Liberals win in PEI, Dion calls for review foreign takeovers

Congratulations to Robert Ghiz on his landslide win in PEI. While I am not surprised by the Liberal win, I am surprised by the size of the win, although interestingly enough PEI has a long history of going either solidly blue or solidy red. For whatever reason the differences between the regions seem to be small. After all, the Tories got in the low 30s in all PEI ridings last federal election and the Liberals in the low 50s, so there does seem to be less variation than other provinces. As for who I wanted to win, I haven't followed PEI politics close enough to really say. Pat Binns didn't do anything particularly great, but nothing particularly bad either, while Robert Ghiz seemed to have some good ideas, although 33 does seem a bit young to me. Either way, we will find out in time whether it was a good decision or not. I should also note that unlike federally, both the Progressive Conservatives and Liberals are quite centrist so there really isn't much difference between the parties ideologically speaking, it comes more down to personalities and the fine details of the policies.

The second major issue is Dion has called for a review on Canada's policies towards foreign takeovers. While I am generally a strong supporter of the free market and believe restrictions on foreign ownership are usually outdated, I am concerned about the rate of foreign takeovers and feel something has to done. I would rather we find ways to make Canada more competitive so our companies are less attractive for takeovers, but we may have to consider better screening to allow the government to block certain takeovers that don't serve the national interest. Another possibility which I would support is reprocity whereby takeovers would only be permitted if the company being taken over could make a takeover in the jurisdiction of the company doing the takeover. I believe Canadian companies can compete globally, provided they are on a level playing field. It is important to note that Canada ironically has some of the most stringent foreign ownership restrictions amongst the OECD, yet our levels of foreign ownership are far higher than many other OECD countries. This should also be looked at in the review why this is occurring. In the case of telecommunications, I would support one of two options

1. Maintaining foreign ownership restrictions on all existing companies and any new Canadian company, but allowing competition from foreign companies

2. Eliminating all foreign ownership restrictions, but giving the CRTC the power to block any foreign acquisition that doesn't serve the national interests. This is what is currently done in the United States and many takeovers in the telecommunications sector have been blocked.

The issue that we must realize here is as much as none of us like high levels of foreign ownership, we can not expect other countries to grant access to Canadian firms if we don't grant similiar access to their firms. Which leads me to another issue, which is we should consider signing an investment agreement with our trading partners similiar to the free trade deals so we have a common set of rules on what areas can be protected and what areas cannot. This would help create a level playing field for all.