海角社区官网

鈥淥ttawa 鈥� needs to dare to lower corporate taxes and eliminate overregulation,鈥澛犅燼n editorial in the聽Globe and Mail聽last week.

Dare聽to lower corporate taxes? The聽Globe聽makes this sound like a bold, new idea, rather than the widely聽聽鈥渢rickle down鈥� theory that has concentrated wealth at the top, with precious little trickling down.

The corporate world is swimming in profits. As a share of Canada鈥檚 GDP, corporate profits have soared in recent years, reaching an聽聽in 2022. Lowering corporate taxes will further enrich wealthy shareholders 鈥� but it won鈥檛 defend us against Trump鈥檚 takeover fantasies.

Making the rich richer isn鈥檛 a nation-building strategy.

If we鈥檙e truly interested in bold ideas, we should free ourselves from the notion that the only way to build a country is to cater to corporate titans.聽

In earlier times, Canada broke away from this market-dominated mindset and created some truly impressive public enterprises 鈥� that is, enterprises owned by government, which means owned by all of us collectively.

Many of these public enterprises were established because the private sector, fixated on creating lucrative monopolies, wasn鈥檛 meeting public needs.聽

For instance, in the early 1900s, 海角社区官网business tycoon Henry Pellatt was trying to lock up monopoly rights to transmit power from Niagara Falls. But a highly motivated citizen鈥檚 movement demanded 鈥減ublic power鈥� and managed to聽聽Ontario鈥檚 Conservative government to create Ontario Hydro as a public utility.聽

Hydro became an affordable source of energy fuelling the province鈥檚 rapid growth and the model for U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt鈥檚 Tennessee Valley Authority.

Similarly, after First World War, the powerful owners of Canadian Pacific Railway were poised to consolidate their railway monopoly, leaving Canadians, particularly westerners, at the mercy of one transportation company. But public pressure led Ottawa to create the Canadian National Railways (CNR) 鈥� a highly innovative public enterprise, which developed the first radio-equipped transcontinental train.聽

CNR went on to聽聽North America鈥檚 first coast-to-coast radio network, making isolated Canadian communities no longer reliant on U.S. radio stations. In the 1930s, by popular demand, the CNR network was transformed into the CBC, Canada鈥檚 public broadcaster, with Prime Minister R.B. Bennett proclaiming it would keep Canadians 鈥渇ree from foreign interference or influence.鈥澛�

Public enterprises reached a zenith in Canada during the Second World War, when Ottawa created more than two dozen Crown corporations that led the country鈥檚 massive industrial war effort. A Crown corporation called聽, for instance, developed aviation expertise that was later used in the supersonic Canadian jet known as the Avro Arrow, one of the most advanced aircraft of its time. Sadly, it was scrapped in 1959, apparently at Washington鈥檚 insistence.聽

Most of our public enterprises have been privatized in recent years, as business has aggressively pushed the notion that the private sector always does things better 鈥� despite no real evidence this is true.

Locked in this mindset, governments today create 鈥減ublic-private partnerships鈥� (P3s), which are structured to benefit private investors,聽聽of projects with no public benefit. These P3s bear little resemblance to the real public enterprises that were crucial to Canada鈥檚 development.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has pledged to bring government back into housing 鈥� as in the postwar era聽鈥斅爓ith a聽聽initiative. This sounds promising, as long as it steers clear of the P3 model.聽

Carney has聽聽of the need 鈥渢o build things we never imagined, at a pace we never thought possible.”聽

Imagine if this ambitious, nation-building vision wasn鈥檛 restricted to the corporate world, but could include enterprises created and owned by all of us collectively.