Hon. Colin Deacon: Honourable senators, I want to first thank Senator Moncion for her sponsorship of this bill and her excellent speech. I also want to thank Senator Marshall. I think we may have only four more budgets that Senator Marshall may be giving great reviews of — maybe better reviews, in another year. We’re all appreciative of the time you take to describe the different elements, Senator Marshall, very reliably, regardless of who the sponsor is.

Colleagues, I want to speak to Bill C-19, the budget implementation act, 2022, referencing Budget 2022 that was titled: A Plan to Grow Our Economy and Make Life More Affordable. It was billed as a:

. . . plan for targeted and responsible investments to create jobs and prosperity today, and build a stronger economic future for all Canadians.

I am always pleased to see the government invest in innovation, but innovation alone will not secure the prosperity of our grandchildren and future generations to come. For us to get a strong return on that innovation investment, we will need to align government policies, including procurement polices, regulations and legislation.

We have no time to waste. We are in a global competition for economic opportunity as the world transforms due to digitization and climate change. Right now, it doesn’t look good. The OECD predicts that Canada will be at the back of the pack in terms of economic performance through 2030 and in the three decades that follow.

So I am going to make three points that I hope will help to focus attention on what is needed to generate economic return from innovation.

Point 1: The government needs to catalyze and accelerate private investment in innovation.

The pandemic highlighted the potential for governments to innovate, but I feel we have slipped back to where innovation is the exception, not the norm. We have to start applying an innovation lens to our most pervasive problems in our society and economy with agility, speed and scale.

Government has a role in catalyzing private investment and accelerating innovation in the private sector. Unfortunately, this is because we’re much better inventors than we are innovators. We have a fabulous research engine, but we are still searching for that transmission that will convert all that research power into the opportunities, jobs and prosperity that Canadians increasingly need.

Achieving this is and has been difficult. Deputy Prime Minister Freeland stated in her budget speech that innovation and productivity are the Achilles heel of our economy. I agree with her. Indeed, many governments, no matter the political party, have been unable to tackle this issue effectively. This is not a new problem in Canada.

This problem was also highlighted by the Senate’s Prosperity Action Group, led by Senator Harder. Our report highlighted the following two points. First, over a period of 50 years, Canada’s productivity growth has declined considerably. In 1970, Canada’s GDP per hour worked was roughly $1 less than in the United States and $1 more than the G7 average. By 2019, Canada’s GDP per hour was $18.10 less than the US and $9.50 less than the G7 average.

Second, in 2019, Canadian businesses were investing approximately $15,000 per worker in machinery, buildings, engineering, infrastructure and intellectual property. However, businesses across the OECD were on average investing $21,000 per worker — 40% more — and in the U.S. it was $26,000 per worker — nearly 75% more than in Canada. That is a predictor of the productivity of those workers and our prosperity in the future.

According to the OECD, in 2020 Canada had the lowest level of business investment as a percentage of total investment in the G7. However, it had the highest household investment level and the second-highest government investment level as a percentage of total investment compared to the G7 in 2020.

It is this final point that I would like you to focus on: Canada has the highest level of household investment and the lowest level of business investment despite having leading levels of government investment. If we’re going to deliver the promise of Budget 2022, a plan for targeted and responsible investments to create jobs and prosperity today and build a stronger economic future for all Canadians, our government must find ways to successfully catalyze and accelerate private investment in innovation. And we must hurry up and build that transmission, or else we won’t be able to afford the engine or the fuel for research.

Point 2: There is an urgent need for greater competition. Over the past year, we have seen a revival of the debate surrounding Canada’s competition law and policies. You all know how grateful I am to Senator Howard Wetston for his incredible effort to facilitate the consultation and debate around the Competition Act.

As a result, I was pleased to see the provisions in Bill C-19 regarding amendments to the Competition Act. Division 15 introduced amendments to the Competition Act to criminally prohibit wage-fixing, allow private access to the Competition Tribunal on abuse of dominance and expand the scope of abuse of dominance practices. These are welcome amendments that will move the needle forward on the extensive work needed to reform the Competition Act.

However, I was most pleased when the government clearly positioned these changes to the Competition Act as a “down payment” on what we could expect to see. I was not alone. The Banking Committee shared this view and offered the following observation:

The committee believes it is imperative that the Government of Canada follows through on the commitment in Budget 2022 to consult broadly on the role and functioning of the Competition Act and its enforcement regime, and that it do so without delay.

The need for greater consultation on the act is imperative. Competition affects everyone. It is therefore important to have broad consultations to hear a diverse range of voices on how to reform this important law, not just those of traditional incumbents who have the most to gain from maintaining the status quo. We have to reach far beyond.

Beyond changes to the Competition Act, also discussed by Senator Loffreda, we need to have a whole-of-government approach in terms of developing pro-competitive policies and levelling the playing field for new entrants across the board and delivering increased value to Canadian consumers, especially in sectors where large incumbents dominate, like banking and telecom.

To this end, the Competition Bureau has issued a competition impact assessment and a Competition Assessment Toolkit, which can be a vital tool for legislators and regulators. They need to be used by public servants who have to start prioritizing these tools so they can identify anti-competitive practices, policies and regulations across government and make them pro-competitive.

Our economy will never achieve our potential unless governments become more innovative, more willing to change and unwilling to tolerate the statement, “but that’s not how we do things.”

Point 3: The last point I want to make is about regulatory modernization. You heard me speak about this in my third-reading speech on Bill S-6 earlier this week. Canada has a huge problem with command-and-control regulations. OECD data for 2018 shows that Canada leads the OECD in the use of these regulations, and that is not a good thing. By definition, they eliminate the opportunity to innovate because they define the process that must be followed.

To be clear, I’m not in favour of deregulation; rather, I’m in favour of efficient regulation and regulatory modernization that plays a huge role in spearheading innovation, increasing investment and accelerating the growth of business while protecting consumers from risks that rapidly emerge only when regulations stagnate in our ever-changing world.

If you don’t understand the breadth of administrative burden due to how we regulate, please listen again to the speech that Senator Petitclerc just gave. Those issues are in every corner of how we govern ourselves.

In conclusion, we must become fervent in our determination to build an effective transmission that converts the power from our research engine into opportunities, jobs and prosperity. Increased competition creates opportunities for innovative new entrants, and those new entrants push incumbents to invest in innovation versus increasing dividends, bonuses and share buybacks. That’s the benefit of increased competitive pressure. New competitive opportunities increase investment, which further fuels innovation and drives the changes needed to achieve productivity growth.

But the innovation will not convert to productivity growth unless we modernize our regulations so that businesses are empowered to implement innovative new practices that also protect consumers. It is productivity growth that will deliver the promise of Budget 2022. Productivity growth is what will grow our economy and make life more affordable.

However, we have been heading in the wrong direction for 40 years. Change is hard, and we need change. In a recent op-ed in The Hill Times, Professor Ken Coates of the University of Saskatchewan offered:

Tinkering with Canada’s existing innovation policies will not transform the national economy into a creative economic power. Governments need to rethink their approaches and look for innovative innovation policies.

An innovative economy requires an innovative government. Canada is already a G7 leader in investing tax dollars. However, we are an OECD laggard when it comes to updating policies, regulations and legislation that determine how effectively those investments convert into opportunities, jobs and prosperity.

Let’s “double down” and “triple down” on the down payment that Bill C-19 has made in competition law reforms and the good intentions of Bill S-6 as it relates to regulatory modernization.

I hope you now see how those crucial elements are important to fulfilling the promise of Budget 2022. I support Bill C-19 as a down payment on all the hard work we need to do to maximize the return on the government’s investment in innovation. Thank you, colleagues.

(On motion of Senator Martin, debate adjourned.)