Liberal finance critic John McCallum called for the creation of a “Canadian advantage” in economic policy focusing on competitive taxation; support for research and higher learning; and entrepreneurial government departments in a speech delivered to the Economic Club of Toronto today.

Although the Canadian economy is doing well, McCallum said, “as we survey the global landscape and contemplate our productivity challenges and aging population, we must understand that the world does not owe Canada a living.”

Specifically, he noted that Canada’s federal government must “be smarter, nimbler, more focused, and more entrepreneurial than the U.S. government” because as the world’s only superpower, the U.S. has advantages of size and drawing power compared with all other countries.

As such, he is calling on the federal government to create a “Canadian advantage” that would, in part, seek the right balance between taxation policies to attract and retain businesses and skilled people in Canada.

In addition, although “a quantum jump in federal support for research, innovation and higher learning will be one of the enduring legacies of the Chrétien-Martin governments … the time has come for a second wave of innovative thinking in this area, especially in light of strong actions taken by competing governments around the globe.”

The third component of a successful “Canadian advantage” strategy involves entrepreneurial government departments. “We need a modern version of Sir Clifford Sifton, immigration minister in the government of Sir Wilfred Laurier, to scour the globe for the ‘best and the brightest’ immigrants. We need a Sifton clone to open markets for trade and investment around the world.

He then went on to slam the Conservative government because he believes its policies of cutting the GST; cancelling $9.4 billion of Liberal commitments to research, innovation, higher learning, and training; and cutting the budgets of the immigration and international trade departments are working to create a Canadian disadvantage rather than an advantage.

“On all three counts, the Conservative election platform was either missing in action or moving in the wrong direction,” he concluded.