The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
A new report takes aim at the rules and regulations limiting foreign ownership of Canadian companies. It was released by the Competition Policy Review Panel, appointed in the aftermath of a wave of takeovers of Canadian companies last year. The reportÕs conclusion is bizarre when you think about it. Over the last two decades thousands of foreign takeovers have been proposed and only one has ever been blocked by Investment Canada, but this panel insists Canada is too restrictive of foreign capital. It makes you wonder about the numeracy skills of the members of this panel. How could this have happened? The answer is that they, all five of the panelists, live in the world of big business, and I suppose it must just seem sensible to them to draw up the ultimate wish list of the CEOs. Is it really the case that the ownership of a countryÕs companies is simply a business matter? Might there not be issues of sovereignty involved? The panel met with business people and their lawyers in closed sessions. An occasional dissenter with claims to expertise on foreign ownership, like myself, was allowed in but the unwashed were scrupulously excluded. Perhaps, I thought, the panelists would, nevertheless, realize they were actually citizens themselves and rise to the occasion. They failed to do so. As my grandchildren would say, the panelÕs report is so yesterday. It calls on Canadian business to be more innovative while itself peddling every stale idea around. Its title, Compete to Win, makes me think it was written by Don Cherry, who at least has the good sense to put on that garish dress so weÕll know heÕs not to be taken seriously. ItÕs all too easy to dismiss this report. What could it have said that would have made it useful for these troubled times? HereÕs an example. Instead of advocating tearing down the rules and regulations limiting foreign ownership that we have for certain sectors we deem of particular public interest Ð like banking, telecommunications, transport Ð the report could have advocated adding resources in general, and oil and gas in particular, to the list. If a country has the good luck, as Canada has, to be well endowed with resources, it should see itself as having an obligation to develop those resource for the benefit of its own citizens by having companies Canadian-owned, and in some cases publically-owned. DonÕt let a dwindling number of monster corporations have control. This report mostly just plain irrelevant.
