The first thing we have to do is aim at what matters, which is growing and controlling the intangible assets of our intellectual property and data. We talk about becoming an electrical vehicle superpower, but we use taxpayer funds at, say, Dalhousie, where a professor will say, “We get the research papers but Elon Musk gets the patents,” or we let our vaccines go to China or the U.S. If we want our companies to do better, they have to be in the business of accumulating the intangible assets that they can ask rent for. We can't be doing things like Sidewalk Toronto with Google so they get richer or courting Amazon or Facebook, because we get the low-cost jobs. It's a race to the bottom and they get the wealth effects.
The key is what you aim at, and that's why I proposed this economic council. These are integrated, crosscutting areas where you need the expertise. We have to build that capacity in our civil service so that they can create the policies we need hand in glove with our companies to prosper in this 91% of the economy. We focus a lot on the 9% piece, but I think we need to focus on the 91% piece because that's where the money and security are.