Canada

Join ITIF’s Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness for an engaging discussion with leading international experts and peers.

There is no free lunch to be found by imposing base contributions on foreign online undertakings to fund the government’s preferred content. The Commission should reckon with the economic realities of its proposal rather than obscuring them behind anti-foreign rhetoric.

Canada is capturing less than half of its technological potential, allowing for groundbreaking research and innovations to sit unused or to be scooped up by foreign companies.

Rob Atkinson appeared on the Hub Dialogues podcast to discuss ITIF’s new Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness, what explains Canada’s poor performance on advanced industry sectors, and why Canadian policymakers should listen more to “productionists” over economists.

The artificial intelligence market in Canada is still in its early stages but is growing rapidly and becoming increasingly competitive. At this juncture, there is no clear evidence of market failure, substantial barriers to entry, or exclusionary practices that would necessitate intervention.

Canada needs a productivity commission. But instead of emulating Australia’s model, which is driven by orthodox neoclassical economics, it should take guidance from “productionists” with a deep understanding of firm, industry, and technology dynamics.

On the Australian Productivity Commission’s watch, productivity growth in Australia over the last two decades is at its lowest for 60 years, with accompanying real wage stagnation.

Watch now for ITIF's launch event for the Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness, an Ottawa-based ITIF affiliate focused on tackling these issues. The event featured an expert panel discussion on a new report from the Centre examining the how and why of Canada’s performance on key measures of productivity, innovation, and competitiveness.

Canada faces unprecedented challenges in innovation, productivity, and competitiveness. The first step in addressing them is to develop a clear understanding of the Canadian economy’s underlying structure and performance in each area. Policymakers must then tailor strategies for specific industries and technologies instead of focusing on principally on macro factors.

The word “innovation” appears a total of 97 times and “productivity” 63 times in Canada’s 2024 federal budget, and many measures targeted towards innovation and productivity reflect that focus. However, some of the funds being disbursed are tangential at best to actually addressing Canada’s declining productivity and supporting Canada’s innovation ecosystem.