CCI Statement on NDP Election Platform

Today, CCI executive director Benjamin Bergen issued the following statement in response to the NDP platform:

“While the NDP plan does commit to “helping Canadian companies in all regions of the country commercialize new technologies and scaleup,” the specific measures to support that objective are lacking from the platform document.

Our member companies share many of the same goals as the NDP, like fighting climate change, improving health care, and pushing foreign big tech companies to pay their fair share. However, to make meaningful progress on these goals, our political leaders need a sophisticated understanding of how business operates in the 21st century economy driven by data, intellectual property, and technology. Similarly, our members support addressing Canada’s talent gaps, establishing improved pathways to permanent residency, updating competition policies and strengthening privacy laws, but we want to see more on how the NDP proposes to make these changes, achieving our shared goals without creating unintended consequences for SMEs and high-growth businesses.

Homegrown Canadian technology companies are the prosperity engines of our post-pandemic economy, and the taxes they pay to the government will help pay for social programs and the deficit spending which has carried Canada through COVID-19. But to do this, we need to balance taxation with removing barriers to growth for homegrown scale-up companies, something we would like to hear more about from the NDP.

We are hopeful that in the remaining weeks of the campaign the NDP will speak more about their plans to help Canadian innovators commercialize technologies and scale their companies globally, all while continuing to create good paying jobs here at home in their communities and across the country.”

Media Contact:
Patrick Searle
psearle@canadianinnovators.org