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Ottawa, June 12, 2001
Brief Address by
the Honourable Paul Martin,
Minister of Finance, to the Canadian Advanced
Technology Alliance GlobeTech Conference
Ottawa, Ontario
Delivered text is official version.
Let me begin by thanking John Reid and the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATAAlliance) Board of Directors for the invitation to speak to you today and for the opportunity to meet with the Board earlier this morning.
Meetings such as this are particularly important because high-technology industries have become a central part of our economy, and their growth has been one of the main drivers behind our economic expansion over the past several years. Since 1995, for example, companies in the information and communications sector grew at almost four times the rate of the economy as a whole, and contributed about 40 per cent of Canada’s growth last year.
Furthermore, the way Canadian companies and entrepreneurs have adapted to the new economy has also been a major contributor in changing the way the world looks at Canada. In the year 2000 more than 66 per cent of Canada’s exports were machinery, equipment and other high value-added products, compared to just 30 per cent in 1980.
Most importantly, you have led the way in showing that new technologies create new industries, that new industries mean new markets – global markets – and that global markets bring new rules, and that rule number one is don’t be second. Canadian entrepreneurs and companies have shown that to the first mover go the prime opportunities – to become the standard future rivals will have to displace.
Few understand better than the people in this room that technological change represents a profound shift in how societies are organized, in how people and countries must prepare themselves to succeed, in how economies operate and in how jobs are created. How we react to the ongoing technological revolution over the course of the immediate future will determine the quality of life and the level of achievement not only of our children, but of many generations of Canadians to come.
Clearly, we are not immune from the slowdown that has gripped our largest trading partners. But understand, we have taken the steps necessary to put our economy on a sure footing.
The recent slowdown notwithstanding, the spread and impact of technological change will continue to drive economic growth in all sectors: information and biotechnology today, nanotechnology and genomics tomorrow. This is where the "true" new economy is to be found – not in short-lived speculative trends, but in enduring change and in the revolutionary flood of new technologies.
Indeed, the prevailing view of most economists, as exemplified by the report released last month by The Toronto-Dominion Bank, is that not only will the information technology sector, for example, emerge from its current slowdown, but that it will lead all Canadian industries in growth from next year until 2010.
To sustain this kind of growth CATAAlliance has championed many issues that help to ensure Canada is well positioned in the world that is to come. As a government, we not only listened to your voice, we acted.
In Budget 2000 and the October Statement, we dealt extensively with the knowledge economy: from capital gains tax reductions to tax-free rollovers to stock options; from corporate tax cuts to personal tax cuts.
We also made major, long-term investments in the knowledge infrastructure of our country – our universities and research institutes. We committed funding for 2,000 new chairs in Canadian universities to attract and retain the best researchers in the world. As well, this year alone, more than $500 million will be invested through the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Genome Canada and the Atlantic Investment Partnership in basic research throughout our country.
Why are these measures important? It is because we need to ensure that the actions we take are in keeping with the challenges Canadians face.
It is because we must bring to the debate over our country’s future the mindset of the future.
It is because we have to look at this new world with new eyes.
Canadians need to know that we are prepared to turn conventional wisdom on its head. To try new ideas. To test old assumptions.
The question is: How do we enable our people to capture the potential of our times? And the answer is: We must make Canada the best and brightest home to new technological innovation. For this is where the greatest of tomorrow’s opportunities will surely arise. This is true in high tech; it is true in our natural resource industries, in agriculture; it is true in everything we do.
We are at the early stages of the most significant economic transformation of our time. The information revolution was its preface, but the larger story has many more chapters to be written.
I believe Canada can write those chapters.
I believe Canadians have to be at the keyboard.
Chapters in which the strength of a people is measured not by the weapons it possesses, but by the patents it produces. Not by the territory it occupies, but by the ideas it engenders.
I believe the moment is here to make Canada the standard by which other nations judge themselves.
I believe the moment is here to address ourselves fully to the new meaning of citizenship, a citizenship that is inflexible in its faith that Canada has the strength to weather any storm, to meet any challenge; a citizenship that is uncompromising in its belief that we will only grow and prosper if we build an economy that attracts talent like a magnet attracts metal.
A nation whose goal is unequivocal – and that is to lead the world, to set the pace, to build from this revolution’s promise an even greater prosperity.
To create a country where our people feel that there is nowhere else they would rather be than here, because there is no place else where they can achieve so much.
That is what all of you people in the room stand for.
And that is why I am so glad you have given me this opportunity to open this conference.
Thank you.
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| Last Updated: 2002-11-26 |
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