that there is an imminent crisis." The authors said you'd get the same answer today. I think they're probably mostly right. And as the Globe puts it: "If Canadians remain complacent, the rest of the world will eat our lunch." We're in a crisis, folks. An imminent one at that. Time to get seriously aggressive about the changes we need to make.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the capacity of Ukraine’s defense industry has increased by tenfold. Our production potential for drones and missiles alone will reach $35 billion next year. Already over 40 percent of the weapons in use at the front are either made in Ukraine or produced with Ukraine. And the share of our weapons will only grow. The task for manufacturers, for the Government of Ukraine, for all institutions involved is that by the end of the year no less than 50 percent of the weapons at the front must be our Ukrainian weapons, and this task must be accomplished. We need funding to unleash our full potential and we are working with every partner who can help make this possible. It is time to start exporting our Ukrainian weapons – those types we have in surplus and can therefore export, to finance the types of weapons that are especially needed for our defense. I have already instructed the Government, the Office, and the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine to develop and present the key elements of such an export system. The working title of this program is “Zbroya” – our export product. Agreements are already in place to launch export-import platforms in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. The task is to have these platforms operational by the end of the year. I said this during the International Defense Industries Forum, which we are opening for the third time in Ukraine today.

It is insane Russia's organized transfer of children out of Ukraine and into Russia is not a global story. As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories

Russia unjustly invaded Georgia 17 years ago, setting a disturbing trend of invading its neighbours. Canada supports Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and reiterates our call for an end to Russia’s illegal occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

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The White House claims tariffs work. Let’s look at each study they cite to see if they’re correct.

Another $7.2 million in public money is headed to a foreign multinational — while Ontario’s most innovative companies are still waiting for real support. Read the full article on @BetaKit: betakit.com/ontario-subsid…

Elbows up, Canada.

My latest feature, a story several months in the making. Welcome to the US$100-million club: With dozens of scaled-up tech companies, Canada is poised to deliver a wave of quality IPOs theglobeandmail.com/business/artic…

🇺🇦🇨🇦💙💛 This day 33 years ago (December 2, 1991) Canada became the first country in the Western hemisphere to recognize Ukraine’s independence. And today, as we are fighting for our freedom and sovereignty, we are grateful to Canada for standing with us!

In 1965, Singapore was forced out of Malaysia. No army. No resources. No fresh water. A tiny island of 2M people living in slums. Then ONE man's ruthless vision built modern Asia's greatest success... 🧵

🚨My Sunday read recomendation: Productivity, productivity: Why Canada keeps talking about it but sees no results - by Jim Balsillie via the @globeandmail theglobeandmail.com/business/comme…

Ukraine is becoming a center of defence innovation and production. 200 defence ventures inside Ukraine are capable of producing $20bn of equipment this year, and $30bn next. Read more 👇 ft.com/content/323876…

Tony Blair explains the 3 key decisions Lee Kuan Yew took that made Singapore rich. “Each one of them now seems obvious. Each one at the time was deeply contested.”

Call me radical but Canadians should probably know exactly which parliamentarians are “”semi-witting or witting” participants in the efforts of foreign states to interfere in our politics.”

Some federal politicians have collaborated with China and India to further their own interests: watchdog says in new report theglobeandmail.com/gift/b450ad3f1…