Stop Throwing Money at Canada’s Productivity Problem With Charles Plant

We’ve been complaining about Canada’s productivity problem for 50 years. One of the secrets to solving our problem is by creating companies that scale up from start up to world class. According to Charles Plant, C.D. Howe Institute author and Founder of The Narwhal Project, the solution isn’t throwing more money at the problem: it’s turning Canadians into salespeople.

Chapters:
0:00 – Hello, I'm Michael Hainsworth.
0:44 – Canada has a problem scaling up companies and it's been like that for decades now. What do you attribute the problem to?
1:27 – You define a company that's scaling up to be one that has acquired outside capital. How does that help us understand the problem of scaling up as it relates to sales and marketing?
2:23 – Now you write that in order to scale effectively, companies need access to capital but to markets and personnel. Are Canadians just not good at entering new markets?
4:09 – What then of the brain drain?
7:57 – Why are we comparing western information technology economies with emerging and developing economies which are typically more industrial?
9:26 – What role has this disconnect played in the difficulty in finding and retaining talent?
11:11 – How should the Canadian government foster the resources for scalable companies?
13:00 – But then how should governments fuel the demand for experience and talent?
14:23 – So the secret is throwing more money at the idea of giving Canadian companies a platform on the world stage as opposed to giving them enough money to make the next mousetrap?
15:43 – South Korea, Ireland, Turkey, Finland, Japan, they're the top five OECD countries in growth in GDP per hour worked. Can we learn from those jurisdictions?
17:25 – As the founder of the Narwhal project, let's bring it back home. What companies in Canada do you see scaling effectively today?