Does the current political partisanship in Ottawa make it hard to develop long-term strategy?
We’re moving into a phase where we’re facing a number of long-term structural problems. It is always difficult to get public engagement on longer-term issues, and that’s not just a comment about Ottawa in the current time. The FTA [free-trade agreement] was an example of very intensive public engagement and, on a number of these other issues, we have to get that engagement going. There has to be, for example, a detailed conversation about what productivity means. We are at a period when you have a number of quite unique structural events – many global, not just Canadian. The challenge is how we develop engagement strategies to get all parties talking about these issues and work towards Canadian solutions. Because we have to differentiate ourselves, and there is a first-mover advantage. The countries that move earlier in dealing with productivity, demographics, and innovation are going to be in a better position than the ones that wait and deal with it when they become more problematic.
