Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Tony F.'s avatar

On military spending: this is a symptom of a larger problem of perverse incentives. Governments get elected promising new initiatives, but to pay for these initiatives they need to squeeze money from existing programs (even while raising spending). That means those programs and services whither and stumble (and we fail on deliverology).

That's on us, though, for always going for the shiny new thing. We need to ask the harder question: how will government's improve the efficacy of existing programs (or end them if they aren't having the desired impacts)? Making a lot of programs a few percent more effective might have a pretty significant impact on a lot of people but that doesn't make for a very compelling campaign slogan!

I think we should meet our 2% commitment as that signals to our NATO partners that we are serious -- and a smaller power like Canada benefits from being in NATO as a way of both having an influence on the broader world and being in a grouping with other middle powers who can at least somewhat influence the US. We ignore this benefit at our peril.

On media business models: what I want is access to a range of voices and news at a reasonable price. That's hard now. I'd love a pay by article or pay to access a broader group of reporters/writers, but the closest I've seen so far is the mechanism they've built into Post News, which I like, but am not sure if it will sustain itself.

Expand full comment
George Skinner's avatar

The VW subsidy is an outcome of a big push by the government and auto unions to get Canada into the battery electric vehicle game. The problem is that it’s just a manufacturing plant, not the R&D work needed to actually make Canada a significant part of the industry. Canada’s not even close to being competitive in development of battery technology, so we’re paying somebody else to bring their technology here to do it. And when the technology changes, we’ll need to pay for the plant to be upgraded to keep it here.

Canada actually is a leader in development of hydrogen technology, with big clusters in Quebec, Ontario, and BC. There’s also a growing hydrogen storage and handling business growing out of the energy sector in Alberta. Fuel cell technology has an edge over battery technology in commercial and heavy duty applications, as well as industries like rail, marine, and aviation.

$13 billion could go a long way towards building out hydrogen infrastructure and hydrogen-powered transportation networks using Canadian technology that’s sought out by China, Europe, and the US. Why are we focusing on playing a “me too” game with batteries instead of building on real strength in hydrogen? I’ve been involved in the fuel cell sector for over 20 years, so I’m not strictly neutral on this. On the other hand, I’ve got a pretty good understanding of where the state of technology is and its capabilities vs. batteries.

Expand full comment
19 more comments...

No posts