Past is no guide to the future says Martin

Martin’s point is that you can’t expect to build an economy the way we did in the past. “New approaches must be adopted, approaches based on entrepreneurship and a constant spirit of innovation. It is critical that visionary choices be made today to create a more dynamic and more prosperous Canada tomorrow.”

The underlying message here is a clear shot across the bow of the Bank of Canada, which has been cautious to adopt the idea of the “new economy”, with its apparent ability to boom without creating inflation.

Martin though declared, “the information revolution has overtaken conventional wisdom.” He sees this as a route to new opportunity. “For Canada, the possibilities flowing from this avalanche of creativity are virtually without limit, provided — and this is the nub of my message today — provided we understand that the rules of the game have changed forever. Provided we take the decisive steps required to give primacy to flexibility, to entrepreneurship and, above all, to our greatest natural resource: our people.”

The role of government in this new paradigm, according to Martin, is to “invest in people”, by paying down the debt and cutting taxes. He reiterated his pledge to accelerate current tax-cutting initiatives. Beyond that the government must invest in e-commerce and R&D, and help foster an efficient capital market. “We can’t hope to foster a 21st century economy if we rely on a 19th century concept of risk.”

He called for more venture capital investment and said, “We need a much more dynamic initial public offering market, so that companies can expand their equity base.” To encourage this, he said, we need to streamline our regulatory framework and we encourage pension funds to play a bigger part in venture financing.

Martin closed the speech with patriotic boosterism, “let me simply say that I believe that Canada stands on the threshold of its greatest era.”
-IE Staff