Ottawa is shopping for high-priced “big ideas” to restart the economy but maybe what we actually need is a simple plan that could give a big break to every business in the country.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out Ottawa’s big-ideas-generating process involves putting out a $3.7-million tender to 20 large accounting firms, with the winner committing to provide a “sectoral analysis to support government/industry collaboration on economic stabilization and resiliency.” In plain English, the government is looking for fresh new ideas about how government and business can work together to get the economy moving again. Sounds uncontroversial, until you consider the rather large unstated assumption: that helping the economy must necessarily involve an ever-closer embrace between favoured businesses and governments, rather than some long overdue physical—and fiscal—distancing.
