Jim Balsille: Canada’s Problem Isn’t Trump. Canada’s Problem Is Canada

[BeaverFever]

TL;DR:   
Balsille points out that for the last 30 years, most wealth has been created not by making and selling things but by owning and controlling the Intellectual Property (patents, copyrights, terms of use, etc) of things.  Design or invent something then let others pay you a licence fee to produce and sell it, you keep the vast majority of the profit as well as controlling how its used and any data gathered from It.   In this paradigm, production moves to the country (or segment of society) with the lowest labour cost while profit goes to the places with elite IP talent. While nearly all advanced economies have learned this lesson, Canada and political parties on both sides continue to follow outdated analog policy that is still obsessed with creating foreign owned subsidiary branch-plant factory and office jobs that simply help foreign IP owners sell in.Canada. In many cases taxpayer-funded IP created in Canada by Canadians is allowed to be privately sold or given away to foreign companies for a fraction of its value in exchange for a token gesture of a few mediocre-level jobs. As such Canadian productivity lags peer countries by many economic measures 
 

 

Official description:  ….As Balsillie has pointed out, our GDP per capita is currently about 70% of what it is in the U.S., our productivity growth has been abysmal for years, and our high cost of living means that 1 in 4 Canadians are now food insecure. But, according to Balsillie, none of this can be blamed on Trump. He thinks that over the last thirty years we’ve clung to an outdated economic model and have allowed our politics to be captured by corporate interests.

[herbie]

He fails to point out the exact same thing in the USA, that current prosperity has not been made by manufacturing things.

Apple is a good example, it makes things elsewhere and made it's money owning the rights to those things. Music & streaming are not 'manufactured' items, nor are health, real estate, banking and trading services.

[Moonbox]

22 hours ago, BeaverFever said:

But, according to Balsillie, none of this can be blamed on Trump. He thinks that over the last thirty years we’ve clung to an outdated economic model and have allowed our politics to be captured by corporate interests.

He's not wrong, but it's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? 

Who's blaming Trump for the last 30 years of economic fecklessness in Canada?

Even the original NAFTA was a failure in many regards, with the promise from the US for a certain percentage of research funding to be based in Canada only being honored for a few years before it was abandoned with no challenge from our governments.  

[BeaverFever]

1 hour ago, Moonbox said:

He's not wrong, but it's a bit of a strawman, isn't it? 

Who's blaming Trump for the last 30 years of economic fecklessness in Canada?

Even the original NAFTA was a failure in many regards, with the promise from the US for a certain percentage of research funding to be based in Canada only being honored for a few years before it was abandoned with no challenge from our governments.  

But as Balsille pointed out even when the research is done here, we give away the IP anyways or allow it to be privately sold for peanuts   For example Tesla battery technology was developed at Dalhousie U with a large taxpayer funded endowment but we allowed tesla who also contributed funds to walk away with the IP

Edited yesterday at 04:48 PM by BeaverFever

[Moonbox]

22 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

But as Balsille pointed out even when the research is done here, we give away the IP anyways or allow it to be privately sold for peanuts   For example Tesla battery technology was developed at Dalhousie U with a large taxpayer funded endowment but we allowed tesla who also contributed funds to walk away with the IP

True enough, or our companies get outvisioned and outcompeted by foreign rivals...in certain other cases.  😆

Either way nobody is saying any of it is Trump's fault.  

[Michael Hardner]

21 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

But as Balsille pointed out even when the research is done here, we give away the IP anyways or allow it to be privately sold for peanuts   For example Tesla battery technology was developed at Dalhousie U with a large taxpayer funded endowment but we allowed tesla who also contributed funds to walk away with the IP

I think this example needs a deep dive.  

Here's some "in the know" chatter (Reddit obv) which indicates that the Dalhousie Researcher is filing their own patents:
 

 

[BeaverFever]

11 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

I think this example needs a deep dive.  

Here's some "in the know" chatter (Reddit obv) which indicates that the Dalhousie Researcher is filing their own patents:
 

 

 

Here is what Chat GPT said:

 

How it worked:

 

1. Government funding

• Dalhousie’s battery research has been supported for decades by Canadian taxpayer money.
• The key funding agency is NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada).
• In 2016, Tesla co-funded a new NSERC/Tesla Industrial Research Chair at Dalhousie.
  • Meaning: Canadian taxpayers and Tesla both put money into the research program.
  • (But Canadian public money covered a big chunk.)

2. Industrial Research Chair rules

• When NSERC funds an Industrial Research Chair like this, the private company (Tesla) usually gets:
  • First rights to license or use the technology.
  • Exclusive access for a certain period (often 2–5 years).
• After that period, the research often becomes open or available to others — unless Tesla pays for ongoing exclusivity.

Translation:

Tesla didn’t “steal” it — they paid part of the costs and got a temporary exclusive deal because of that.

But the foundation of the research (lab infrastructure, Canadian salaries, basic science) was mostly funded by taxpayers.

3. Intellectual Property (IP) Ownership

• In many of these agreements:
  • The university technically owns the IP.
  • But Tesla often has the first option to license or commercialize it.
  • Dalhousie can still use the research for academic purposes and future public benefit later.

Argument it’s bad	Argument it’s good
Canadian taxpayers paid to invent tech that profits Tesla.	Canadian researchers got funding, good salaries, and world-class R&D opportunities.
No Canadian battery manufacturing industry built from it (Tesla builds mostly in U.S. and Germany).	Helped keep Canadian science at the global cutting edge (prestige, future investments).
Public money, private corporate gain.	Tesla is also helping fund Canadian innovation, not just taking from it.

Bottom line:

Yes, Tesla benefits from taxpayer-funded Canadian research.

No, it wasn’t a total giveaway — they co-funded it and got legal, time-limited rights to use it.

But it definitely highlights how Canada sometimes subsidizes innovation that ends up creating wealth abroad, rather than building domestic industries.

[Michael Hardner]

5 minutes ago, BeaverFever said:

 

But it definitely highlights how Canada sometimes subsidizes innovation that ends up creating wealth abroad, rather than building domestic industries.

I think this works the same throughout the west as a way of 'attracting' investment, tech etc.

The thing is you can't change the rules of such things unilaterally or you will lose out.

This is called 'the race to the bottom'.

In the end, we will see that the populists are whiffing at the truth of the matter after all: working people with low skillset and few options are 100% shafted by western governments who treat them like chattel.  The big surprise: getting Trump to tariff all of the cheap goods they rely upon to live is not the answer.

[herbie]

Let's talk about NAFTA as a failure. Perhaps if you worked in a "branch plant" it hurt you.
If you were a consumer or anything to do with import/export or an auto worker building more cars than ever, it sure as hell didn't.

Let's use one example. Wanted a trolling motor.
It's made in Japan and sent to the USA warehouse - and marked up
They send it to the Canadian warehouse - who pays a hefty duty and further marks it up
Who sells it through a licensed distributor of outboards - who marks it up
Who send it to the retailer that marks it up.

The 6hp Yamaha was $1699 at the local sporting goods store.
I got it from the biggest shop in the biggest town in the area for $1299
I saw it in Costco in Seattle for $399, the dollar was  at 70¢, = $570
Would've had to pay a duty of 17%(96.90) and BC PST 7% (39.90) (no GST at that time) = $620. Where'd the other $1000 come from?

Or the $1200 26" RCA colour TV we got when I got married. Got my 55" colour flatsTcreen HDTV for $699, about 80 of those days dollars.

They can make some things cheaper and more efficiently than us. We can make oil, LNG, 2x4s and wheat cheaper than them.
SO TRADE ALREADY....

There's plenty of things we could manufacture better than anyone but don't, there's tons of services we do, and we're already a hotbed ot tech we keep letting get gobbled up, the only thing we protect is banking.

[eyeball]

5 hours ago, Michael Hardner said:

This is called 'the race to the bottom'.

In the end, we will see that the populists are whiffing at the truth of the matter after all: working people with low skillset and few options are 100% shafted by western governments who treat them like chattel.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for them finally catching up to things people were pointing out decades ago?  They were like this with the invasion of Iraq too - all for it at the time.

Wait until AGW finally hits them betwixt the eyes. Should only take another 30 years.

[SpankyMcFarland]

I bought a laptop today. All that amazing technology cost about as much as my grocery bill. The margins in manufacturing are very small these days. 

[CdnFox]

On 4/22/2025 at 9:50 AM, BeaverFever said:

TL;DR:   
Balsille points out that for the last 30 years, most wealth has been created not by making and selling things but by owning and controlling the Intellectual Property (patents, copyrights, terms of use, etc) of things.  Design or invent something then let others pay you a licence fee to produce and sell it, you keep the vast majority of the profit as well as controlling how its used and any data gathered from It.   In this paradigm, production moves to the country (or segment of society) with the lowest labour cost while profit goes to the places with elite IP talent. While nearly all advanced economies have learned this lesson, Canada and political parties on both sides continue to follow outdated analog policy that is still obsessed with creating foreign owned subsidiary branch-plant factory and office jobs that simply help foreign IP owners sell in.Canada. In many cases taxpayer-funded IP created in Canada by Canadians is allowed to be privately sold or given away to foreign companies for a fraction of its value in exchange for a token gesture of a few mediocre-level jobs. As such Canadian productivity lags peer countries by many economic measures 
 

 

Official description:  ….As Balsillie has pointed out, our GDP per capita is currently about 70% of what it is in the U.S., our productivity growth has been abysmal for years, and our high cost of living means that 1 in 4 Canadians are now food insecure. But, according to Balsillie, none of this can be blamed on Trump. He thinks that over the last thirty years we’ve clung to an outdated economic model and have allowed our politics to be captured by corporate interests.

I haven't watched it but it doesn't sound like it's accurate based on your synopsis

.For example one of our largest sources of income is oil and all of the products and services surrounding it. Real estate also is way up there in terms of GDP creation and forestry also comes to mind. And there are many studies that suggest that our Interventional trade barriers are actually a bigger source of revenue loss for us then even trump's tariffs are.

Which doesn't mean that the areas he raises concerns about aren't valid or significant. What does he propose as a solution?