kEiThZ
Superstar
Pause - Without going down the AUKUS rabbit hole again; what other steps can we/should be be taking.
Find more deals where we can access larger joint pools of funding that won't result in talent leaving Canada. The problem is that there aren't many. And increasingly in Cold War 2.0 they are restricted by bloc or alliance. For example, joint funding inside the EU or AUKUS. The government, so quick to dismiss AUKUS as "just a nuclear deal" now understands this. That's why they are begging for a side deal now.
What we're experiencing is the end of Canada getting privileged access that we've taken for granted for so long. And this is coming as a shock to government bureaucrats or politicians. And apparently some ideological partisans....
Clearly, we need more funds for research; but how much more, targeted where? What else do we need to be doing?
Without access to pools, we need massive budgets. We're talking multiples of what is funded now. And I'm not even sure that will make up for decreased access. But it might slow the decline.
Canada’s universities call on the government to increase research funding
Grants and scholarships young scientists in Canada rely on haven’t increased in years, while other countries boost investment in research, says president of Universities Canada
www.theglobeandmail.com
How do we bolster a more robust VC market here?
All those places talking about being the next Silicon Valley don't understand SV. What makes SV special is that there is a massive pool of entrepreneurs who have led successful companies, grown them and exited. They then take this capital, become angel investors and venture capitalists and invest in the next generation of startups. Success builds on success, because succesful entrepreneurs are most likely to recognize successful future entrepreneurs. We can't build a more robust VC market here without having entrepreneurs who built successful careers here for generations. And achieving that is massively difficult because of the in-built bias against entrepreneurs in Canada. This is everything from cultural preferences to taxation. There's that old joke about the American dream being owning your own business and the Canadian dream being getting a government job. Truer than we want to admit.
My immediate suggestion is to make housing an unattractive investment. Even those greedy capitalist Americans limit lifetime capital gains on primary residence to US$250k. Make housing less attractive as an investment and we might see more capital flow into other investments. That might at least be a start.
The thing is, this is essentially a strategy to inflate your way out of debt; but you can do the exact same thing by promoting high wage growth, which they've been doing everything to clamp down on instead.
High wage growth is 20 yr strategy. Importing more foreign students to work 30 hrs/wk at Tim's is a 2 yr strategy. A government focused on winning the next election is not going to pick a 20 yr strategy. Heck, if this government was prone to long term thinking we wouldn't be talking about a housing crisis and peak immigration 8 years into their term.