How Canada can pursue an inclusive industrial policy

Noah Zon and Canadian Inclusive Economy Initiative’s Matthew Mendelsohn’s op ed on how to rebuild Canada’s industrial economy to be more inclusive.

For decades, we have been told that “governments can’t pick winners” and that industrial policy — characterized by high tariffs and grinning politicians delivering jumbo cheques to failing factories — is for chumps.

The caricature was a dishonest distraction from the fact that Canadian governments have been engaging in industrial policy the whole time. Although we didn’t like to talk about it, governments never stopped investing public dollars to shape markets and build sectors in explicit and implicit ways.

There is now a surprising emerging consensus across the political spectrum in Canada on two ideas: governments need to engage in activist industrial policy; and economic growth on its own isn’t a sign of success if growth exacerbates inequalities, damages the environment, destroys communities and fails to create good middle-class jobs.