That line is shamelessly appropriated from Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom and it seems to always resonate when talking about the public policies around innovation and entrepreneurship in Canada.
Whether it’s changes to provincial tax credits, plummeting productivity numbers or this week’s budget rollback on capital gains, we – as a community of investors, innovators and entrepreneurs – always seem gobsmacked at the disconnect between policy and purpose. Tuesday’s Federal Budget has us all reeling, but why? If we are the leaders of innovation and great ideas, why aren’t we the ones that help implement them as policy?
What seems self-evident to us in terms of creating pathways to prosperity always seems to get lost somewhere on the road to making actual policy. Then we are left to grumble in op-ed columns (like this one) before pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps and dealing with the outcomes. Again.
If it’s not already obvious, this is a very odd, self-defeating cycle for people who pride themselves as being the drivers of change.
When we do lean into the public policy process, we get good results. And when we make a concerted effort, we are a community that changes the discourse. And when some of us make the sacrifice to formally enter public life, we become the ones who set the agenda. Does anyone dispute that the innovation ecosystem of British Columbia is better served by having Brenda Bailey in office, or that in Alberta because of Nate Glubish?
Both of these people set aside their private sector aspirations to become public sector entrepreneurs…and we need more of them. If we want to transform Canada into an innovation-driven society, then we should see ourselves embedded in every facet of public life: from school boards to provincial agencies to the highest offices.
But we also have to understand that with that kind of influence comes responsibility.
If, for example, we want to keep the capital gains tax at levels that motivate innovators and entrepreneurs to stay in the game, then we need to work with policymakers to find new and better answers to the very real fiscal problems we face. We need to identify and partner with those public sector entrepreneurs who understand the stakes and can help implement the sorts of solutions that we want to see. Those need to be solutions that balance not just our needs, but those of the Canadian society at large.
So, yes: with this budget and the significant change to the capital gains tax, we lost one. And that’s gonna sting. But the good news is that budgets – both provincial and federal – are annual exercises. Our next at-bat is just around the corner.
Let’s take this time to re-think, re-load, and re-engage with policymakers – or take the chance on becoming one ourselves – so that the next time we are leading the change instead of reacting to it, and helping take the country in the best possible direction.
Matt Toner is the Managing Partner at Shred Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm in Western Canada. He entered provincial politics in British Columbia on a creative economy platform and was a Deputy Leader of the BC Green party during their breakthrough 2017 election, which led to a series of key policy changes around innovation.
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