home  re. Can our industrial base survive Asian challenge? Don Drummond's article, inspired no doubt by the recent takeover attempt of ATI by AMD, misses the point. Like so many economists and finance ministers, he approaches all problems from a finance perspective. In doing so, he misses the opportunity to learn from some real Canadian success stories. At one time, before government sponsored initiatives became heresy, people like Dr. Floyd Toole at the National Research Council conducted ground-breaking applied research to help Canada's industries develop and compete against the best the world the offer. As a result of Dr. Toole's efforts, for example, companies that didn't exist thirty years ago now employ thousands of Canadians and export world-class loud-speakers around the world. We won't solve a supposed productivity problem by throwing money at it or withholding funds either. In fact, before the federal government decided to make it a political issue, Canada's productivity was #1 in the world. Its decline has been caused by cuts to the kind of R&D projects that our start-ups need to be able to take on more established companies. I've noticed that lately the Liberals seem to be using Pierre Trudeau a lot in their marketing. It's also interesting to note that under Trudeau, not only did the National Research Council get better funding than it got from any of his successors, but we also had a Foreign Investment Review Agency with some (admittedly feeble) teeth. Trudeau, unlike any of the Liberals or Conservatives who came after him, understood that a country cannot thrive when its industrial base is controlled by others. It's often been noted that a number of the fastest growing economies not only graduate more engineers than lawyers, the reverse of the Canadian case, but also put their Minister of Industry on a par with their Minister of Finance. Here in Canada, it is regarded as a somewhat minor post. I believe that in itself should tell us what our real problems are. Gary Dale, West Hill |