Do we build Canada, or do we beg the US for mercy?
A few weeks ago, I went to an event in Calgary at the Grand Theatre hosted by a group called Build Canada. I can’t remember how I came across the event details, but since leaving my full-time government role, and submitting my PhD thesis, I have a bit more flexibility in my schedule these days to investigate random networking events (or atleast that’s what I thought this was).
With Calgary, you never really know if you’re going to be in a room with six weirdos, or a conference room with two hundred oil and gas execs. This situation turned out to be the latter. It was mix of tech leaders, former Alberta oil baron’s, venture capitalists, investors and developers. The premise of the event included a fireside chat with Lucy Hargreaves, a former MP’s chief-of-staff, followed by appetizers and general networking. The discussion centred on the idea of building Canada’s economy, challenges between provincial trade, and political will. I later discovered the event was rapidly pulled together because the Prime Minister happened to be in town and was making an announcement the following day.
Canada’s broken things
I didn’t know anyone going into the event, but I happened to meet a lovely woman named Josee Tremblay in the women’s washroom, which was almost entirely empty – a rarity. Admittedly, it was a bit disheartening to see so few women. But, as I listened to the main speaker, Lucy Hargreaves, I kept hearing one common theme: Canada’s broken things.
Lucy Hargreaves speaks in Calgary. Photo by Build Canada and Sandstone Asset Management.
It came up again tonight at a reading event hosted by the same organization. What was meant to be a discussion on intra-provincial trade barriers eventually came around to the same concept. All of the things Canada has fucked up over the past two decades. Even big ‘wins’ like BlackBerry eventually became fuck-ups. And while one attendee, Josh, offered ideas on why Canada always screws up, it was also evident that Canadians are not ruthlessly hungry to build the next Meta or the next Google. We seem collectively satisfied with quietly producing popular inventions, ideas, and products only to have them get absorbed, sold, or stolen by the United States. Then we sheepishly look back at the moment in time where we could have had it all.
Building Canada, or protecting it?
It got me thinking, how do we reclaim our broken things? How much does Canada need to build versus protect? What is the point of filling the sink, if in the end, the US can pull the plug and drain our talent, expertise, money and resources?
The example that haunts me is Canada’s publishing sector. An article in the Walrus titled How Canada Sold out Its Publishing Industry, follows the “the slow, secret murder of Canada’s nationalist publishing policy” and how the late entrepreneur Avie Bennett handed over McClelland & Stewart in 2000, Canada’s longest-lived and best independent publisher, to a foreign entity when the Investment Canada Act forbid it. By 2012, most Canadian publishers were on the verge of bankruptcy, and McClelland & Stewart (thought to have been placed under the care of the University of Toronto) was now a virtual shell within the Bertelsmann media empire. Bennett had cashed out. And McClelland & Stewart was reduced to an imprint under the Penguin RandomHouse brand.
As the Quill and Quire reported, what was once “a wholly Canadian-owned company” in 1906, was stripped and sold for parts at the turn of the new millennium. Ninety years was enough before someone threw in the towel, and off-loaded Canada’s publishing sector.
Canadian books are an economic gateway
While book publishing might not be top-of-mind for Canadians, think about every film and television show derived from literature. CBC’s two most popular series: Murdoch Mysteries and Heartland, are both based on novels. But Canadian authors can not publish and profit from their work within Canada’s fractured publishing landscape.
Our intellectual property now gets sold to US-based publishing houses, and since Canadian and US rights are sold together (something we were bullied into) it means that instead of earning money in two markets, it’s treated as one. It gives the US publishing sector significant control over what is on our bookshelves. And without a major Canadian publisher, no one is actively purchasing the rights to import books from global markets. If you like Scandinavian Noir, you better hope the US likes it too…otherwise, you’ll never see those books on Indigo shelves.
When it comes to printing books, LSC Communications in Chicago is the largest producer of books in the United States (and their books are also shipped to distributors in Canada). And while books currently fall under CUSMA’s free trade policy, that agreement is on thin ice.
Do we beg for mercy?
When it comes to tariffs (current or future) some commentators and economists suggest Canada’s monopolies take charge, negotiate their own deals with the US, and beg for tariff reductions. It’s what Jack Mintz, President’s Fellow, The School of Public Policy, at the University of Calgary suggests. He believes Canada ought to submit to the whims of a mentally-unstable fascist for temporary relief. In a Linkedin post, he writes, “Maybe Canada’s business community should take a leaf from the Swiss playbook and apply direct pressure to get tariffs down to the 10 per cent baseline as soon as possible. If that means visiting the White House, so be it.”
I get the sentiment here, but I’m not on board with it.
For one, undermining trade negotiations comes with consequences. Even if temporary relief was granted, there is a significant risk that higher costs would appear elsewhere, and likely in unpredictable ways. Instability is the hallmark of insecure leadership. Falling in line and submitting to the US is clearly not paying long-term dividends for Canada. And there’s no point in crying about it — even Kleenex has left us.
Canada can not afford to be insecure. We need to spend the next 2-3 years on opening pathways to new markets, protecting what we have, and innovating quickly. We can’t compromise our collective values. And what was evident from tonight, is that whatever squabbles we have with one another, our future depends on what we do next.
Maybe it’s time to take responsibility for our own decisions, collectively apologize for what we fucked up, and choose to play for a new kind of Team Canada.
