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Results: 46 - 60 of 192
Jim Balsillie
View Jim Balsillie Profile
Jim Balsillie
2021-04-20 12:13
Well, there are many things.
In a sense, the ideas economy, the intangibles economy, works opposite to the tangible economy, so it's actually about creating regulations that favour you.
When we hear people like Robin Shaban speak, we know we have to look after the power of our own companies by how we run our Competition Bureau. We have to look at the power of our own citizens and companies for how we regulate data in our privacy economy, how we set standards, how we do trade agreements and how we do research funding.
It's really about programs that focus on what the gain is, which is generating the assets that determine our prosperity and our security. It's a totally different role for government. This is, frankly, what's been missing in our approach for the last 25-plus years. It's why we've faded in these regards, but it can be fixed.
View Earl Dreeshen Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
It's great to have all the witnesses here this morning.
Mr. Balsillie, some of the things you mentioned earlier were that we are first world as far as income is concerned, but we are third world as far as our outcome is concerned. We heard earlier that a bunch of money is going to be allocated to different potential projects to help out as far as industry issues are concerned, but you also indicated lots of money but poor results. The other thing that you mentioned on our research funding with great fanfare was that the superclusters are a great idea, but of course, so much of the intellectual property and the main focus go to other countries.
I know that in the past you've made comments about how we seem to be losing our place. I'm wondering if you can comment on some of those issues right away.
Jim Balsillie
View Jim Balsillie Profile
Jim Balsillie
2021-04-20 12:18
Sure, I'm happy to.
It's really just a set, a patchwork of prior approaches, but with more money. When you look at the superclusters, they were set up with no idea, data or strategies, without the governance set up, and then they started to try to fix that as they were rolling. When we did our SIF program, half the money went to foreign companies. Again, if it's a traditional production economy, you count on the positive spillovers of those partnerships. In the ideas economy, all we're doing is making other countries rich, impoverishing Canada.
I don't think we have an innovation strategy. These are job strategies, but they're low-quality jobs. It's a race to the bottom. If we had a proper lens of expertise, we would recraft these programs.
The government has a central role in this. I do believe in investing in these things, but I would like to see us get $10 out of our $1, not 10¢.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
One of the issues I see with this is that the financial envelopes for federal programs, particularly CED programs, often have a time limit. They are open from November to May, for example. Obviously, innovation doesn't necessarily happen when the program envelope ends.
What are our innovative entrepreneurs frustrated about? How do our programs adapt, or not, to the fact that innovation and program funding are not always in sync?
Jim Balsillie
View Jim Balsillie Profile
Jim Balsillie
2021-04-20 12:41
That's a very good question.
What places like Germany, South Korea and Singapore have done is integrate things like their IP expertise and their data governance with the research funding, and they stay with the firm for decades. You don't look at it as a transaction; you look at it as a parent-child relationship. You stay with these firms in the completeness, not as a transaction that is hot and cold, hot and cold.
I think we could get guidance from how the Fraunhofer Institute does it in Germany. They stay with it forever. That's research funding, commercialization and other things like that. That would guide us.
View Jean Yip Profile
Lib. (ON)
I am going to expand on Mr. Williamson's point and go back to your opening statement, Mr. Leuprecht, wherein you talked about image and reality and said that China has lots of vulnerabilities and that we need to bolster our own Canadian dynamicism. I like the positive statement and the support for Canada.
What are China's vulnerabilities? What can be done to bolster our own Canadian dynamicism in innovation?
Christian Leuprecht
View Christian Leuprecht Profile
Christian Leuprecht
2021-04-19 21:18
I'll give you a quick overview of a few matters.
Looking at demographic change, China is going to hit peak labour by 2025. It has already maxed out in its productivity gains. Currently there are eight working Chinese per retiree; by 2050 there will be two. China has a real challenge with growing old before it grows wealthy.
It has rising debt levels—300% of GDP in 2019—and so China can't buy its way up the ladder in the way, for instance, that South Korea or Taiwan did. China is running out of runway to catch up, which is why President Xi is doubling down. He knows he has only so much time to catch up.
At the same time, there is the sclerotic political system, this Leninist rigidity. There is shrinking room for innovation and top-down decision-making. Bad news is never tolerated at the top. This is why we saw the challenges coming out of Wuhan in reporting on the virus.
We see the rising negative views of China, which are at historic highs across a diverse set of partner and allied countries, including Canada. There are budgetary constraints with a cooling economy. There are rising demands from its population and an aging society. There are serious risks of default on some of the loans from the belt and road Initiative, which would have serious legitimacy implications for the Chinese leadership, which has really sold this idea as the future of China. They're also vulnerable on food and energy security: China can't grow enough food for its population, and it imports half its oil from the Middle East.
I can go on, if you'd like.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
My question is for Mr. Kotak.
Thank you for your presentation. I felt that it had some especially worthwhile elements.
I would like us to discuss innovation.
Would exempting small businesses with an income below a certain threshold, as set by Canadian authorities, be an effective measure to reduce the regulatory burden and foster innovation?
Ritesh Kotak
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Ritesh Kotak
2021-04-15 13:26
Yes. At the end of the day, anything that would make it easier for small businesses—to me, they are the backbone of our economy and where we're seeing a lot of innovation—and cheaper and that would reduce the red tape would be of great benefit to small businesses. But in order to actually see the benefit, we also have to, as I mentioned earlier, aggregate resources. If we're able to aggregate, if it's easier for that small business to spin up to essentially start conducting commerce, to understand the different tools that are available to them and to have point people within government to help them navigate the regulatory space, and we reduce that red tape, yes, it would increase competition, which in turn would also increase innovation in Canada as a whole.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Can you talk to us about obstacles businesses involved in innovation face?
At the end of the day, are regulations not limiting innovation in Quebec and in Canada?
Ritesh Kotak
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Ritesh Kotak
2021-04-15 13:27
From my personal experience, I truly believe that regulation is good. It protects Canadians. It tells us what we can and can't do. But at the same time, we need to make it easier. We need to make it more accessible.
Let me give you an example. If you're a small business trying to operate in the food space, do you really understand the regulations within the industry if you want to sell across the province? There are bilingual labelling requirements. Do you understand all of that stuff in terms of the label and the prior notices? There are so many different elements to this.
Yes, I truly believe that if we can cut the regulation but at the same time make it more accessible and put it in simple language that people can actually understand, then that in itself will make it easier and increase competition, absolutely.
Thank you so much.
George Roter
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George Roter
2021-04-12 15:52
I'll take it from the top. Third time's the charm.
Thank you so much again for your patience.
I'm very pleased to join you as the managing director of the Canada Plastics Pact.
The Canada Plastics Pact is tackling waste and pollution at source. We're a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's global Plastics Pact network and an independent initiative of The Natural Step Canada, a national charity with 25 years of experience in fostering a strong and inclusive economy that thrives within nature's limits.
Over 50 leading organizations are part of the Canada Plastics Pact, all taking action to achieve a circular economy for plastics. This is a growing network with expertise ranging from chemical and resin manufacturers to packaging and consumer goods producers to retailers, collectors, sorters and recyclers. It includes for-profit, not-for-profit and public sector organizations. This is the only network that brings together all of Canada's plastics value chain under one roof.
We recently completed a study showing that about 1.9 million tonnes of plastics packaging is produced in Canada each year. Of this, 88% ends up thrown away in landfills, burned in incinerators or lost to the environment. Just 12% is recycled.
That 88% represents waste, not just garbage. It's a wasted economic opportunity, a wasted chance at investing in innovation and industrial development and wasted greenhouse gas emissions.
If the question is how to address the make, take, waste reality of plastics today, the answer is with a circular economy—as we've heard from the other speakers—in which we keep plastics in the economy and out of the environment. This would mean eliminating the plastic packaging we don't need while innovating to ensure the plastic packaging we do need is reused or recycled. A circular economy for plastic turns waste into tens of thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic value while stimulating innovation and benefiting the environment.
A 2019 Recycling Council of Alberta report identified that increasing recycling in that province alone could generate $700 million per year in economic value and nearly 6,000 jobs. This is also true elsewhere in Canada, where a circular economy for plastics can produce high-quality, future-fit jobs. Imagine well-paid, safe, and secure jobs in sorting, recycling and industrial facilities from Kelowna to Kitchener, coast to coast to coast, in urban, rural and remote areas.
For the petrochemical sector, this poses an opportunity to develop world-leading innovation. Take, for example, a recent partnership between B.C.-based Merlin Plastics and Calgary-based NOVA Chemicals to turn recycled polyethylene into food-grade plastic resin.
Canada has an R and D infrastructure in place, supported by leading academic institutions, that is already driving this type of innovation in established companies and start-ups. More is possible.
The environmental benefits are also clear. Keeping plastics out of landfills and incinerators benefits our communities and animal and human health. Recycling plastic reduces greenhouse gases by over two-thirds compared to making resin from fresh, virgin resources.
If the early stages of the Canada Plastics Pact have proven anything, it's that industry is highly invested in bringing about a circular economy for plastics in Canada.
The involvement of all levels of government is also key. Bans on single-use plastic items are one possible tool on the menu of options available to governments. While partners in the Canada Plastics Pact have a range of views on this topic, our signatories have committed to designing out plastic packaging that is problematic for collection and recycling supply chains.
I would, however, like to shine a light on some additional approaches that the federal government can consider.
First, there's a clear role for the federal government in coordinating an effort to collect and share plastics data. Currently, data is inconsistent and insufficient on what plastics are flowing through the system and where they're ending up. Simply, you can't manage what you can't measure.
Second, there's an opportunity for the federal government to establish an industrial policy agenda for a circular plastics economy. Specifically, it can create national definitions in performance standards for the collection and recycling of plastics; support the provinces as they set out performance-based regulations, such as extended producer responsibility; and establish national recycled content standards while using public procurement to drive demand. These supply- and demand-side policies will set the basis for technological innovation in the circularity of plastics.
Third, no one part of the plastics value chain can address the challenge of waste alone, so it's important for governments to invest in the multi-stakeholder platforms for collaboration that are crucial for driving holistic systems change.
To conclude, let me be clear that the Canada Plastics Pact members do not speak with one voice on the proposed bans. What we are agreed on is that there is a broader agenda and a set of policies that the government will need to put in place to realize the benefits of, and position Canada as a leader in, the essential transition to a circular plastics economy.
Thank you.
Dwayne Winseck
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Dwayne Winseck
2021-04-06 11:16
Twenty-five years ago, Rogers and Shaw carved up cable and Internet access markets into “cable monopoly east” and “cable monopoly west”. This lead some to believe that a tie-up today will have minimal to no effect on either of these markets. While it is true that they did not compete with each other head to head thereafter, Shaw's earlier embrace of new cable network and set-top box technology revealed it to be the more innovative of the two firms, while also forcing Telus to roll out IPTV and fibre to the home five years earlier than Bell in Ontario and Quebec.
Shaw's decision to not enforce data limits on Internet subscribers after Netflix arrived in Canada in 2010, while other big ISPs did, revealed these limits for what they are—artificial constraints on people's use of the Internet. If this deal goes through, Shaw's customers will have to get used to counting their downloads against the meter. The proposed Rogers-Shaw deal will also have a considerable impact on Canadian TV, film and culture.
Ben, take it home, please.
Ben Klass
View Ben Klass Profile
Ben Klass
2021-04-06 11:17
Let's be clear: This merger is simply a play by Rogers to extend its dominance from coast to coast. Now is not the time, during the pandemic, for even more consolidation. This merger will result in higher prices and less innovation, when what we need is greater affordability. Regulators and policy-makers should do what they can to oppose this merger.
Thank you.
Results: 46 - 60 of 192 | Page: 4 of 13

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