Cineva

Canada needs more voices for growth In a previous life, years and years ago, I was a young, aspiring economic historian focused on 20th-century economic policy and the relationship between business and government in Canada. My master’s thesis (which is far too embarrassing to read today) was on price and wage controls in the mid-1970s and their catalytic effect on the creation of the Business Council on National Issues—the precursor to today’s Business Council of Canada. The subsequent 20 years were the highwater mark of business influence over Canadian public policy. A combination of factors was responsible, including the charisma and intellect of BCNI CEO @Thomas_dAquino, the pro-business disposition of the Mulroney and Chretien governments, and a broader intellectual trend towards free trade, free markets, and less state intervention in the economy. Fast forward to the present, and business finds itself in much more difficult circumstances. The rise of populism on both the Left and the Right, as well as employee activism within corporations themselves, has contributed to a diminished role for business leaders in our public life. Many entrepreneurs and CEOs have opted to choose the path of least resistance and recede from the public square altogether. The result is that there are too few voices these days making the affirmative case for business and capitalism. The basic conditions for private sector investment and employment are increasingly the subject of inattention or even outright political hostility. And business leaders who are ostensibly invested in those conditions have been too averse to step into the fray in their defence. One gets the sense, though, that something is changing. Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen separate initiatives—@build_canada and Canadians for Free Enterprise (@benwatsa)—champion the case for market-based reforms to boost Canadian productivity and prosperity. These two projects differ in some key ways. Build Canada is fully non-partisan and comprises younger, more tech-related entrepreneurs. Canadians for Free Enterprise is composed of older, more established voices who ultimately chose to endorse Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. But what makes them similar is that they both represent a renewed commitment on the part of Canadian business leaders from different backgrounds and sectors to contribute to the public debate about policy, politics, and Canada’s future. This is a positive development—particularly because their ideas and perspectives are hugely additive to our policy discourse. Build Canada, in particular, has published several policy memos over the course of the campaign authored by leading entrepreneurs and technologists that have set out innovative and thoughtful policy ideas on topics ranging from immigration to energy to national service. Its own polling conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights finds significant public support for its overall agenda. Seventy percent of Canadians, for instance, agree that the next government should prioritize long-term economic growth over investing in more social programs, and more than 80 percent support repealing outdated regulations and reducing government spending. The same goes for Build Canada’s specific policy recommendations. More than 80 percent of Canadians want to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers, and 71 percent support fast-tracking energy projects. The list goes on. The key insight from this polling is that there’s a potent yet untapped cross-ideological and partisan agenda focused broadly on what one might characterize as less friction and more growth. More generally, though, the biggest contribution of Build Canada and Canadians for Free Enterprise is that they represent a renewed willingness on the part of Canadian entrepreneurs and business leaders to engage, to make the case for growth and prosperity, and to advance policy ideas that ultimately make the country richer and better. One hopes that this is just the beginning. As the campaign wraps up, this diverse and multi-partisan group of entrepreneurs, technologists, and CEOs opts to stay in the arena. They’ve made a big contribution over the past several weeks, and their voices in our political life will be even more important in the coming years.

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