Canadian Economic Nationalism in the Trump Era: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Canada’s lagging productivity and innovation, combined with the second term of Donald Trump, is driving the country’s policy leaders to embrace a deeply flawed idea: techno-economic nationalism that discriminates against foreign tech firms. However, as Rob Atkinson writes in a commentary piece for The Hill Times, this approach would be disastrous.

There are two key problems with this bellicose techno-nationalism. First, and most obviously, it will provoke Trump, who is already laser-focused on ending nations “taking advantage of the United States.” Setting aside the predictable Trump retaliation, the second key problem should be equally obvious: techno-nationalism is a disastrous innovation strategy. Canada must be global to succeed, and multinational technology firms are far from the extractive forces of Canadian talent and IP that economic nationalists claim them to be.

So, as Atkinson explains, there are better solutions. To boost innovation, Canada must think like a “big, small country” rather than a “small, big country.” This means:

1. Attracting foreign tech firms.
2. Crafting a sector-based techno-economic strategy to compete globally.
3. Pushing universities out of their comfort zones to align research with home-grown technological opportunities.
4. Expanding and reforming the research and development tax credit.
5. Embracing the innovation principle in Canadian regulation instead of copying Europe’s heavy-handed approach.

Read the full commentary.