{"id":562447,"date":"2026-03-26T16:55:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/562447\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:55:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:55:13","slug":"canadas-innovators-have-a-plan-for-a-more-sovereign-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/562447\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada&#8217;s innovators have a plan for a more sovereign economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In early December, when Donald Trump\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">new National Security Strategy<\/a> revealed his \u201cAmerica First\u201d plan to dominate the western hemisphere, the Canadian media burst out with questions with no ready answer. \u201cIs this the end of Canada\u2019s sovereignty?\u201d \u201cWhat\u2019s to stop him from aggression against Canada?\u201d Prime Minister Mark Carney declared he was already on the case, having worked for months to boost Canada\u2019s strategic autonomy, build new alliances and develop the country\u2019s first Defence Industrial Strategy.<\/p>\n<p>But what would Ottawa actually do differently? Details were scarce, and traditional business think tanks, dominated by global companies, tended to stay silent.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-49947\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Canadian-innovators.png\" alt=\"Canadian innovators have a plan\" width=\"280\" height=\"280\"  \/>Illustration by Joren Cull<\/p>\n<p>But one voice made itself heard. Just days after the release of Trump\u2019s National Security Strategy, the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.canadianinnovators.org\/content\/cci-urges-pm-carney-to-convene-canadian-business-leaders-to-chart-sovereign-industrial-strategy\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fired back<\/a> with a layered plan for building a domestic technology industry that could free the country from foreign tech platforms and build Canadian prosperity.<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 2015 by two energetic tech leaders \u2013 former BlackBerry co-CEO Jim Balsillie and venture capitalist John Ruffolo, then CEO of OMERS Ventures \u2013 the CCI provides a voice for more than 150 independent tech companies. Rather than ceding control of Canada\u2019s digital infrastructure to foreign multinationals, CCI aims to build a community of more ambitious homegrown tech firms that put Canada first.<\/p>\n<p>CCI\u2019s letter urged the government to focus on new export markets and embedding value-added innovation into traditional exports such as resources, energy and food. Ottawa should convene industry advisory groups to help guide these new trade negotiations, the letter argued, and promote made-in-Canada tech platforms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCanada needs to decide whether we will be strategic participants or a vassal state to global tech giants,\u201d CCI CEO Patrick Searle said in a statement. The new U.S. security strategy, he said, proves that in today\u2019s markets, intellectual property, AI and quantum computing, and new defence technologies aren\u2019t just important business breakthroughs, but \u201cnational security assets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With the United States adopting a winner-take-all manifesto, Searle says, \u201cCanada needs to respond with urgency, clarity, and a domestic strategy built around sovereign capability.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rick Spence is the editor-at-large at Corporate Knights. He is based in Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>The Weekly Roundup<\/p>\n<p class=\"gform_description\">Get all our stories in one place, every Wednesday at noon EST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early December, when Donald Trump\u2019s new National Security Strategy revealed his \u201cAmerica First\u201d plan to dominate the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[12517,49,48,140,44],"class_list":["post-562447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-business-leaders","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-innovation","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}