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You know what haunts me even more? That 60 years later, we still spend time and effort talking about this instead of doing anything. Sadly, Canadians don't hav

You know what haunts me even more? That 60 years later, we still spend time and effort talking about this instead of doing anything. Sadly, Canadians don't have the appetite for ambitious projects, whether military, civilian, terrestrial, space etc. Even when costs are reasonable (think of putting up $1billion in prize money to spur private investment X-Prize style) people will not tolerate attempts at risky things.

drchiu 6y ago
Yup. Another good examples are Nortel and BlackBerry. The government in Canada needs to be supportive about developing global leaders in expertise. Healthcare, once considered a world’s top, isn’t really today, but many Canadians still retain to the idea it is.
- wenc 6y ago
  As a Canadian living in the U.S., I noticed a subtle thing that comes up when we Canadians lament the lack of global leaders in business. We often instinctively say "the government ought to do this or that" (I do this too). Whereas Americans tend not to bring up the government at all -- they go straight to private capital and get it done. I'm a big government person (especially for society-wide services like healthcare, public health, education) but in business, I've come to realize that it's not helpful to have the mindset of relying on the government. (exception: defense, which almost always needs government funding. But almost everything else does not.) I had a friend who was running a nascent high-tech commercial business and he spent a large chunk of his time writing proposals for government grants. Money is money, of course, but it's a little strange to me that even business people in Canada rely so much on the government instead of just going to the capital markets. And what's worse, a lack of government programs in a particular area is interpreted as a constraint. This should not be. The 2nd largest company in Canada by market cap right now is Shopify, and it succeeded with no significant government support. We need to shift our people's mindset to not default to invoking the government -- instead we need to encourage non-risk-averse capital investment into bluesky projects from private parties. It is true that we are not awash in capital, being a small country and all, but we have enough (we're 16th in the world in GDP/PPP). Much smaller countries in northern Europe with smaller GDPs have done better than we have in establishing global business leaders.
  - mschuster91 6y ago
    > instead we need to encourage non-risk-averse capital investment into bluesky projects from private parties. The problem is that said "non-risk-averse capital" usually comes from previously successful founders at least in early stages, and when you look at the startups there, a lot of their founders or key staff have relevant prior startup experience too. The US has a massive advantage there in networking, which is insanely hard to replicate in other areas or countries.
    - wenc 6y ago
      Right. That's why we need to be outward looking and tap into US capital markets/ecosystems [1] -- and also beyond, into untapped ecosystems in growth markets like Southeast Asia (which has a very active VC/startup ecosystem, but most Canadians wouldn't know this). There are many parts of the world where we just don't have a presence because we like orderliness and like to focus on developed markets. [2] We need to evolve to be more than just hewers of wood and drawers of water. Global companies in smaller European countries didn't look domestically to grow -- they either have had to have an EU/global business model from day 1 or in the case of older companies, had to evolve in that direction. When you're small, you have no choice. [1] If you look at YC lists in recent years there are usually a few Canadian companies in there. [2] Most Canadians have an affinity to Europe because they think the setup similar to ours, but unfortunately Europe is heavy on regulations, not a growth market and not a good bet
  - vikramkr 6y ago
    I think we might not bring up the government in america because our government has not really had a problem getting big things done and has helped us lay the foundation for what the private sector has since built on. For all its faults, the government helped drive nuclear power, the space race, the internet, and biotech. I dont know where the US would be without the bomb, apollo, arpanet, and the human genome project. We had a private sector able to pick up from there to carry on the next steps, but our success is rooted in literal moonshots by out government as well. And we can argue all day about whether the private sector could have done all that more efficiently or whatever, but the fact of history is that the government did it. And, it did it in a way that involved the private sector through contractors etc that seeded talent outside government agencies and gave the private sector a good launching off point.
908B64B197 6y ago
Just look at how the Federal Government ignored Bombardier when it was slapped with tariffs (that were later ruled out to be illegal). Could you imagine the United-States or the European Union not supporting their respective aerospace industries in that type of situation?

drchiu 6y ago

Yup. Another good examples are Nortel and BlackBerry. The government in Canada needs to be supportive about developing global leaders in expertise. Healthcare, once considered a world’s top, isn’t really today, but many Canadians still retain to the idea it is.

wenc 6y ago
As a Canadian living in the U.S., I noticed a subtle thing that comes up when we Canadians lament the lack of global leaders in business. We often instinctively say "the government ought to do this or that" (I do this too). Whereas Americans tend not to bring up the government at all -- they go straight to private capital and get it done. I'm a big government person (especially for society-wide services like healthcare, public health, education) but in business, I've come to realize that it's not helpful to have the mindset of relying on the government. (exception: defense, which almost always needs government funding. But almost everything else does not.) I had a friend who was running a nascent high-tech commercial business and he spent a large chunk of his time writing proposals for government grants. Money is money, of course, but it's a little strange to me that even business people in Canada rely so much on the government instead of just going to the capital markets. And what's worse, a lack of government programs in a particular area is interpreted as a constraint. This should not be. The 2nd largest company in Canada by market cap right now is Shopify, and it succeeded with no significant government support. We need to shift our people's mindset to not default to invoking the government -- instead we need to encourage non-risk-averse capital investment into bluesky projects from private parties. It is true that we are not awash in capital, being a small country and all, but we have enough (we're 16th in the world in GDP/PPP). Much smaller countries in northern Europe with smaller GDPs have done better than we have in establishing global business leaders.
- mschuster91 6y ago
  > instead we need to encourage non-risk-averse capital investment into bluesky projects from private parties. The problem is that said "non-risk-averse capital" usually comes from previously successful founders at least in early stages, and when you look at the startups there, a lot of their founders or key staff have relevant prior startup experience too. The US has a massive advantage there in networking, which is insanely hard to replicate in other areas or countries.
  - wenc 6y ago
    Right. That's why we need to be outward looking and tap into US capital markets/ecosystems [1] -- and also beyond, into untapped ecosystems in growth markets like Southeast Asia (which has a very active VC/startup ecosystem, but most Canadians wouldn't know this). There are many parts of the world where we just don't have a presence because we like orderliness and like to focus on developed markets. [2] We need to evolve to be more than just hewers of wood and drawers of water. Global companies in smaller European countries didn't look domestically to grow -- they either have had to have an EU/global business model from day 1 or in the case of older companies, had to evolve in that direction. When you're small, you have no choice. [1] If you look at YC lists in recent years there are usually a few Canadian companies in there. [2] Most Canadians have an affinity to Europe because they think the setup similar to ours, but unfortunately Europe is heavy on regulations, not a growth market and not a good bet
- vikramkr 6y ago
  I think we might not bring up the government in america because our government has not really had a problem getting big things done and has helped us lay the foundation for what the private sector has since built on. For all its faults, the government helped drive nuclear power, the space race, the internet, and biotech. I dont know where the US would be without the bomb, apollo, arpanet, and the human genome project. We had a private sector able to pick up from there to carry on the next steps, but our success is rooted in literal moonshots by out government as well. And we can argue all day about whether the private sector could have done all that more efficiently or whatever, but the fact of history is that the government did it. And, it did it in a way that involved the private sector through contractors etc that seeded talent outside government agencies and gave the private sector a good launching off point.

908B64B197 6y ago

Just look at how the Federal Government ignored Bombardier when it was slapped with tariffs (that were later ruled out to be illegal). Could you imagine the United-States or the European Union not supporting their respective aerospace industries in that type of situation?