Brian Giesbrecht’s  ‘Dream Making ‘ In The Western Standard Reminds Me——

Former Judge Giesbrecht  , Western Standard’s latest columnist star , dreams about a Canada we older folks all knew . In his latest column he describes what is happening in the US vs Canada . How laggard we are here!

It ain’t new , your honour!

It is just a little more pronounced now with the surprise Trump majority win.

I have been writing on this blog (2015 it began) and doing speeches since I retired from politics in 1989 on Canada’s laggard entrepreneurship vis a vis our neighbour .

Over 30 years!!

In some of my early speeches I talked of the R and D imbalance. The US always spent more on research and development than we did—both in pure R and D and applied R and D.  Here in Canada it is almost all Government sponsored R and D.

The Private Sector does little.

Eastern Premiers were and are very familiar with the New England area of the US through their history but also because of an annual Eastern Premiers and New England Governors Conference .

It was through that event that I met John Sununu , former New Hampshire Governor and Chief of Staff later for George Bush Sr.  He invited me in 1988 to a Research Park in the Raleigh area of North Carolina where leading US  Companies set up research facilities including conference facilities and places for visitors , and researchers to stay .

It is called Research Triangle Park , one of the largest of its kind in the US , close to three Universities and is operated by a private non profit corporation . IBM was one of the Early tenants . The park boasts over 300 companies and 60,000 people working there.

In my private consulting years after 1989 I worked with companies in the US and Canada. Sadly, almost always the Americans operated in a far more focused and entrepreneurial fashion than did Canadian companies .

I was lucky to see it both from a Government and Private Sector perspective.

I see our socialist PM is already at Mar- a -Lago—

We are seeking to avoid threatened US tariffs because of our leaky border ——-ironic isn’t it when we already have anti trade measures in place against the Americans through our agricultural supply boards in dairy , eggs and chickens.

And do we have free trade across Canada ??

by The Honourable A. Brian Peckford

pe********@wo*******.com 

November 30, 2024

 

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