Canada’s post- virus economic plan in limbo
Until Tuesday, Navdeep Bains was a man on a mission.
After five years as innovation minister, and slowly but surely refocusing industrial policy on actively pushing economic growth, Bains now leaves the levers of a pandemic recovery in the hands of his replacement, François- Philippe Champagne.
The timing of his departure is challenging.
In the next two months, the federal government needs to define and figure out how to pay for its $ 100- billion plan to surge out of the recession — and the minister who has had economic growth on his mind for the past five years won’t be there.
Bains, of course, says he has all the faith in the world that Champagne is up for the job. The former foreign affairs minister has business connections, private sector experience and energy to burn.
But Bains was on the cusp of implementing a vision that he had been nurturing for five years. From the moment he took on the Industry Canada portfolio, he says he was fixated on fostering growth and jobs in away that would push the country aggressively into a more digital economy.
“It speaks to the global context and the reality that we live in today, where governments are actively involved in their economy, to be positioning themselves to succeed,” Bains said in an interview after going public with his decision to step down. “So it’s important to be part of an activist government that looks forward ( with an) innovation and skills plan.”
He was inspired by C. D.
Howe, the Liberal cabinet minister during the 1940s and 1950s who worked closely with the private sector to turn Canada from an agricultural producer into a competitive industrial exporter. Bains wanted to engineer the 21st century version of that, turning Canada’s industry- and- service- based economy into a digital powerhouse.
That mission became even more critical with the onset of the pandemic.
Work- from- home requirements and a massive upswing in online retail and e- commerce mean that the so- called “future of work” that puts data and digital transactions at its centre is now here, and here to stay.
And requirements for Canada to suddenly retool its industrial production to manufacture personal protective equipment and medical supplies in the face of an increasingly protective global trading system were a reminder that, when times get tough, most governments will act aggressively in the interest of their own people.
Now, as the federal government prepares for a budget and possibly an election around how Canada should recover, Bains’s push for an activist government that cajoles the private sector toward a more competitive stance has been picking up momentum, especially with the governmentwide push to “build back better” in the wake of the pandemic.
Funding for the Strategic Innovation Fund and for Sustainable Development Technology Canada — two wellfinanced programs that allow the department of innovation to put serious money into promising Canadian companies — is ample and at the ready, Bains points out.
On the green technology front, which Bains believes should be central to Canada’s economic growth strategy, the main policy planks have been put in place. A month ago, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson rolled out a plan that would legislate a low- carbon economy, entrench a sharply rising carbon price and ensure funding to help the private sector compete.
Ablue- chip group of leaders from the private sector, convened by Bains to advise him on the recovery, has issued a long list of recommendations that give the government scope and direction to steer business development with a firm hand and a keen eye on the digital economy.
Asked whether he had any regrets about the timing of his departure, Bains said Tuesday he wished he had had time to more thoroughly shape the shift to electric vehicle and battery manufacturing. Some funding and policy is in place, but it’s only a beginning.
No one doubts Champagne’s capacity to take up the challenges left by Bains, and he inherits a steady bureaucracy that is well acquainted with Bains’s activist agenda. But it takes a few months for even the sharpest ministers to get up to speed on their files, and much longer than that to put their stamp on policy.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world, and even the rest of the federal government, is moving faster than that. As vaccinations take hold and economies around the world open up in tandem with growing immunity, the pressure is on Canada to make sure our recovery moves in lockstep with our competitors.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is already diving deep into consultations to forge the next budget, with a goal to make sure her promised threeyear stimulus package propels economic growth and delivers jobs. Without that growth, the deficit will swell. Without those jobs, the public will balk.
Bains, and his quiet, determined approach to pushing for both of those, will be missed.