Thank you.
My question is about the buzzword economy. The buzzword economy is something that has flourished over the last four years, in particular in Canada, where the government announces some buzzwords, and then a whole series of industry groups put those buzzwords in their marketing, PR and government relations materials and turn those materials into generous government subsidies.
We know the buzzwords of the recent past. They have included, for example, “innovation”. If you can put the word “innovation” in your application, you can get a grant from the industry department; you can be part of a supercluster, and you can feast on taxpayer money.
Then we heard the “green energy” buzzword. That was a very lucrative one. In Ontario, it has led to about $100 billion of subsidies for windmills and solar panels, which, ironically, have higher emissions in their entire life cycle than do other, more traditional forms of electricity like hydroelectricity and nuclear, but they had the right buzzwords so they got enormous subsidies.
Now, because, quite rightly, we're concerned about how dependent we are on foreign supplies, the new buzzwords are “supply chain” or “self-sufficiency”, so all kinds of industry groups will plow those buzzwords into their materials in order to get grants and subsidies.
The thing is, grants and subsidies and buzzwords don't make us self-sufficient; they make us more dependent. Anything that has to be subsidized costs more than it makes. Every subsidy the government gives out, it must first take away from productive workers and entrepreneurs.
My question is for Mr. Sword and Mr. Sobot. It sounds to me like the kinds of industrial proposals you're making do not require subsidies and handouts and don't build on buzzwords. Rather, they build on basic free market economics, whereby the businesses are capable of producing something that's worth more than it costs and selling it on the open market without a handout.
Do you agree with my characterization? If so, can you expound on how we can liberate our economy to produce real value rather than just buzzwords and government subsidies?