BARBER: What the Trudeau Liberals are doing, isn't working

Dr. Mario Draghi, a distinguished economist who was the President of the European Central Bank, former prime minister of Italy, Chairman of the Financial Stability Board, Governor of the Bank of Italy, an academic and statesman, was tasked by the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, to produce a report on the EU’s lack of competitiveness. That report was issued Monday, Sept 9. Canadians will find the main points in this report most valuable, as we too face lower production in manufacturing and lower investment.Dr. Draghi’s recommendations for the EU include five main points. First, the EU needs more investment for decarbonization, digital innovation, and infrastructure. Second, to stimulate investment there needs to be new rules for banks, investors taking risks, and new ways to get innovations to the market– especially technologies. Third, the EU needs a consistent energy strategy and new solutions.Fourth, the EU should use tariffs in trade, cut dependencies, increase common procurement, and foster some mergers. Fifth and finally, the EU must keep European values of equality, equity and quality of public service and use the European social model in setting new social standards, that can be a bonus to corporations.An underlying point in the report and part of the reason for the five items above is an acknowledgement that globalization as it was practiced in the first two decades of the 21st century, is rapidly changing. The informed reader of The Western Standard already knows from my previous columns that globalization is changing. The driving force is that as practiced, it benefited corporations and large investors, while damaging the blue collar and lower middle classes in developed countries, lowered the standard of living by flooding markets with poor quality goods that need frequent replacement, shipped highly polluting production facilities to developing countries, and seriously limited national sovereignty —among other problems.Canada must take note:Our immigration policy needs to focus on bringing into our community people who will be able to contribute in the competitive environment of the Canadian workplace. We have a small population and need to be very judicious in our spending, money should be spent on infrastructure particularly ports and roadways to enhance getting products to market. Tax policy must reward those who play by the rules and work hard and also attract both individual and corporate investments. Investing is risky and those risks need to be offset by investment-favourable regulations. We need to change our energy policy to one that includes harm reduction and technology that has the potential to generate electricity sufficiently to meet our growing needs. Cut Ottawa’s one plan fits all regressive carbon tax, include carbon-capture, increase natural gas replacement, and end subsidies for solar cells and wind turbines. Solar cells and turbines will never be sufficient but nuclear and perhaps geo-thermal will be, these and greater investment in research should be promoted. Aa an adjunct to this, stop subsiding electric cars and focus on hydrogen cars instead. Canada is blessed by being one of the countries where we can produce much of what we need. We have a developed agriculture system including significant abilities in animal husbandry and dairy. We produce uranium and other needed minerals including having large deposits of rare earths. There are abundant supplies of gas, fresh water, lumber, and more. We also can produce significant surplus which can be used to offset imports and promote a cleaner environment overseas. However, we need to revisit the use of tariffs and duties in line with the movement in use proposed by the EU and the USA. We should study the possibility of a combined procurement system across Canada and even consider cooperation with US-based companies. Finally, Canada has its own culture and social values. These need to be honored and the human capital we have has to be respected as we move forward.Dr. A.W. Barber is the former Director of Asian Studies at the University of Calgary. He is internationally active and has wide-ranging interests.